You cannot possibly go through a day on social media in 2022 without seeing posts that feature lines of five little squares stacked in (up to six) rows. Some of the boxes are black, some are yellow, and some are green. The bottom row is almost always filled with green boxes, indicating that the poster has solved the daily Wordle puzzle. If the bottom line is not all green, the poster will write something like, “Dammit! I am not amused!”
Wordle was invented by a software engineer named Josh Wardle as a birthday gift to his partner. It was released to the public in November and originally had around 90 users. But the game was free and weirdly addictive and, er, word soon spread about it. By January, when Wordle was purchased by The New York Times, millions of people were playing it daily. The Times, to its credit, has so far kept things just the way they were: No app, no ads, no payments of any kind. You just google “Wordle,” go to the website, and play. There’s a new word every day, and on most days you can finish the puzzle before your coffee is cold.
Maybe that’s part of Wordle’s charm. It’s not complicated. You have six tries to guess a five-letter word by a process of elimination. It helps to have a decent vocabulary, but you’ll be relatively competent after a few tries. Here’s the best part: There are no experts, no champions, no tournaments. You don’t “win” at Wordle. The object is to avoid losing. Someone who’s played Wordle for a week might solve tomorrow’s puzzle in fewer tries than Einstein, if Einstein wasn’t dead.
There’s a whole subculture built around “starter words,” i.e. which first-guess word will give you the best chance at solving the puzzle. Favorites include ARISE, SHARE, TASER, ADIEU, etc. You get the idea. Don’t pick EPOXY or FUZZY. But honestly, the game just isn’t that difficult. Sometimes, I start with a weird word just for fun. There are 30 possible letter guesses in six lines and only 26 letters in the alphabet, so why not live a little dangerously?
This is not to say Wordle can’t get frustrating. Let’s say on your third guess you’ve got the following four letters in the correct place: SHA_E. That means you’ve got three guesses left and (depending on which letters you may have already picked) up to seven possible options for that fourth letter. SHAME? SHAPE? SHAVE? SHALE? Good luck, Albert.
And, admit it or not, that’s what much of this game is: luck. Whether you get the answer in two (usually big-time luck, based on a good starter-word guess) or six always comes down to a certain element of chance.
Most people don’t lose at Wordle often, but getting the answer in two or three guesses makes you feel like a winner, at least for 24 hours. And that’s where the communal sharing on social media comes in, I suppose — to commiserate over bad days and celebrate the good ones.
To be honest, random Wordle posts used to make me kind of crazy. “Why would anyone think their Wordle score would be interesting to anyone else?” I groused. Then I got called out as a grinch so now I chill and just scroll past.
It helps that there are now Facebook sites where you can go to share your daily scores with other Wordle-Nerdles. In fact, one local site claims to be founded (cough, Kim Gullett) on the basis of my Wordle grumpiness about score-posting. I occasionally visit and know the ropes over there, so if you’re feeling a little nervous, here’s a handy guide to what to say when posting your score:
One guess: “WOW, I need to go play the lottery!!!”
Two guesses: “Got lucky with my starter word today!”
Three guesses: “Got it in three. Not bad!”
Four guesses: “Oh well, another boring four.”
Five guesses: “I was beginning to get nervous!”
Six guesses: “WHEW! So close!!”
If you didn’t get the answer, a good fallback is “Dammit! I am not amused!”