For a lot of people, the hype around Wordle faded quickly after its initial popularity spike. At the end of December 2021 and into the New Year, it permeated public consciousness. Every day Twitter was flooded with discussion of the day’s Wordle. In early January it apparently eclipsed 300,000 daily users. The phenomenon was national news. The New York Times took notice early on, and bought the game from its sole developer for a nice chunk of money.
It would’ve been easy to call that moment “peak Wordle.” I’ve been playing it every single day from early in its popularity, but I thought it was just me and a handful of nerds who were left. It clearly wasn’t. To pull back the curtain just a tad, our articles highlighting Wordle tips and tricks every day are at times the most-viewed articles on Digital Trends. Yes, still, in August 2022.
Who knows if this timeline is entirely different from what would’ve come of Wordle had The Times not acquired it. But it’s clear that
I’ve long since steered away from posting every Wordle result to my Twitter. And it isn’t a regular point of conversation with friends or family as it was in the early days. Yet, I haven’t missed a day of
Wordle is part of my morning routine. Wake up, start the coffee, and open up
Wordle asks little of me, and provides a nice jumpstart to my brain alongside a morning cup of coffee.
It’s only gotten easier now that the New York Times implemented Wordle stats syncing; if I have an early morning out of the house, or I’m traveling, I’ll just open it up on my phone and not worry about my stats getting out of sync. (Though I feel like I do worse on my phone, for some reason.)
It feels like the core reason for my continued play is Wordle‘s simplicity. It’s not an app, just a simple webpage I can access anywhere at any time. There’s no gamification, upsells, perks, or loot boxes.
