Ask HN: Why is Wordle getting so popular?

  • Fun and popular game + non-trivial/moderately complex to solve, with multiple possible approaches => HN popularity.

    Wordle came out recently, so it's not like HN could have been obsessed with it years ago.

    It's not just the tech community - non-techies in my family like it.

    You may not remember it, but Sudoku became widely popular starting around 2005. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudoku#Modern_Sudoku .

    This lead to an number of tech people to develop solvers, perhaps Novig's being the most famous, and Ron Jeffries TDD-based failed attempt perhaps the most infamous.

    You can see traces of that period on HN at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=18&prefix=false&q...

  • If you search "Wordle" in the HN search bar and sort by date, 22 pages worth of posts come up. The first was 2 months ago.