Wordle: 14 of the funniest memes about the internet’s new favourite game

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.

Wordle is in fact a new online game created by Brooklyn software designer Josh Wardle for his partner, who loves taking on 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” on it “and that’s it” – users have six chances to guess a five-letter word from the dictionary.

Each time a guess is submitted, each letter will turn a different 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.

Oh, and letters can be repeated, just to make things a little trickier.

Mr Wardle told The New York Times in 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.”

The game has taken Twitter by storm this week, with ‘Wordle 404 x’ trending on the site on Sunday after many failed to guess the day’s hidden word.

Of course, when a new trend comes along, the memes soon follow.

The Ever Given Wordle

One user suggested that we were all still recovering from a viral trend from last year, when the Ever Given cargo ship blocked the Suez Canal:

A lack of interest

In their own take on 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

Let us have this brief moment of respite. Please.

It’s not Star Trek either…

And no, it’s not a Pokémon

That would be a Squirtle.

The struggle

It happens to us all.

When one puzzle a day is not enough…

Wordle Art

One of them looks pretty sus if you ask me.

Accessible Wordles

It’s not really a meme, per se, but still important nonetheless.

With Wordle generating a grid of emojis when sharing it to social media, screen readers have a tough time understanding what all the squares mean and will read out each one individually.

Not fun.

So accessibility specialist Stacey Jenkins has 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.