Remember Trivia Crack? The app that had you and your friends compete against different trivia categories? It was fun, engaging and you actually learned new things while playing it. Imagine the exact opposite of that and you get Wordle, an app that is as confounding as it is lazy. 

Wordle was created in 2021 and bought by the New York Times in January. The object of the game is simple. Every day there’s a five-letter word that you have to guess. You have six tries to guess the word. As you play, the game gives you hints and hopefully, you can guess the word. It’s like a mix of crossword puzzles and Scrabble for those who are lousy at both.

If I was the New York Times, I would have the app deleted from the app store and automatically uninstalled on every device. If Wordle wasn’t electronic, I’d chuck it off of a five-story building. If it was an animal, I’d hunt it and use it for meat. If it was a person, let’s just say it would end up in the same place that Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa and Oscar Zeta Acosta are at. 

Honestly, my disdain for Wordle has less to do with the game itself, which is a perfectly fine app, and more with the fascination people have with sharing their scores on social media. If I have to keep seeing your mediocre scores on Facebook, I’m going to snap. No one cares. It’s like people who take pictures of their salad or show off their new man bun. It adds nothing to the world and it irritates me. 

And the attempts that it takes to guess the word is astonishing. Here’s an introductory course to see if someone isn’t very creative with their language. Lesson one: their opening guess is “start.” I get that you’re going for something basic to test out the waters, but you need a new word. Get creative. 

If you really want something that can be more challenging, play a crossword puzzle like an adult. Get a thesaurus and maybe a Gatorade, sharpen your pencils and get in there. In fact, the Northern Star publishes a crossword every week in its print publications. Sit yourself down, think about it and actually finish the thing. Also, please don’t take a picture of it and post it. Because it’s not a major, life-changing revelation. It’s a fun, brain-teasing distraction.