What Sound does a Riddle Make?
Everyone knows the horse’s name was Friday; the mail doesn’t come on Sunday, so the butler did it; the train was electric; and two halves make a hole. But how are they the same? They’re all bad punchlines to the least funny jokes ever written. The kind that make you say “ohh” and feel stupid instead of laugh and feel good. But riddles are addicting. They are what weight-lifting is to the body, and what dark chocolate is to the tongue: not too sweet, but oh-so-satisfying. However, something’s lost when every problem can be looked up with the ease of the internet. Riddles feel less like one of those euphoric scalp massagers and more like an itch on the roof of the mouth. But the TED-Ed YouTube channel attempts to update riddles to the age of digital media with their playlist called ‘Can You Solve This Riddle?’ Their imaginative animation, interactive comments section, and difficult, yet digestible story-problems show the possibilities and potential for growth of this genre in the digital era.
The ‘Can You Solve This Riddle?’ currently has 50 videos spanning nearly 5 years. All the videos, ranging between 3 and 6 minutes, are animated by TED-ED in a unique style that relates to the story containing the riddle. For example, a video titled ‘Can you solve the jail break riddle?’ has an almost entirely black and white color scheme that represents the coldness of the setting. The backgrounds of all the shots in the video are relatively plain to show the single-mindedness of trying to escape from jail. Contrast that with another video in the playlist called ‘Can you solve the multiverse rescue mission riddle?’ The background of almost every shot is vibrant and slightly overstimulating which fits with the hectic nature of the riddle at hand. Also, most objects and characters are animated in a felt-marker style to keep it from blending into the background as well as showing the commonality between all the characters of the story.
It’s important to note that the animation is simple. The animation and storyline are meant to supplement the riddle, not the other way around. The simplicity is shown best in the video ‘Can you solve the penniless pilgrim riddle?’ The characters are blocky and their movements are choppy, but this only enhances the riddle which revolves around choosing the best route to move around a square, 4-block by 4-block, town. The animation in all the videos acts like a big 50% off sign outside a clothing store. Half of the imagination is taken care of by the TED-Ed creation team, and it’s up to the viewer to take care of the second half and solve the riddle.
The comments section of all the videos in the ‘Can you solve this riddle?’ playlist is strange because the solution to the riddle is given at the end of every video. Therefore, the comments section acts as a forum for viewers to make jokes, share memes, and gripe their struggle to solve the riddle. A recurring meme in the comments section is a joke about having green eyes. The joke originates from an early video in the playlist called ‘Can you solve the famously difficult green-eyed logic puzzle?’ which revolves around a ridiculous storyline of an island of entirely green-eyed prisoners who can ask to leave the island if they can personally confirm they have green eyes. The difficulty is in the fact that they can’t speak or communicate with each other and there are no mirrors.
Another common meme in the comments starts with “me, an intellectual…” and the viewer then explains how to exploit the rules given for a much simpler solution. This forum area creates a sense of comradery that has never existed in the past. Even when riddles were told verbally, the solver and the explainer existed on different playing fields (one would be considered ‘smarter’ than the other). In this new digital format, everyone in the comments is able to bond over the difficulty of the riddle and the absurdity of the storyline.
One thing that separates a riddle from other puzzles like the crossword and the jigsaw is the emphasis on story. The reason riddles passed around in the elementary school playgrounds like ‘the horse named Friday’ and ‘the electric train riddle’ stick in people’s minds is because there is a narrative surrounding the problem. TED-Ed brings the story of riddles to new heights because it’s created on a video medium. However, it remains distinct from video games because the riddle is not interactive in the sense of typing in a solution for a correct or incorrect response. This new riddle format is closer to the whodunit mysteries in cinema which also have a riddle hidden within them, but unlike in those movies, the riddle is overtly presented by TED-Ed. Therefore, this style of story-problem (with a greater emphasis on the problem than the story) is unique to digital media.
Every video in TED-Ed’s playlist follows the same 3-part format: the problem is introduced as a story (1–2 minutes), the conditions of the riddle are written out as a simple list (5–10 seconds) and finally the solution is revealed and explained (2–3 minutes). In the 2nd part, when the conditions are on the screen, the video is meant to be paused and the viewer is asked to take the time to solve the problem themselves. Here is where I think the only issue with moving riddles to a digital platform like YouTube lies. Although every problem in the playlist can be solved by anyone with enough patience and willpower; every problem requires a pen and paper assuming the viewer has an IQ under 180.
It’s important to think about the context of where a person may watch this: quite often it’s not next to a pen and paper. This is especially true for people who have yet to become engaged with the genre and may only be seeing a video in this playlist for the first time. The format can feel overwhelming or even impossible rather than titillating and engaging. And the solution isn’t necessarily to make the problems easier, but just more user-friendly. One possibility could be putting hyperlinks during the 2nd part of the video with references to the means of thinking used to solve the problem that’s usually reserved for part 3. For example. In the green-eyed logic puzzle, the concept of ‘common knowledge’ thought up by philosopher David Lewis is the method of thinking used to solve the riddle. If a viewer doesn’t want the hint, then they don’t have to use it, but it would help direct the line of thinking of the people who do want it.
Obviously, hints aren’t very paradigm-shifting to the riddle genre in the way that the TED-Ed playlist has been, but the purpose is to promote new interest in people who otherwise wouldn’t want to solve a riddle with a 10-foot pole. In the further future, I’d like to see machine learning develop to enhance and expand the riddle genre as AI is doing with music. I’d also like to see riddles in virtual reality because it would provide contrast against other video games in the medium by providing a shorter form of content.
A fair question to ask is, why do riddles matter? Do they really need to make the jump to digital media or should they remain relics of the past like arcade games in a pizzeria? Riddles are important because they produce a sense of wonder within us: they’re a mental magic trick. They are to the thinking mind what a cotton-candy sunset is to the eyes. Riddles take us to the edge of what we believe we’re capable of realizing and then push that limit.
The brain, like all of our organs, evolved to keep the human race alive. Thought has allowed us to plan and ponder in a way that separates human beings from other animals. At its core though, thought is a problem-solving tool. The mind and its by-product, though, is a tool for the survival of our species in the same way as eyes and their by-product, sight. However, just because something is created for one purpose doesn’t mean it cannot have others. The ears didn’t sprout from our heads in order to hear the sweetness of music, the eyes weren’t refined to admire the beauty of a flower and the mind’s first thought wasn’t “riddle me this.” Riddles give the mind something to ponder to its fullest capacity, and their difficulty provides an intrinsic joy that’s hard to find in a digital world of quick, easy answers.
