I'm that friend who's godawful at staying in touch. If I had a dollar for every text I left unsent, every call I didn't make, every friend who faded, well...I'd be hanging out with an umbrella drink in Key West and not writing blogs for a living. I digress.
Being that friend isn't something I admire about myself. It's nothing something that makes me proud. I'm just bad at staying in touch.
Wordle — you know, the incredibly viral word game — has changed that, at least for a couple of friends. Every day, myself and two of my best friends check in every day with our daily Wordle scores. Usually it sparks a casual conversation for the rest of the day. That doesn't seem like much, but it's rare for me. This silly word game is helping keep my friendships sustained.
I realized I'm not alone. Search around online and you'll see folks posting about it. The same mechanisms that helped Wordle take off — the built-in share button is incredibly easy to use, it's a simple game with basic scoring — make it great for group chats. It's a daily icebreaker.
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The Wordle group chat is everywhere. It's an obligation. If you don't have one, then you're not really playing.
The need to chat about Wordle scores has literally revived friendships. Jessy Moyer, 24, told Mashable she has a Discord chat with four friends entirely devoted to Wordle.
"I hadn't talked to these people in a few years — I went to college with them," she said in a phone interview. "And we reconnected through Wordle, which is funny as fuck."
Moyer added: "I had been posting my results on Twitter for a while, and from college started texting me her results. One thing led to another and now we have a full blown group chat."
Like a lot of Wordle chats, one of Moyer's friends is annoyingly good at the game, which has become a running joke in the friendly competition. Of course, half-joking allegations of cheating abound.
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Sam Harris, a 28-year-old diversity consultant in New York, has a Wordle chat with nine friends. Harris said he doubts they'd talk everyday if it weren't for the game. But they do, even as the world opens back up and things get hectic in New York with COVID numbers dropping again.
"Despite the fact that we're becoming busier and busier with other parts of our lives, it is good to have this daily ritual just to check-in with one another and have something to talk about," Harris said in a phone interview. "Whether it's complaining about a word with double letters, or that catastrophic date when there were two different words when Wordle was being acquired by the New York Times."
Wordle scores are just a tap or two away, and super easy to share. That ease of use has bridged time zones, work schedules, and international borders. Moyer said she typically sends her score after midnight eastern time, setting the tone for the chat. Harris said a friend in London starts their chat off and then he's not far behind since he's an early riser. Other chats have rascals who like to tease the chat when they've finished early.
"I'm usually the first to post my score as I'm an early riser, but my sister tends to post early as well," Nicole Barbosa, a 37-year-old in Austin, Texas, wrote in an email to Mashable. "My Dad sometimes sends a line to tease the word e.g. hope everyone has a SWELL day."
Kerry Enright has a family-based chat as well, where she and her three daughters post their scores. It's a nice start to the morning for the family and a fun conversation starter. Two of her daughters are in college and were "were miffed [with] cynic," as an answer, Enright wrote in an email. Makes sense — they're too young to be cynical. It's funny to see how everyone's brain works.
"We use the share button until everyone is done and then we use the screenshot to show the ways our brains attacked the days puzzle," Enright said. "Often to great amusement."
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I think there's an appeal in sending your Wordle score to friends or family. It's a safe place — if your score is awful, there might be some jokes but it's all in good fun. And honestly, aren't we all tired of seeing scores shared online? Like...we get it, you play Wordle like everyone else.
Then again, where's the fun in just playing for yourself? The Wordle group chat was an inevitability.
The interesting thing is, however, that Wordle chats have morphed into far more than Wordle. There's just one game a day. There's only so much you can moan about "caulk" or "rupee." Moyer described her friendships rekindling through Wordle, how eventually you're just chatting about life, not a word game.
"We totally reconnected through Wordle," she said. "But now we play video games together. We text each other every day, Wordle or not Wordle-related. We're super close. One of them is trying to move to New York now to be closer to me."
That's the funny thing about friendship or love or family. Closeness often relies on proximity, whether it's IRL or digital. Having a small thing in common is a huge first step for closeness. Wordle has become, for many, an impetus for being a part of loves ones' lives — even if it's just in a group chat.
Sure, I've let my share of friendships fade. I guarantee I'll let countless more die on the vine. But I don't have to worry about my Wordle pals. Somebody has to see how I did.
Topics Wordle
