Plane passenger sparks debate after catching woman cheating at Wordle: ‘This might be worse than infidelity’

‘Why play if you don’t want to play,’ viewer questions

A plane passenger has sparked a debate after she was exposed for cheating at the popular New York Times game, Wordle.

To call out the woman sitting in front of them on their flight, fellow traveller Alex Yanchura filmed a video of her looking for answers on her phone and uploaded it to TikTok. “If your wife was on flight AA2871 from SNA to DFW on 2/19... she cheats on Wordle,” Yanchura, 35, wrote.

In the footage, Yanchura zoomed in on the woman in front of him. She appeared to be scrolling between the Wordle page and a Safari-generated list of five-letter words. The purpose of the fan-favourite brain game is to guess the right word in just six attempts.

If a letter is highlighted in green, that means it’s in the right place in the word. If a letter is highlighted in yellow, the letter is in the word but in a different place. If a letter is highlighted in grey, it’s not included in the correct word.

The game is meant to test your personal vocabulary, and, according to some, searching through a list of words with the correct letters defeats the purpose.

“As a daily New York Times Wordle player who takes the game more seriously than one should, I was shocked at what I was seeing — thank goodness for 9x zoom,” Yanchura told People.

Speaking to The Independent, Yanchura admitted the act of cheating made them “doubt every word game ever played with friends.”

“It is 100% cheating and I was appalled to learn that so many people felt differently. You can’t trust anyone on the internet these days,” Yanchura said.

Though Yanchura shared her expose on the app more than a year ago, the video, having garnered over 1.6 million views, is going viral again after the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) account reposted the footage on their platform. Now, a debate over what’s generally considered cheating in the game has erupted online.

“I can’t imagine the rationale of cheating at a fun little game to exercise your brain. Why play if you don’t want to play lol,” a blunt commenter added.

Another pointed out that the woman was only on her third attempt when she went searching for the answer elsewhere.

“I can’t stand those people,” an angered individual wrote.

A second said: “This might honestly be worse than infidelity.”

However, supporters spoke out as well, justifying the woman’s decision to look through potential words.

“Kiosk was a hard word though,” a candid individual noted, to which Yanchura replied: “Whose side are you on?”

“Checking to see if a word has already been played is not cheating. Who’s going to remember hundreds of past solutions?” one viewer pointed out.