How Wordle Took the Country by Storm

Daphne L|February 23, 2022

Wordle has become incredibly popular among people of all ages. – Photo by the New York Times

Josh Wardle, a Welsh-born software engineer, created Wordle in October 2021. It quickly became a trend. 

Josh Wardle has earned celebrity status in the software world after creating Wordle. – Photo by MEAWW

But its popularity may have been its demise when the New York Times picked up on its popularity and bought it from Wardle.

Wordle has a slightly different appearance to be more cohesive with the rest of the games on the NY Times. – Photo by Daily Hive

Many previous Wordle fans were upset with this purchase and said that the New York Times has ruined the game. The words in the game are now less common and more difficult to solve. In a positive light, the Times has removed offensive words from the list of guessable words.

Today’s Wordle, #249, was the uncommon word “trove”, which means “a store of valuable or delightful things”. Will difficult words like this annoy players or will they appreciate learning new words? – Photo by Daphne Linn

But these differences aren’t the thing that made Wordle users extremely upset with the Times. When Wordle was transferred over to the Times, the previous streaks had been lost. After having worked hard to achieve their streak, the fans were upset to have lost it.

The Wordle streak makes players want to keep completing the word puzzles every day. – Photo by Destructoid

With increased difficulty, many players are finding the game to be not as fun if they cannot solve the puzzle. Also, with so many people playing Wordle, spoilers are very common on social media or just with other people in-person.

Social media is a place where people can learn about Wordle, but it’s also a place where they can get spoilers for it. – Photo by Workplace Insight

 On the other hand, perhaps Wordle’s popularity will continue to rise as more people share the game with friends and family. 

Wordle’s sharing feature allows users to share their results of Wordle without giving spoilers to the game. – Photo by Business Insider

Whatever the future may hold for Wordle is unknown, and viewers continue to wait in anticipation to see what will happen to the massively popular Wordle game.