Why Be Mean Over Wordle?

I have recently joined the masses who engage in the daily word game called Wordle.

It’s a website, with one game per day, where you get 6 chances to guess a 5-letter word; correct letters in the right place are green, correct letters but in the wrong place are yellow.

Part of this game’s spread to popularity has been the ‘share’ feature, where players can have their results shared on social media. The letters are not shared, just the coloured blocks and the number of attempts. Some people choose to share, but it's not required.

What has surprised me in the last couple of weeks has been the energy around the sharing of the game. When I first saw people sharing their results, the comments were complimentary and kind, a simple ‘way to go!’ type of thing. People connected over their shared efforts, those green and yellow squares giving a neutral opportunity to reach out with a word or two.

Recently, however, there have been comments that are less encouraging – some folks whose comments have become unnecessarily critical and harsh, expressing negativity against the person themselves (I saw a “only stupid people take 5 tries” this week!) Really, why would a elicit harshness like this?

There are other folks who are intentionally posting the answers (thereby ruining the game for that day for others who may see it.) It’s a juvenile thing to do, demonstrating selfishness and meanness (why be mean over a word game?)

It’s disappointing and disheartening that some folks feel the need to extend their displeasure - especially as there's no benefit to doing so, and it's a simple thing that doesn't change their lives. Meanness has no place in building community. And there are other ways to respond: people could choose to just not say anything cruel, or to ignore the Wordle posts and scroll past, or (worst case!) ‘mute’ the person posting them (a ‘snooze for 30 days’ feature is available on Facebook, after all).

What struck me most this week was the hostility of comments when it was revealed that the creator of Wordle was selling it to the New York Times – which leads to no changes for the players – yet so many chose to create horrible nastiness that was shared online.

In reality, I can’t imagine that this negativity actually stems from Wordle; I’ve not seen it be offensive in any way. Yet how people react and respond to Wordle is showing us a part of ourselves that might benefit from closer examination.

So we have the choice – in Wordle and in life – to be kind and compassionate to others, in how we interact. As Christians, we are regularly invited to love one another (Jesus) and to encourage one another (in Ephesians) and to stir one another up to good works (in Hebrews) (and many, many other places!). Let’s engage with one another with 5-letter words that show the world who we are: Faith, Heart, Grace.