The New Yorker: Does Wordle Prove That We Can Have Nice Things on the Internet?
“Wardle moved to New York with his partner, Palak Shah, who grew up in Queens. While drinking her coffee in the mornings, Shah liked to play word games, such as Spelling Bee, on the Times app; Wardle decided to make her a game she might enjoy even more. The result was Wordle. “She did like it,” he said. “And a lot of other people did too.” The design was minimalist: a blank grid, six rows of five squares. The object was to start with nothing and end up guessing a five-letter word. There was just one word a day, the same for everyone in the world; if you wanted to keep playing after that, you could seek out one of the knock-off versions, such as Hello Wordl, but you wouldn’t get another official hit of Wordle until after midnight. “My idea was that this should only ask for three minutes of your time,” Wardle told me. “It doesn’t addict you, it doesn’t record your data, it doesn’t track you, there was no way to pay for it or run ads against it—basically, it was designed not to go viral.” It went viral anyway, owing in part to its share grids, a feature that a player in New Zealand invented and that Wardle later added to the official game. At the end of January, the Times bought Wordle for more than a million dollars. It’s now played by more than ten million people a day.
Again, it’s tempting to read this as a simple allegory: see, we can have nice things on the Internet. Wardle, ambivalent as ever, is only partially receptive to this narrative. “I hear from people every day about how much they love the game—‘This helped me reconnect with my estranged relative,’ that sort of thing—and it’s hard not to feel good about that,” he said. “On the other hand, I do still worry a bit that I’m putting this thing out there that is annoying people, or wasting their time.” We can have nice things, sometimes, but the fate of the Internet is hardly settled."
Read the complete article here.
💬 Do you play Wordle? Share your experiences in the comments!
#Wordle #Games #SelfCare #Puzzle
@SoulfullyAButterfly I played Wordle for a little while and it was fun for a few weeks, but then I got bored of it and stopped playing 😂 It is nice though because everyone comes together and has a little bit of fun on social media sharing their attempts at guessing the daily word!
I was visiting a friend when I was I introduced to Wordle. So, it has that happy connection for me. I also love word games (I have played WAY more Wordscapes than I’m comfortable admitting to). So, Wordle has been a net positive for me.
@SoulfullyAButterfly thank you for sharing the story!!! And yesss I play Wordle right after midnight (because next day there's a new word so lots of excitement)...it's so enjoyable even though I don't play word games a lot.
Do you play wordle as well @SoulfullyAButterfly ?
@SoulfullyAButterfly
This is the first time I hear of Wardle! What immediately captured my attention is that it is designed to take only 3 minutes of the time and that it is the same for everyone in the world. I might give it a try :)
@SoulfullyAButterfly
@seashell145
The previous comment got posted unintentionally. I play wordle and nerdle, they're pretty fun and a way to keep your mind engaged daily.
@SoulfullyAButterfly I like it along with many of the spinoffs. I especially enjoy the ones with multiple words like octordle and quordle, I think it requires a bit more skill. Canuckle and Lewdle can be educations (the latter in a NSFW slang type of way).
@SoulfullyAButterfly I used to play wordle every single day but now I've lost interest.