Google Trends Story — Wordle
Written by Jessica Reales
Wordle is an online 5 letter word game that has taken over the phones of most people in the US today. Each day the words change and players are able to guess the words on the grid. What do they win? The joy of knowing they did it in less than 6 tries.
Wordle has taken social media by storm with its ability to keep users hooked to its one-game-a-day style. It is considered “nearly impossible” to get over or to get bored of the game since it eliminates the ability to play several times in a row or throughout the day — less being more.
This trend is relevant the same way every other trend in the world becomes relevant, because it gives people an opportunity to do and think about something outside of their own lives. For some people it is talking about an A list celebrity scandal, for others it’s discussing sports, and for others, it is a word game with 6 tries and nothing more.
Geographically, this trend is most relevant in Ireland and Canada with the United States following not too far behind. Taking its progressive rise in January, this trend has reached new heights in February, continuing to be searched for and explored worldwide.
This trend relates to current events because of its popularity. After blowing up, Worldle was bought by The New York Times. It seems that it is relevant because it gives users an opportunity to do something that takes them out of a challenging time, especially now with what seems like a never ending pandemic.
We see in this graph how the interest over time was able to increase so quickly, but we also see that it is on its way down. All it can take is one new game that offers a little more or a little less and this trend is soon to be forgotten by the next big thing.
Looking at this trend, like all trends, of course we can expect it to change. No matter how much we try to act as though it weren’t the case, our minds are fleeting and our attention span is not as long as it might have been years ago. Just as fast as we come to enjoy something, it can become incredibly boring to us. Because of this, we can only expect this trend to do the same — fall as quickly as it rose.
