That meme cycle was ~20x smaller than wordle in magnitude. Most people only heard about flappy bird after it was announced that it would be retired.
Maybe you're right, but I'd like to see proof of this. After a quick search I found than:
- Flappy bird was downloaded 50M times [1]
- The dev made 50k a day [1] which implies that those 50M were not all 'dead downloads' but actual users
- About wordle, every article I find just states 'more than a million daily players' [2]
So, to make this short, I think you're just picking random numbers that fit your subjective perception. If you can provide proof that says otherwise I'll gladly back off. In the meantime it'd be nice if you don't make any more comments about how many times wordle is bigger than flappy birds then you already did. Your turn.
[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/no-flappy-bi... [2] https://www.statista.com/chart/26667/usage-of-wordle-and-oth...
I think the comparison you did is hard to evaluate. the dev of wordle made 0k a day until sell, so that is an awkward comparison. The 50M downloads is hard to compare to 'more than a million daily players'.
Anyway, the difference between US and worldwide in google trends may point to some differences in experience, too. Wordle is quite big in the US, while flappy bird was bigger elsewhere. I'm not american and my experience matches yours, so just for fun I'm going to predict you are not american, but gp is, with 2:1 odds. Am I right?
[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=wordle,f...
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=wordle,f...
Yes, I was aware that this is hard to compare in several aspects. Besides the money, you already talked about: One is something you have to download and the other is something you just visit a website for (That's the reason I mentioned the money and that those dl are not 'dead'). My aim was only to show 'something' that could make some comparison possible at all.
The commenter I initially replied to itched me the wrong way. He made his argument in more than one comment but even the two I read weren't consistent. Once he stated 20x bigger, in another comment it was 10-20x. I personally don't have a problem with wordle being bigger than flappy bird ^^ but the way he presented it seems random at best.
And, one more thing... I'm not American ;) +Edit: Earlier I shortly skimmed his/her profile and if I remember correctly he/she made a comment on something about the traffic in CA (or some US city)
Also since Wordle isn't on a nice wordle.com domain, my assumption is most people have to re-search for it frequently, boosting its Trends history.
Some contra-argument would be: There is more to it than just download (or play) something. For example all the articles, publicity, score boards and everything around it that rises when something gets popular. And this stuff does correlate with popularity (and search terms). Maybe those who downvoted you can clarify what they mean...
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2014-01-25%202...
e: see my comment below