Craze. Mania. Fever.

Not only could these words serve as guesses in the hit game Wordle, but they also describe how the phenomenon has swept the halls of NASH—along with the rest of the country. 

Wordle was created by software engineer Josh Wardle for his partner, whose love of word games prompted Wardle’s brainstorming. The game was released last October and has taken the internet by storm, with the number of players growing from 90 on November 1st to over 2 million on January 9th. 

“It’s super easy to learn and a really fun way to be competitive with friends and family,” said NASH senior Katie Warner, who, like many of her friends, has joined the growing number of Wordle players at NASH.

People are attracted to the simplicity of Wordle, whose rules are easy to understand and whose interface is free of the ads and loudness that clutter many other online games. 

Players start with an empty 5×6 grid and begin by entering any five letter word in the English language. As they aim to get the daily word within the six allotted guesses, the letters of each word entered change colors to indicate if they are contained in the word or placed in the right spot. 

“I like the quickness of it and the simplicity,” said senior Gwen Walker. 

Each puzzle generally only takes a few minutes to complete, which was the creator’s intent. 

“It’s something that encourages you to spend three minutes a day,” said Wardle. “And that’s it. It doesn’t want any more of your time than that.”

Note the use of the word “daily” in Gwon’s remark, which reveals the magical thing about Wordle: You can only play it once a day. One new puzzle is released each day at midnight, which some have lauded as an antithesis to the rapid fire, endless online consumption that has come to mark our lives. 

“Because of the duration of each Wordle, it’s like a daily brain teaser that is just fun and gives accomplishment on completion without taking too much time out of the day,” said senior Stephen Gwon.

This feature of Wordle, so different from the infinitely refreshing parade of content in our social media feeds, lends itself to the creation of daily rituals surrounding it. 

“I always play it in the mornings, I never stay up until midnight. That feels like sacrilege to me,” said Walker, while senior Emma Scott remarked that she plays it when she’s awake for the day, even if that’s when the new Wordle drops at midnight.  

Gwon says he gets the game in during homeroom, a practice that has become widespread at NASH. Students might look up and see others playing the game in class or hear groups conversing in hushed whispers to figure out the daily puzzle as the morning’s announcements play in the background. 

The craze has stretched beyond students, with staff members also joining in the Wordle fun.

“In Latin class, we found a Latin version of the game my teacher now plays with all her classes,” said Walker.

NASH students have found out about Wordle from friends who share daily results in group chats, family members who also enjoy the game, or on Tiktok, where users also share their tricks to find the word in the fewest amount of guesses.

“’Roate’ is statistically proven to be the best word to start with. Well, according to a TikTok I saw,” said Walker. Others, like Warner, just enter the first word that comes to mind each day.

But distress has rippled through the Wordle community with the recent announcement that it is being bought by the New York Times. Players fear that the game could eventually be sequestered behind a paywall or become cluttered with ads, which betrays Wordle’s celebrated simplicity.

“On one hand, I’m glad Wardle…got paid and I understand he needed to give stewardship to someone else to continue it,” said Walker. “On the other hand, [the] New York Times buying Wordle is a microcosm of the recent wave of monopolization that is sweeping various industries…From an anti-capitalist [point of view], I must resent the NYT for the purchase, but from a simple woman, having all my word games in one spot is convenient.”

But for now, Wordle remains essentially the same. Timeless, simple, and always there for anyone who wants to play—including those who have thus far resisted the peer pressure to start.