There comes a time – if it hasn’t happened to you already – where you’ll see a flood of yellow, green and black square emojis on your Twitter timeline with the word ‘Wordle’ and wonder if we’ve all lost our minds.
WordleIt is actually an online game made by Josh Wardle (a Brooklyn software developer), for his girlfriend. She loves to solve the puzzles printed in.The New York Times.
Yes, the game’s name is a pun, because of course it is.
Limited to just one game a day – which Mr Wardle says “encourages you to spend three minutes a day”It “and that’s it” – users have six chances to guess a five-letter word from the dictionary.
Each letter that is submitted with a guess will change colour. Black means the letter isn’t in the word at all; yellow indicates that the letter is in the word, but you’ve put it in the wrong place; and green means you have it in the correct position.
You can also repeat letters to make it a bit more difficult.
Mr Wardle retortedThe New York Timesin an interview: “I think people kind of appreciate that there’s this thing online that’s just fun.
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“It’s not trying to do anything shady with your data or your eyeballs. It’s just a game that’s fun.”
Twitter took the game by storm this week with ‘Wordle 404 x’ trending on the site on Sunday after many failed to guess the day’s hidden word.
The memes will soon follow a new trend.
The Ever Given Wordle
One user suggested that we were still reeling from the viral trend last year when the Ever Given cargo vessel blocked the Suez Canal.
An absence of interest
Each takes their own view of the ‘or sorry that happened’ meme, Netflix employee Marc Snetiker channelled the feeling experienced by those who maybe don’t care all that much about the latest viral game:
It’s not a Covid variant
We need a brief moment of rest. Please.
It’s not Star Trek either…
And no, it’s not a Pokémon
It would be called a Squirtle.
The struggle
It happens to everyone.
When one puzzle a day is not enough…
Wordle Art
I think one looks very sus, if you ask my opinion.
Accessible Words
It’s not really a meme, per se, but still important nonetheless.
Wordle will generate a grid with emojis and share it on social media. Screen readers may have trouble understanding the meaning of all the squares so they will need to go through each one individually.
It’s not fun.
Accessibility specialist Stacey Jenkins offers this advice:
We don’t know how long this trend will last, but given the state of the world right now, we’re here for it.