50 Days of Wordle

Lessons in humility, competition, and friendship

Today (2/22/2022) was my 50th consecutive day playing Wordle. That means I started right after the New York Times article that turned Josh Wardle’s fun word game into an internet sensation.

But this isn’t yet another article trying to ride on the SEO coattails of people searching for tricks and tips to win the game, or to whine about how hard the game was getting. Google “Wordle” and you’ll find plenty.

Instead, I’d like to explore what the game—and playing it for 50 straight days—has taught me about myself, about how we perform and share our performance in a social context, and about friendship.

On Hints and Cheating and the Purity of Play

I wasn’t far into my streak—certainly the first few days—when I first became stumped. I had two or three yellow letters, and I simply couldn’t think of any options. So I googled something like “five letter words with P R and C” (if you’re a Wordle player, you’re already thinking of possibilities, aren’t you?) and saw that there were several different links I could follow to get some clues.

“Wait a minute: what the hell are doing?,” I thought to myself. What would be the point of using any outside help at all to solve this puzzle? And so right then I resolved that my Wordle play would be “pure”: I’d never seek out help or ask anyone for hints. (Imagine my horror, then, when somewhere in the teens of my streak Sara gave me a clue before I had finished. I had commented about being stuck, and she told me the first letter and I couldn’t unhear it. I’d like to think that I would have solved it but I just don’t know. But now, dammit, there is an asterisk on my record.)

So from then on, no talking about Wordle before I solved it, so as not to invite temptation (mine or other’s).

I’ll admit, my quest for purity gets scary every now and then, like when I get to the sixth row (which I’ve done 12% of the time) and know that there is more than one possibility for my final guess. So far I’ve gulped and taken my chances—but it’s scary and it tests my commitment to principle.

Ah, but isn’t that the joy: a simple little game, yet one with the power to bring me face-to-face with my beliefs about “cheating,” to listen to those conflicting voices in my conscience, one asking “who will know?,” the other asking “how do you want to be in the world?” And then I get up the next day and try again.

My Wordle streak proves one thing only: I’ve played for 50 days.

Performative Sharing

The most powerful button in the game is the one marked “Share.”

How powerful? Powerful enough to induce the New York Times to buy the game, knowing that the volume of shares would ultimately bring more people to their site. Powerful enough to induce every journalism source on the planet—from the most esteemed to the most craven—to write about the Wordle phenomenon, hoping to cash in on the page views their articles would get. Powerful enough to attract a number of copycat games, games hoping to catch some of the users to their version. (My favorite, I’ll admit, is Quordle.)

But its greatest power lies in what it reveals about the sharer, at least as they share on social media (I admit to sharing some of my scores on Facebook). Does the sharer boast about their prowess, their intelligence? I’ve seen a few “2s” thrown down as proof: Look at me! Or do they bemoan that they are not as good as others, that today’s Wordle was “too hard” or “not fair”? It would be fun to see a psychological assessment that tied sharing behavior (not just the sharing, but the banter that accompanies it) to other personality traits. I did discover that I have a Wordle twin: Roseanne Brefeld and I have this eerie habit of solving the puzzle exactly the same way. Who knew?

I suspect that the way we share Wordle approximates the way we are in the world in general: that here, like everywhere, you can’t hide your true nature. I have grown to appreciate those folks who share their scores, good or bad, with a shrug that says “So it goes.”

I can’t help but wonder what my sharing says about me (even if I suspect I’m the wrong one to ask). I’ve been fascinated by the role of luck, and the balance between luck and skill. I hold that luck plays a larger role than most people would like to believe … but skill is there too, and I’d argue that, at least when it comes to the English language, this game is as good a measure of general intelligence as anything out there. So I try to share in spirit of humility, but hey, I’m arrogant enough to think I’m smarter than the average, and I’m only too happy for Wordle to prove it. (Ugh, looking in the mirror is hard.)

Friendship

Perhaps my favorite thing to come out of my daily Wordle play is the addition of a new element to my friendships.

Since my third day of play (that’s January 6 for me, but who tracks those things?), I’ve been sharing my scores with my friend Jeremy Schwartz (who inspired, by the way, my short story Please Don’t Stop Birding.) From the very start, we have shared our scores with each other in the most honest and humble way, not hiding our bad days, and sharing joy in the good days. We’ve talked strategy and “first word” choice, shared articles about the game, and debated on the balance between skill and luck, but never once have I felt like we were competing against each other. (And I’ve never suspected him of cheating.) We both seem to take the game as this pleasurable moment of testing our own wits, our own ability to draw words from the memory bank, and that’s it. We simply share in the joy of the experience.

Will my streak continue? For how long? I just can’t predict, but I know I get bored with things. I would say that it’s become easier for me with time—but I don’t have any evidence for that. Perhaps I’m just getting accustomed to the routine. I do know that I increasingly gravitate to Quordle, and I may be on the start of a streak there.

Either way, Wordle confirms for me once again the wisdom of Kurt Vonnegut’s observation: “We are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.”