What happened on February 11th, 2022 that caused the word ‘ulcer’ to spike to the single highest daily search frequency it has ever seen on Google?1
Was it a global epidemic of nasty mouth sores? Maybe a glitch in Google Trend’s code? The answer may surprise you — it was the Wordle word-of-the-day.
Wordle, a viral web-based word game created by Josh Wardle, has already cemented itself in the 2022 timeline as an international cultural phenomenon. In the past 4 months, Wordle has captured the attention of the internet and The New York Times, who purchased Wordle for an undisclosed price “in the low seven figures”. Just in the first two weeks of 2022, over 1.2 million Wordle results were shared on Twitter.2 Wordle has been adapted to over 45 different languages. To have maintained the interest of the hyperactive entity of the collective internet is no small feat.
What does this say about what we all need right now?
Wordle is an easy-to-learn puzzle game that has specifically thrived in our current state of affairs. Upon careful observation, there are three desires that Wordle appeals to:
1. Our Desire for Connection and Belongingness
The human condition is that we have evolved from working together and sharing experiences with like-minded individuals. Especially now, in our post-pandemic world, a sense of connection is a scarce commodity and sorely lacking in our everyday lives compared to pre-COVID. Wordle’s ‘easy-to-share’ emoji copy-paste feature and the exclusivity of understanding how the game works created a community of loyal players. And between existing friends, Wordle creates a fun competition and is an excuse to reconnect on any given day.
2. Our Desire for Individual Expression
Simply put, everyone wants to feel unique and accomplished. Wordle gives you the freedom to begin with any 5-letter word and your path to success may be uniquely yours. Wordle is not a difficult game by any measure, but also not absent of strategy. A hot button topic was which starting-word is the optimal guess and heated debate ensued as everyone had their own individualized strategies. And given the extremely individual-centric themes of the online ecosystem — it’s no wonder that players immediately shared their puzzle journey without hesitation.
3. Our Desire for Routine
Lastly, Wordle can only be completed once a day, resetting at midnight. This simple limitation was a genius move in lengthening the duration of Wordle’s relevance on the internet. When the consensus on Twitter is that one Wordle doesn’t feel enough and that the daily Wordle is their only joy in the day, that’s when you know that player will be coming back soon. Repeat interactions with the game bring about the desire for routine. Some predictability is welcome with weekdays blurring together within the past two years and the constant hectic state of the world. After all, whatever goes wrong today, there’s always going to be a new Wordle puzzle tomorrow.
Have you been playing Wordle and how do you stack up against my score below? Let me know!
Sources:
1https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&q=ULCER
2https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stefficao/how-wordle-went-viral-strategy
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