About

Not Wordle refers to a trend started on Twitter in reaction to the oversaturation of Wordle emoji tweets that Wordle players would post after playing. The Wordle tweets consisted of green, grey, white and yellow square emojis, whereas Not Wordles tweets are Emojipastas unrelated to the actual mechanics of the game. Twitter users posted them ironically starting in late 2021. The trend became notable, however, in January 2022, particularly with brands engaging in it.

Origin

The first known Not Wordle was posted by Twitter^[1] user modernmodron on December 27th, 2021, who made a "funny Lil guy," that received 24 likes over one month (shown below).

Spread

On January 4th, 2022, Twitter^[2] user eddedmondson posted the first variant Not Wordle, making a "very hungry caterpillar" out of square emojis. The tweet (shown below) received seven likes in three weeks.

On January 8th, Twitter^[3] user ohmgee tweeted a Not Wordle that referenced the arcade game Space Invaders, receiving 19 likes over three weeks (shown below, left). Two hours later, Twitter^[4] user qntm tweeted a Not Wordle of "just some flowers," earning 368 likes, also over three weeks (shown below, right).

The following day, Twitter^[6] user pinot posted a more meta Not Wordle, this time attaching a contextless picture of a quilt that alluded to Wordle emoji imagery. Their tweet (shown below) received over 30 likes in three weeks.

More Twitter^[7] users posted Not Wordles going into the rest of January 2022, reaching peak engagement on the 25th after a tweet was posted by Twitter^[8] user Bassya17 that received over 113,800 likes in one day (shown below, left). It should be noted, however, that the emojipasta used in Bassya17's tweet was taken from Twitter^[12] user CopyPasteDump. On the 26th, Twitter^[9] user cogscimom posted a tweet that received over 169,200 likes in less than 24 hours, making a reference to Zoom school (shown below, right).

Not Wordle Brand Tweets

Inspired by the tweets above, multiple corporations and brands decided to hop onto the trend, each of them giving their own iterations based on their logos or cliches. For instance, the official Twitter^[10] account of Oreo cookies tweeted a Not Wordle on January 26th, 2022, receiving roughly 7,100 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below, left). On the 27th, the Twitter^[11] account of Spider-Man: No Way Home also tweeted a Not Wordle, gaining over 57,100 ikes in less than 24 hours (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References