Monday, 31 January 2022 | Pooja Poddar Marwah
The popularity of online gaming soared in the pandemic. Google trends changed by the minute causing key SEO experts to kick off their coffee break mornings. I just about learnt a trend and as I neared its potential, it was overtaken by another and another. Forget rickety rockety knees- at this speed even the #instagramteens would need a crash course!
We live in a world where change is dynamic and the only way to survive its vigour is to keep abreast with the current keywords trending. Twitter this morning was abundant with little squares. Being a word-aholic, it did pique my curiosity as I absentmindedly pressed the buttons, turning up two green alphabets and four grey blocks. No guesses here to assume that the grey was a dead end. A few minutes later, my entire feed had images of solved puzzles.
Turns out that this game, that started out as a display of affection from software designer Josh Wardle for his ‘word loving’ girlfriend, began an internet sensation as soon as he released it on the net. Love truly does make the world go round! It inspires like nothing ever can. It aspires to push you to your potential and in this case, to literally rule the web!
Of all the random trends that pop up on the internet, this one caught my fancy because of the way it was structured, and also because it had the emotion of love behind it. Every night, a new puzzle is released and unlike life, where we get several chances to live it, Wordle only gives you one. But, even then, we play it to the best of our ability and then share the little win across social media. Platforms that were buzzing with politics, Tonga devastations, poverty and depression are now buzzing with these little squares. Perhaps temporarily, it’s taking off our minds over the dreaded virus which has cast its deathly shadow over us for the third year in a row. It has taken off by storm for its giving us something new to look forward to as soon as we switch on our twitter accounts. It’s giving hope. It is letting us try something and feeling good at solving it. It’s letting us feel again.
Fads come and go but it’s whilst they are there that our community as a whole finds some common ground to connect over. For those of you born in the 1970’s, mood rings were at their high. The thermotropic liquid crystal inside the ring changed colours due to our body temperature and we unabashedly showed off pink when we were happy or red when we were feeling sexy! The 1980’s had Pac-Man, which was plastered literally everywhere–comics, cartoon, cereal, clothing and of course the video game as well. Kooshballs came around in the 1990’s and became a sort of cult at school.
With the internet and its magnanimity, fads were replaced by google trends or keywords and people started bonding online. With wordle causing a fiery sensation, I have to admit that I can’t help feel a sense of nostalgia mixed with epiphany when I say – the most beautiful part of being alive is to feel connected to something or someone, online or offline. In the end, it is always about the games people play, isn’t it?
I am looking forward to the next wordle challenge with bated breath… the question is – are you?
(The writer is an award winning author and blogger who writes on life, relationships and contemporary living. Views expressed are personal)
