It was my junior year of high school and classes had finally returned to a predictable schedule after a few years of COVID-19 pandemic-related uncertainty. Mostly, we were all glad to be able to interact with each other on a daily basis without cohort-based restrictions and with less fear, though still abiding by masking precautions. In our appreciation for this simple access to community and communication, my friends and I, like many others, would show up to school early to stand around and chat before the bell rang for first period. Then a few of my friends became hooked on something, bringing it along to this morning ritual: The New York Times Mini Crossword. Each day, a new small puzzle to complete quickly in the crowded morning hallway would be released. The best part? You didn’t even need to pay for a subscription.
I think what really hooked us was the leaderboard. I’m a competitive person myself, but some of my friends put me to shame in terms of competition. At first, I couldn’t understand how some of them were completing the crossword in around 30 seconds almost every day (except Saturdays, when the mini crossword is the hardest and you’re lucky to have it done in under a minute and some change) or even in under 20 seconds on a good day. To my surprise, though, after a few months of obsessively racing and comparing times each morning, I too managed to get the hang of the quirky question writing and the oddly shaped keyboard. I’m proud to say my all-time record is 13 seconds, but this is not a skill I would say I particularly cherish. Rather, I cherish the way these small timed crossword puzzles brought so many people together, comparing times with new people each morning and even dragging some interested teachers into the competitive mix.
By the time I was a senior in high school, the Wordle had taken my school — and the world — by storm. Earlier on, I remember directing my web browser to wordle.com to complete it every morning in physics class. However, The New York Times eventually purchased the game, efficiently keeping it in the same place as my other morning routine, the Mini Crossword. It seemed that everybody was talking about it, even those who you maybe wouldn’t expect to be a word game fan. People would discuss their various strategies often. Personally, I was a major proponent of just entering whatever word struck my fancy that day, but many of my peers had a designated start word. It was popular to use “adieu,” the word with the most vowels and thus the word that was said to guarantee the most bang for your buck. Spoiling the Wordle word of the day to anyone who hadn’t completed it yet was considered treason of the highest level. Many people weren’t satisfied by the one puzzle per day and would seek out spin-offs like the “Worldle,” the “Quordle,” the “Heardle” or, in extreme cases, the “Sedecordle,” among other alternatives. Some teachers more than others even embraced the trend of us students playing mentally stimulating daily puzzles. My Spanish teacher began class each day by having us complete the Wordle Español together, another spin-off of the original Wordle. She’d project it onto the screen as we bounced Spanish words off each other and worked together to figure out the answer each day. Every day, we felt more engaged and prepared to participate in class by starting out with something fun and topical.
Years later, and as a current college student, The New York Times Games fad has yet to die off. If anything, it has only gotten bigger. When I sit in the back of a busy lecture hall and look at the screens of students in front of me, it’s almost a guarantee that I’ll see at least a handful of students partaking in any one of The New York Times games under the guise of productive note-taking. I think it’s more heartening to see this than to see people online shopping mid-class or endlessly scrolling with phones hidden discreetly under desks and in laps. At least in this instance, our brains are being stimulated in some intellectual way as we think creatively to solve the puzzles, even if we are paying little to no attention to class.
I must confess I have fallen off my routine on some of the puzzles I often completed in the past, but it’s rare that I go a day without completing the Connections, Strands and Spelling Bee. Sometimes, if I get exceptionally bored throughout the day, I’ll do the whole daily Crossword. I’ve gotten my entire family hooked on these games as well. Many days my parents or my sister will send their Connections results to our family group chat, bragging about how they got purple first or made no mistakes, or comparing frustrations about a certain category that day. My dad has a 152-day streak (and counting!) in Connections and will occasionally text in distress toward the end of the day asking for help lest he break his streak.
I don’t just solve the puzzles with my family, either. I currently live in a house with seven other college students. Needless to say, guests are in and out of the house quite often during the school year, with friends coming over to hang out or study almost every day of the week. Even when there aren’t any guests, my housemates and I surely fill the house up as it is. Some of my cherished memories in this house involve sitting around the table in moments of bustling homework-doing and dinner-making, asking if anyone had done that day’s Connections or Spelling Bee. The ensuing conversations always involve heated debate, single-minded focus and the kind of spontaneous teamwork you tend to only see in movies. With this combined effort, we were always able to come up with all the necessary answers to succeed in any of these games.
From my current perspective, it seems that almost every one of my peers plays these games, whether habitually or occasionally. As a habit that was increasingly picked up around the pandemic era of increased online activity, The New York Times Games app helped facilitate togetherness in a time of social isolation. Yet it has even transcended this boundary, remaining relevant and collaborative continuously throughout the years. It makes for a kind of inside joke shared among a large portion of the community. If I send a screenshot to my friends with an answer to a New York Times game that is particularly topical to us — like the time “orgo” was a word in the Connections puzzle — they know immediately where it’s from and they appreciate it. If I am at work playing Strands during a lull in customer attendance, my coworkers ask me if I’ve done the Wordle yet. If my mother, a middle school teacher, says something about that day’s Mini Crossword, her students join in to discuss. So many people everywhere, but especially in schools or on college campuses, are joined together by these widespread games. Small daily puzzles used to pass the time have become a uniting phenomenon. Personally, I think The New York Times has created something special within their Games app — a community, a promoted culture of thinking and intellect without pretentiousness. In searching for the connections between words, I’ve somehow found priceless connections between people.
Statement Columnist Brenna Wendell can be reached at bwend@umich.edu.
