The Philosophy of No Effort Wasted

This is humans. Human humans.ans Human humans I'm Hank Green Win Lu Mix one of the most successful pieces of culture on the internet Every day, millions of people open up the New York Times game cononnections and spend a few minutes trying to figure out how sixteen words fit into four categories. And this sounds, I think, small. And in some ways, it is like a small thing. But I also think that there are ways in which it is big Because to make a game like connections, well, and I know this because I've tried to do it myself, you don't just need to understand words, you need to understand people. You need to understand how we look for patterns, how we get tricked by our own assumptions, but also like not just what connects words to words connects people to people. And this is what fascinates me about Win's work She's not just making puzzles. She's building little experiences inside of millions of other people's minds. She's trying to predict what we're going notice, what we're going to miss, what some people, but not all people will see, and what kind of challenge will make us just mad enough but not too mad I know this because I play connections a lot. I play it by myself and I also play it publicly at the end of some of the videos I make. In these videos, you can watch me try to get inside of Winna's head after she has already tried to get in mine or rather all of ours. I want to talk to Winna about connections, but also about what designing a game like that teaches us about humans, about ritual, about culture and taste, and about attention, and about what it means to make something that is low stakes but very much not meaningless Welcome to Humans, Winelu. Why do we like puzzles Hi Hank. Why do we like puzzles? Sometimes I want there to be answers and there's no answers and that sort of realization just through life growing up You just want to do the right thing and sometimes you're like, oh, maybe there is no right answer. you just have to just do something. But with puzzles, there is. even when it feels like there isn't, there is. Yeah. W it real quick, for the people who don't know, tell me what connections is Connections is a category matching game where you're given sixteen cards and you have to sort them into four groups of four by identifying the thing that they have in common And the groups have colors based on theoretically the level of difficulty maybe Maybe and theoretically, yes. So I like to try and get purple first, which is the hardest category. But the nice thing about getting purple first is that it also makes it so that it is easier to get the other categories correctly because it means that you've done a lot of the work of trying to match things up and make sure that you're not missing anything before you get your first. Th sometimes I identify a category that I think is going to be purple. And I get at first And it feels very good even without getting other categories first And sometimes I think it's gonna to be the purple and I'm wrong And then I get Matie I'm sorry for everyone who doesn't agree with the color cir. I'm sorry I let you down I like to think of it as most straightforward to tricky. trrickiest. But that's we're just saying words. You shouldn't, yeah. ye. You're just gonna make more people more mad. cut that part. But also there's this forgiveness to connections, which is wonderful where if you can get three categories, you get the fourth. Yes. I've been thinking a lot about this. With a crossword, you have a blank grid and you have to put stuff in. And you know, it's good because there are boxes so you know that, oh, this has a certain number of letters or whatever, but with connections It's all there and you just have to sort it. Yeah. You have the answer in front of you I find it much more enjoyable than a crossword puzzle and I find it is very much that I am playing a game with you in a way where I'm trying to understand what you're up to And I feel in dialogue with the puzzle creator. Does this seem right to you I think so. Do you feel in dialogue with me? Have you watched me play connection? I have. It's delightful. I love it Sometimes it's like I'll see you do something that I didn't think of. and sometimes you do something that I did think of, and it's very satisfying. Do you find often that there are little half categories that you didn't ever intend? Oh, yeah, for sure. just make sure If there's a full category, you did intend it. I think it would be unlikely to be a full category that was unintended, just because it's like kind of hard to make a category. So I want to talk a lot about like the actual design of connections, but I want to talk about other stuff first. But I think that people get the idea of what connections is. You were the founding editor of it. I think that you've been the person whove made all the puzzles. I' like to say that I'm the writer. Sure, yeah. justust because like I've written all the boards that have run the thousand and five or whatever. I've written some myself and they're very fun to do haaving written them, it makes me realize that what you are doing is actually not You see And not even in like the you have to do a lot of them way, but I can see a lot of creativity inside of these things. And I also feel like you are trying to predict what millions of brains will do when presented with this ambiguity And millions of brains is a weird thing. And of course, the New York Times audience is this particular set of millions of brains. You don't have to design something that's going to work for someone in Vietnam, but it seems like it's very human work and very empathetic work. and like you have to understand a lot of different at the same time, does this make sense to you? Yeah, making puzzles in this way is really similar to solving puzzles, right? Yeah. If you solve a lot of puzzles, you kind of know what you expect when you see certain stuff. It feels like a very sort of fluid relationship between like I think would be something versus like what a solver might also then think, And I feel the same way when I'm solving. Yeah. I also feel this way about writing fiction where you would think that, and it may be this way for other authors But you would think that when you go in you like have this constructed idea of what's going to happen. and like you do a little bit, but also suddenly problems are presenting themselves. And what drags me through the actual laborious process of writing is like caring about the characters wanting to know what's going to happen to them and wanting to like solve their mysteries and solve their puzzles for them in a way that will be satisfying for me. It like I'll feel good about what happened to these people who I care about but also will be satisfying too reader. And, you know, in a way, those are almost the same thing weirdly because You know I'm imagining my reader in the same way that I'm imagining my characters in that like I can only imagine what it's like to be one person truly, which is myself. and barely even that. So in the same way, I'm projecting my understanding of humanity onto both my readers and my characters. I think you said it, right? I think that it's the only way to even approach the thing that you said earlier, which is the idea of like millions of brains If you think about it like that, it's like, I have no idea what like five people are thinking. You know, like much less like what a majority or whatever. So you kind of just try to like use yourself, what do I think as a solver? Like what are my experiences and you kind of use those experiences to inform? And like sometimes that ends up working out pretty well and it ends up being generalized or whatever yeah. The fact that your job is possible, the fact that the connections puzzle as a phenomenon is possible, I think like reveals something about how much cultural overlap there is between peopleople inside of a particular culture. Yeah, but also how much, you know, it's interesting how fast it breaks goes to England. Like when British people make connections, they're like, what the hell is going on You know, and like you think that it's just like lift an elevator, but it turns out that there's so much shared cultural experience that we don't understand that we have with each other. Totally. But of course, it is also very true that the New York Times gameplaying audience is a particular subset of America But there's also this sense of like getting a clue that I am a part of something that I am bound together with not just you but all the other people who play this game often feel the sensation of like I know So many thingss Not just me but like all of us together. Like sometimes I'll play a puzzle where I'll like run into a clue and I'll be like This word fits into or like like blondie was this way for me. It wasn't blondie. It was one of the other comic strips And I was like This fits into that box for me, but I couldn't tell you anything about it. Yeah But I know it. It was Bloom County. but I was like, I don't know why I've heard of Bloom County. I don't know anything about that. It gives me like insight into my own brain in a weird way I just feel like doing puzzles. and I think maybe for me that the first exposure is through crosswords where there're a bunch of stuff I only know from seeing themem in puzzles. and I don't actually know anything about anything. I just kind of have heard of it. But you kind of get to keep it and use it again when it comes up. So it's very satisfying. Like you know things only because of puzzles, No Totally if that makes sense. Another thing is happening to you, which it seems to happen more to you than to the average crossword puzzle designer People seem to care about you. Is that right?? I don't know if I'm saying that that they're like, o, I wonder if Wyinnan is having back pain today. But they're like thinking about you.. You're like a little bit of a micro celebrity. And you are saying yes when people ask you to go on podcasts It's true that connections I think is a little like voicier than some games. There's a lot of room for like editorial stuff and little references to things. I understand why that would be the case. I think that there's also a piece of it that might be that there is only one of you You know, there's no other connections puzzle that is, you know, mainstream. So you're like a pioneer in that way What a wild thing to have happen to you. I agree. I got very lucky Are other puzzle people jealous Oh, I don't know. I feel like you just blushed, Is that right? I mean, like I just got like assigned to do this. You know, I it sort of feels like right place, right time kind of thing. So Right. So the origin story of connections that I have heard is that you have like a code sprint, but for puzzles. Yeah, game jam Yeah Yeah Yeah. So there's like this annual event that they started having in twenty twenty one, The Times Aquired Wordle.. And so I started at the Times in twenty twenty as a crossword editor. and so like all the puzzle editors work on the big crossword together but we also manage our own projects. And so it was just really crosswords, but there was also the mini and spelling bee. But then after the Tes acquired Worddle, they started developing games in house. And so they had these game jem events. And so connections was pitched by a couple of my colleagues and then went through this like brand new green light process And then when they wanted to release it publicly, they just needed an editor to like write the sixty boards for that sixty day beta trial. And so they were like, W no, you don't have a game do you w want tona try doing this? And you were like, yes, I will be so good at it that it will take over America. I'm gonna make you so much money, New York Times Do you ever think about how much money you make for the New York Times? No, no I would think about that all the time. You know, it's such an important part of the news business. And it's always a little bit been that, you know, where like crosswords or classified have been an important piece of what actually funds journalism and it's hard to get people to pay for the thing that is the actual value, but you can feel good about that We have to find the business models for the things that are important. and we are really in a reestablishing moment there to figure out how all those things are going to work. Yeah. But I also wanted to ask like, when you do these game jams, what makes a game good? And I asked this because I get sent a lot of games now But I get sent a lot of games that like are kind of fun one time or are a little bit too complicated or are a little bit too the same as other things I've played It's really about not the game, but it's about people It's about like how I'm interfacing with the game. Does that resonate Yeah, as much as I love word games ort of my favoriteame is variety Suddoku. I like love Sudoku 'cause it's so clean and it's just like logic, you know, It's just kind of a break from interpreting stuff. It feels like relaxing. But with like a puzzle that's well constructed you are asking yourself like, what is this person thinking? And then it's very satisfying when you are right about what they were thinking, right? sort of feels like a mutual that does kind of feel like a click, like a communication. I think good puzzles do that and good puzzles I think are also like funny. You know, I feel like there's like humor in stuff. It's like kind of silly sometimes when things are too complicated, and it's like less fun. And connections gives you a lot of opportunities to make little jokes You know, I don't know what which one I was playing recently, but it was like things that have a boss and one of them was the East Street Band. This is extremely stupid Yeah. Very very good. But also like, I don't know, it's so hard to figure out peopleople will know. Yeah. So I assume it goes through some kind of editorial process where you toss it off to people and find out that you maybe thought that people knew something that people don't know. All the time. At this point, I'm like, is this just something that I know Growing up in the nineties and does anyone know this anymore? Was that like a flash in the pan? And I was just at a formative age and the just kind of baked in. I check. a lot. mean There's a ton of stuff I don't know Question How would you make a connections board for an alien Hm. That's really hard. I mean, I guess my assumption is that it would maybe be like less English language focused, right?be it would be I mean, I don't know, Aliens, maybe know every language including I've know ide like what's a category? And they're not all language based. Some of them are just like visual, right? Things that like look a certain way. and it's interesting they'll translate some of those concepts into words. you know, it's like things shaped like a Y R? You can say those words, but maybe in an alien connections board, there would be pictures well, I guess maybe that would be less good because then you'd see it and you'd see all these Y shaped things. you'd be like, that's easy just the Y shaped things. But like my gut response, although Maybe this wouldn't work at all is it would be visual Right Yeah. I think it was for like you, there was recently the one that was like the Pips on a die. And like that's cultural. And I was so surprised to find that I click on all of those and I was like, oh, that's exactly what the pips on a die look like Whereas like the two is this way and the three is this way. And I was like, I couldn't have told you that, but apparently I did know that. Also, this happened with Tool balls Like the colors of pool balls I think I used a pool ball in things that are red or something or things that are orange. Yeah ye Exactly. It was like the three and it was red. And I was like, why do I know that? That's a wild piece of information to not realize I have in my head The color of the free ball and pool. Yeah. All the stuff that like could be in your brain, but all these like other useless things are kind of floating around. I actually don't think that way because I don't think that's how it works. I don't think that we like have a amount and then it like stuff starts spilling out when we put new stuff in. Oh. I think that it's all about scaffolding and connections connections where most stuff doesn't sit on its own, it has some kind of internal structure that it is hanging off of. And when you add to that structure, it just gives you more structure to hang yet more things off of I love that because it really, I mean, The way I normally think about it is sort of like Everything that comes in pushes something else. but I feel like it's a very limited bandwidth. I don't think so. I'm glad you're here. Otherwise I would have forgotten way more stuff How would connections change if you gave it away or if somebody else did boards What do you think? I don't know, but I feel like because there is so much room for personality, it'd be cool to ike, I'd love to see your boards, you know Wait a second How much would I get paid No, I'm kidding. Look If I got an email one day that was like, Hank, we are inviting guest editors, I would say yes, very fair. And I would also take it very seriously and I would be very scared. I think those are reasonable responses. Yeah. I wouldn't want to invite someone who would not be afraid of the opportunity becausecause I think a lot of people don't understand the extent of the work you are doing to make them fun Do you feel that that is the case? Do you feel like people don't get it. I'm not sure. I know how much work I put into it. It is like very great to hear when someone's like I can tell you put a lot of work into this. I feel very, very happy to hear that. But there's something that's like, oh, if people think it's like easy, that's also kind of good, maybe because like it maybe implies it like you did a, you know, it's like the work you don't see. Yeah. If somebody watches a YouTube video and doesn't see the work, then that's the ideal situation. Yeah. I don't want people to be like, wow, I can really feel like this guy was Oh on de Yeah. So do you have favorite boards I do. There are some boards that stick out in my mind. There was one that was like It was a long time ago, but all the cards were movies, but were like movie titles. But you like didn't need to know any movie trivia about them. Gotcha. So that was like That's great. That was kind of fun Do you sometimes feel yourself stumbling into situations where you're like, o, I can actually get a second red herring out of this And that's going to make it really fun to have like a double red herring board or something like that. It's unusual, at least that it's intentional that that happens, but it has happened. There was one board that was like White green peacock, sccarlet, and it also had like yeah, I remember this one. Peacocks prime paramount. And so it was like, oh, streaming services and includue characters, but like neither of them areers. Do you know what a chickleate is A gum, a piece of gum And I get to tell you connections information. Tell me, tell me. A Chicklet is a red herring that has a color from every category. Oh I've heard that referred to as a rainbow herring, but I like chickolleate. Why chickolate? Because the chickleates are like little squares of different color and that's what they look like when you accidentally choose the chickolate looks like a bunch of chickolates. Excellent. Look, this is one of the earliest episodes of this podcast. And if you are not in the connections, a lot of this is be a little mod.orry. But at least you're hearing two people geek out about something they love. So do you have a sense of when you've done one that's really good? How do you like know when you're successful. Is it before it comes out I think it's before it comes out. And actually I haven't always confirmed this later because I don't always know when the boards run and I'm not on social media. so I miss a lot of the descript. That's probably the healthy way to be the connections editor is not on social media. I feel like maybe it's a little self protective. But there are times when I finish a board that I will be like, oh and usually For me, it's because there's some like fun words. there's some like unexpected words that I just think are kind of like jazzy or have like fun letters or something are like weird. and maybe there's like one or two categories that are, you know make me smile for some reason that are, you know, are just different than like, oh, some synonyms or whatever. It's just like Sometimes I'll finish board and it just makes me smile and I'm like I think this is a good one is part of it when you werere like, that's gonna make people Oh my mad. ight? No. I was gonna say, my intention is to not make people mad. I love people, but I also love being bad so. Be bad. It's so great. This is the most adorable way to be bad. I love being a little bad by making a puzzle game that people will be a little frustrated by It's very tame. You're a real rebellious sppirit Winelu. There are sometimes I think people will be mad. Like I know that people really don't like it when A word is repeated in the category name. Interesting on one of the boards. Yeah. I try to avoid that, but like sometimes I sometimes it's very hard. Simes's very hard. You've got like four synyms and there isn't a fifth synonym Theren't a fifth synonym Yeahah.. And it' very cumbersome to avoid.imes I know people are mad and sometimes I'm like, it's okay. That's interesting now that I know that you're fighting for that because sometimes I feel like the category name is a bit of a strange There's some real like gymnastics it takes to avoid the word. And sometimes I'm just like, you know what? I'm just gonna to say the word. Yeah. There's also sometimes categories that are just like, It's like a joke. It's a bad joke. There's one that was like Um like E Oion, Photoshop. Henhouse. Things that have layers. Yeah. You didn't even flintch. Yeah. And like the henhouse is like layers. It's very good. Right Yeah. It's like ones that lay eggs. yeah. differentiffere kind of layer. Yeah. It's so fun. Thanks I think This is just one man's opinion. You could be meaner Wh I get so mad and I'm like, that's why I'm doing this. Are you not aware of what a puzzle is? The next time people are mad at me, I'm gonna say this is why. If it were easy, it would not be fun. You wouldn't be puzzled People have different relationships with that, right? There is a sweet spot and I think it's different for everyone. I think some people just want it yeah. Yeah. I mean, I also like cannot believe that some people choose a category before finding a second or third category I'm like, why would you do that? You know what she does. She's gonna get you. Are you bususy right now? Which the only reason I ever do that is when I'm like, I just gott to get through this. I don't have time Or just like the rage, the rage solving someone is just like, it will be, you know. Yeah, Or if I'm actually racing someone, which I have done, and is very fun. Oh, how do you do? Do you win? I do well. Yeah, challenge you to a connections match, I wonder. I mean, I'm sure that I would be like not in that one percent of ranked players if this was actually happening as a thing But Maybe you should introduce a time metric. I'm just saying. I am very anti timer myself personally as a solver because I get extremely stressed. but I don't think that the timer should be on the screen I agree my ideal of Dreamworld is that there is a timer and it's default off, but you can go and in the settings and turn it on and you can see it if you want. Yeah Look, I'm paying like money for this They should be popping out new features all the time What other features No, you first It's not always realistic. I don't play it. You know? Oh, yeah, I guess. So like I feel like there's a big in terms of like usability. You play it in your mind Mbe. Yeah, yeah. but I would want to ask people who spend more time with it. but I think that it wouldd be cool to be able to like mark up things Yeah, like in the colors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. there's actually a plugin that does that. Yeah, yeah, I heard there's like a site or like, you know, color like little color tags. That'd be like easy mode, almost. So I actually have a personal story for you. So I went through chemotherapy and that really does a number on you. And one of the things that it messes with is, of course, like cognitive function. So I couldn't think as well And this was very unpleasant for me as a guy who prides himself and who is like publicly known as being like a thinky guy And so I played connections all throughout Kimo and it was like harder on the harder days. And I was like, I'm dumber sometimes. Now, this was actually before the ranking was introduced. so you didn't actually know how hard the puzzles were Coming out of chemo and like feeling like I was getting better at connections was a little gift from the world being like, you're getting better in a way that there's no other way to measure That was part of like when I first started to love the game, though if I hadn't gotten better, I don't know how I would have respond How do you feel about being a part of so many people's daily lives Do you feel that I feel I mean, it's sort of amazing, right? I really try to not take it for granted because you know everyone who makes stuff experiences this at some point, which is like, I've made a lot of stuff that no one cares about. And it's like impossible to get anyone to look at your thing or care about your thing that you've like worked really hard and you know, you get used to them and that's fine. I feel very lucky and grateful that something I'm doing that I love doing that I work hard at is something that people care about. That is amazing How separate from it do you feel? Like Do you feel like you are in there? Do you feel like people see you in it and they like personify you as a connections sport Now I'm just imagining just like just like a lot of squares. Thats you knew your Halloween costume this year Probably And like that's okay. you know, it's like Whatever what were they gonna think anyway? You know what I mean? It's like thinking that versus thinking like nothing likeike, I don't know. it's fine Yeah, I am like jealous of you in a way that there's this one there's there's this very limited way that you get to create for people and they get to see you through this lens that you have a lot of control over where I have like set myself up In a way that I like have chosen and that there are lots of advantages to, but to have a lot of me to be interpreted in a lot of ways. Yes, Yes. Yeah. How do you manage that? L how do you sort of like separate or do you? It's the biggest question in my life. I mean, the sort of like big piece of that is is like what you see is me but not all of me. You know. With you, like we know that You know, we know that what I'm seeing is something that you have made, but it is not Winnolu Whereas the way that I do what I do, it looks like you're seeing all of me, but it's not. I want people to understand that and I want to like signal that in ways when I can, but I forget to. and there's advantages to not doing that. I'm glad to have been doing it for a long time so that I have bothoth built up tools for doing it better. and for handling it when it goes badly Uh, yeah, it is It's wild, man. I think anyone creating in public is volunteering to be misunderstood And we all and that's why everybody thinks you're bad evil, mean witch w. I always think of how lucky I am that like making puzzles or whatever is something that people feel very passionate about. but like you said, low stakes, basically zero stakes. You can be mad, but it like doesn't matter, right. Whereas like there are real things in life that are important and high stakes and serious and people care about it. and it's like, that's hard. That's really hard. but like our thing is easy, you know? Yeah. What do you think about like low stakes activities as like important in life I think they're important. Like Sudoku is, I mean, I wouldn't call Sudoku important, but like it's something that I just like Do I don't know Well, important is the interesting word thing. Right, because yeah it kind of can't be important if it's low stakes but also maybe like the very fact that it is is what is important. I think it's good to just have a thing that doesn't mean anything. You know, I was just thking about the idea of like maximizing and how much like energy I spend trying to think of like what's the best way to do this?s the best, whatever. and it's like Well I'm pretty sure the amount I've already spun my wheels and like the amount of like mental anguish I've put myself through even thinking about that is not the best way. Like I've already kind of messed it up. and it's just like Maybe it's fine to just do stuff and it doesn't matter and like who cares Yeah. So I don't like to start with biography, but I like to get into it a little bit. You were a crossword editor From whence did this come? It seems like a hard job even if you're good at it, like to actually get the gig. I think with like any sort of niche thing, there's no school that you go to like, you know, for a journalists you can go to journalism. you know, they're sort of like ladders that make sense for like a lot of things, but I mean, you know this, right? Like how did you like for certain other things, there isn't necessily clear cut path, which is actually one of the cool things about puzzles because everyone kind of comes at it as a hobby like as an enthusiast from like different backgrounds and stuff. So I think that like With the crossword, it's a relatively small community of like sweet nerds who'd really like to do puzzles. And with the Times, there's an open submission format. So like all the puzzles that are published are submitted by just anyone. likeike anyone can submit a puzzle, whether you're like professional constructor or just like first time just trying it out for fun, whatever. And so The editors review all the submissions and then it's sort of in some ways like your resume, right? Like E everyone kind of knows everyone's work because everyone's a fan of everyone. You see different puzzles run in different publications, but I think that from the editorial side, you kind of know what people's puzzles are like. so editing crosswords, a lot of it's just like writing clues, right? So I think the editors kind of have an idea about how you would write clues and every venue has a different voice. Yeah. I was submitting a lot of puzzles at the times. And do you get paid like one off? like they'll be like, Yes, we like this one, hereere's your money? Exactly. yeah. it's everything's on spec and then yeah You had to like start writing crossw puzzles. Were you like a puzzer Yeah, I was solving times pz for, maybe like ten years or something before I started Gotcha. making them. Yeah, everyveryone I know who is into puzzles makes puzzles. L we all start the same way, which is just you become obsessed with doing cross puzzles. Yeah, exactlyah. Like when did that start for you It was like Maybe my like mid twenties and it' I had a crush on a guy who worked of course. like all things. Yeah this is why I know so many words to rush songs Hh h I had a crush on a girl who was super into rush. And then she was like, whyy do you know so many rush songs? And I was like, weird coincidence, huh Exactly. I would like walk by and I'd be like, oh, you're doing the New York Times crossword. I'd do the New York Times. I'd never done a crossword before, but I like would just lied. I lied. lied. Yeah. And then you were like, I gotta get good of this fast or he's gonna find me out. And what's he doing now I don't know. he's not in the other room? He's no, no, no, no. We became friends doing us. We became friends doing this and we actually went to a tournament together. ye. Oh wow. And then you like play semi professionally or whatever it is. I mean, you're not making money, but it's like you're actually like engaging in in the community Yeah crosswords. I think that that's the right way to put it. There are crossroord tournaments and there are people that are competitive who are the best in the world and are you extremely fast and very good. I am not one of those people. I compete in like the loosest sense of the word, but it's like just a thing that takes a solitary pen and paper pursuit and it makes it social. So you get to like meet other people and like other people who just like solving puzzles and that's the community goes. And do all of those people dream of someday becoming Winnol Lu No, why Oh hi I mean, it does feel strange to me that there is like, you know, you have a fan base in a way that I mean, I don't know. Maybe there's other cross editors who are like There are people who are really into their work. I assume this is true. I think so. Like I think most people just are like, oh, all crosswords are like made by an AI, right or like made byia a computer, right? But I think that the people who know that they' people who write them and construct them, they're the people who like. There's good ones for bad ones. yeah, like, oh, I love their work, their work, you know When I get a game sent to me, a new game, I think that the thing that is hardest isn't creating the game itself. It's creating all of the games. It's actually writing each individual puzzle, which is a huge amount of work, especially when people aren't pay attention to you yet And to be like, here's my next absolute labor that I have been grinding on for the last week that isn't going to necessarily get seen, the writing really matters And I think that like we can miss that because we think, oh, I know what connections is.s sixteen words, there's four different categories, there's four words per category But that's not really what connections is. Like if I made a connections board, it wouldn't be connections. Connections is specifically the version of connections that is done by the New York Times and right now it's done by you I want I mean, Oh yeah, interesteresting. You disagree. I don't know if that Like you think if I did a connections board and was not edited by the New York Times, that would be a connection sport. Yeah, why not Well, because what about onlyly cononnect? What about mean you know, I feel like they're all the same. I don't Only connect is a British game that is very much like connections, just for people who Well, I would say the other way around, which is connections. It's a lot more Yeahah connect. I see. Yes. The order is important. The order is important. This may in fact be the topic of some sensitivity that I'm not aware of Is that the case? I think Only Connect is amazing. I think Only Connect is really wonderful. Okay, we're not gonna to get into it. We're not gonna get into. We've been instructed by the New York Times Legal team not talk too much about the relationship between connections and Oly Connect. That's great. I didn't say anything I think that the game is like the format, but like I think there's a space for a lot of different ways to do it. And so I by no means consider like my voice to be like No, I don't think that your voice is, but I think in the same way that you were saying like different crosswords in different publications have their voice have their way of doing it. Y. If I wrote a connections board for the New York Times, I would write it differently than if I just wrote it for my social media Ver I agree with that. Yeah. ye And when I say if, I mean when, whenever the door is open, I will be submitting. So like we don't accept submissions. We only do that for the crossword because it's really hard to maintain a submission pipeline. Oh, for sure, cononnections would be so hard. I don't think that you should open up to everybody, but I do think you should open up to me No didn. Is there a way that the game part of the New York Times Team is Is it like a fun place? Is it like a serious place? Is it collaborative? Is it creative? Is it like locked down? It's great. The other editors are really, really wonderful. and it's just it's really fun to work with them. It's just like get to talk about puzzles all the time. It's probably simpler and less tense than the newsroom. I imagine so. the thing that we do is so silly It's like, is this a good word word? Thumbs up, thumbs down I remember once I was opening a connections to play because the conceit of my YouTube videos, if people aren't aware of this is sometimes I'll get really mad about stuff and I'll have to calm down and I'll be like, I'm going to make connections real quick. And one time I accidentally just opened the New York Times and I was like, No, of what I wanted. It' like such a weird thing that the New York Times boast contains the day's horrors and the day's distractions I think all the time about pre New York Times era of like Hearst and Pullitzer yellow journalism and like how the world that we exist in now is kind of reflective of that where Really everything's about how do we get it and keep attention. And that is very much superseded Credibility That's coming back now where it's like, if you would like to have my attention, I would like for you to be credible, but for a while there and still that didn't really matter. It's like authenticity took the place of credibility where it was like, yeah, but he seems like the kind of guy that is legit, he thinks about things the same way I do. It doesn't matter if he changes his opinion every episode And like that was a bad time and led us to bad places. And I think that like we're having that on steroids right now because, you know To do Yellow Journal was we had to have a big city really And now you don't because everybody's in the same big city as long as you're on Facebook. You play like the weirdest possible role in that. of like being away to pull people into the part of the media ecosystem that still lives or dies by its own credibility viild I did a little presentation internally a couple of weeks ago. I was just talking about like, you know, how to brainstorm for connections, whatever. it was this like fun, kind of lighthearted thing. And then everyone just kind of like fall sil and like turns their head and someone else walks in the room. It was Jodie Canter, the incredible, incredible journalist. Wild. I stuck around to watch her presentation and just listening to her talk about her process of what she does. It was so inspiring and so incredible and such like hard, amazing work that I really did feel very lucky to be able to contribute in some way to support that work. That's the real, like that work is so important and so hard. And I really felt lucky. Yeah. that's an interesting thing too because like, I don't know. you probably don't think to yourself like maybe I could connections and run off and start my own thing. but I can make more money if I have my own app. But like why would you want to when you're part of a big cool thing like that? Itelt yeah, it felt very cool How often do you think about running off and starting your own thing I don't think I'd be very good at it. You know what you were saying about liking like why you like puzzles. sometone'es just like want to have a job, you know, It's like tell me the job. I want to do a good job and I feel like there's a sort of other kind of brain that maybe you have, which is like, all the possibilities and like what can I make out of not you know, it's much less intuitive, I think, for me to kind of think like that Winem may say it's not intuitive for her to create something out of nothing, but Winelu does this all the time actually. She is an artist, though she does not use that word. I'm not just talking about the artistry of her puzzles. she makes sculptures and jewelry. During our conversation, she's wearing a necklace and a ring that she made, and there is a white geometric deer head made out of some kind of plastic hanging on the wall behind her. Wyinna is a maker, and I ask her if that's why she is drawn to constructing puzzles. Does she feel like she's building a thing when she's making a puzzle? Yes, I do. I love that you answered that question that way and that made me feel so good. I did a good job I think I've had a fraught relationship with the idea of being an artist. What I've landed on is I like to make stuff. but I've sort of tried to understand and this is maybe my best working theory right now is that like Everyone's like a different kind of learner, but it's like when I get really into something, in order to like learn more about it or experience it in a different way, making something that you think is cool is one way to do that I got like really into like practicing yoga. and I just like teacher training because I loved yoga so much And then I became a yoga teacher, but that was not the intention. It was just like, right, I can't get enough yoga. I had this experience in college where I was like, I love chemistry so much. And then I went to work in a lab and I was like, I like learning about chemistry so much. Exactly Can you describe the ways that your work works a little bit? Yeah. The only thing I made on my wall is that deer thing. and that was made with like these white plastic pellets that you can melt in hot water and then it's like a prototyping material. But I got really into magnets. you want to see hold on hold on Well Elman is gone. I'll do my best. She makes things that are constructed and that are three dimensional and that feel o. That's freaking cool, you guys. It looks like a magic trick. This is a lodestone. It's a lodestone that is bound in wire and on a chain and it is defying gravity by pulling the chain upward into a magnet. And it's just like cool to see a rock wobbling around, but it like naturally ocurs and it's yeah, it's cool seeing a chain Nothing Magnets Right. I don't know how a magnet works. Here's another one. these is like little pulleies. Oh my God, that's cool. So I will attempt to explain that It was a brass contraption It had two pulleys, I guess, for lack of a better term, wheels that the chain was going around. and then the chain, you can move it, but there's a gap in the chain that is being held together by magnetism And so you're moving the chain and there's empty space in the middle of the chain as it goes around these two wheels. What you have just convinced me and this is going to be a wild sentence to say byy showing me your art, I am now convinced that I cannot make a connection sport. No no, no, no, that's not the takeaway. That's not the takeaway. That's the takeaway. I would never have made anything but one that cool to that like aesthetically pleasing on top of being cool. than you. And that makes me think that like what you are doing inside of Connections is actually more complicated than I think it is. and I've thought a lot about it This is something that I feel like I see in your work too, which is identify as an enthusiast. You know what I mean? What a great word. came late to the term bon Vivant. I had never heard of this word until like five years ago. And then I was like, maybe that's what I am. And Katherine was like, there's like connotations there that maybe are a little ot like you, but enthusiast, right? is very good. If only we could all be enthusiasts and I feel like it's an occupation not an occupation But an identity available to all. Yes. Yeah But everything starts there, right I sort of believe that the number of hours you spend doing something or thinking about something is like no effort's wasted. Yeah I like being interested in things and learning about how to make stuff. I'm really into fabrication processes. I got really into machining. It's just like fun to work with materials and learning how tools work because It just makes me feel really connected to the thing that you're making, which is why I think it's like sort of different I get out of it than like art, you know. I don't think that there's like no overlap, but I think that like The thing that's very interesting is like how things are built and put together It does not now surprise me that you ended up in a job that you didn't go to school for that makes perfect sense. Also, you said This hit me really hard. No effort is wasted. Wow. Maybe it's something I tell myself for all the hours I've sort of spent like pursuing shrippery or whatever But why do you think that is I think if I'm doing something engaging that I'm like interested in It doesn't matter if it ever becomes anything, you know? It's like not about an end product. And maybe it's only one of those things that kind of makes sense Like when you take a step back after like many years and it's like, how did I get here? And you're like, o, there's no straight line. but no one's surprised when you're like, oh, I did this, this, this and now I'm here. It's like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. right? Like you probably wouldn't have ended up there if you didn't do this, that and that. So that's my new working fear that like, you know, this stuff it means something it go somewhere Do you have any sense of why you felt safe doing that? Why you felt like It wasn't important for you to always be doing something that was working toward a goal In some ways, it's because I I'm very close with my parents. I love my mom. She's the most wonderful person, but she's also very pragmatic and I've always lik loved doing like little art stuff whatever. she's just like, You need a job. and I think that makes a lot of sense, but I think that I sort of compartmentalized the idea of making stuff as just like a me thing, you know, that's something that I could do. And it is always like something that's like stayed with me. I never tried to like makeake it A job, a career, you know, I never tried to be an artist. I just always was able to make stuff. I don't know if that makes sense at all I don't know that it answers it completely. Maybe it's not a thing that happened to you. Maybe it's just a way that you are. I think that I'm somewhat the same I don't know. I may not be I remember this was like one of the saddest moments of my mom's life And we were like walking together and Yellowstone National Park And she was like, whyy don't you ever draw anymore? And I said, this's just really hard to monetize And like completely, honestly and openly. I was just like, that's You know, and at that point in my life, I was How old were you I was probably in my late twenties.. And like that was really was like very important at that moment because like I had been scraping by for a long time And I, you know, felt some amount of guilt about fact that I didn't have student loans when a lot of my friends did, I felt guilt about like asking for help with rent when nobody I knew could do that. And I had like kind of fixated on that as the goal that like I need to have this number go up so that I can have a situation where I I'm safe and I'm like worthy of, you know, all of the that I've had And you know, it turns out there's no there's no getting to there, but I didn't know that then. Yeah. There are still things though. That like I and and maybe the whole time there have been things, it just hasn't been, I think as maybe pure as what you're describing. when I have felt like this is really just about like doing this thing and seeing where I go as I'm doing. It's so great that like the world gives us those opportunities. as simple as like a YouTube tutorial or the building material you were talking about with the deer that's on your wall whatever that stuff was called didn't exist in the sixteenth century, I'll tell you that. I've been extremely, extremely lucky and privileged to have support for my family and to like take our classes and pursue things and you know, go back to grad school and stuff. So you didn't feel like locked in to any particular direction by your parents or that they were expecting or would be disappointed. My parents have a radio business? Have a radio business. I've always worked in the radio business. What is a radio business? They You can have a radio business. You can work in radio Rupert Murdoch has a radio business . own and operate AM radio stations? Oh, so okay, they've got a radio business. So my dad was a DJ in Taiwan in the fifties. My dad is ninety. Yeah, it's amazing. He like played Elvis and he played like rock and roll music and his dream was to come to the state and to have a radio station. My name is actually an acronym of my parents initials, but the W is because my dad thought that whatever comes first, our daughter or our radio station, we're gonna to name WY and A. They're both going to be called WYNA If it was west of the Mississippi, call letters are K, blah, blah blah. So it might have been KYNA, but they ended up in New York. So you had to stay on the east of the Mississippi. That was not an option. Amazing. Yeah. So radio is always like my dad's dream since when he was, you know. Where is WYNA So WYNI actually doesn't exist. Oh no. So he could have got it, but he didn't My parents had like a big break. when I was maybe like ten or something and got their first FM station, so the call letters are for FM stations And they were gonna change the call letters to WYNA. That was the whole plan, right for decades. This is the way my mom tells the story. I don't remember, but she said, they told me, they're like, we're gonna to change it. so it's going be WYNA finally And I was like, no, You told them to not change it? He could have could have had his dream, you denied. But then later she said that they sold it, and my mom did later say she was like, you know, it would have been harder to sell if it was named after you. So everything kind of worked out. Oh. Well, I've looked it up and there is now an adult hits radio station In Kalabash, North Carolina, WYNA. Wonderful. So hey, oneonder four point I Bobet then So it's a real thing now. It looks like the call sign has been passed around a few times over the years That's wild. so They're in the radio business. Yeah. They have AM radio stations in New York City. Yeah in other states too Oh my God. Is it English language? Is it specific for It's many different languages actually. Gotcha Okay Fascinating. He wanted to be in the entertainment industry. He made that dream happen for himself. And so I guess after many struggles. Oh yeah, no, I imagine. Like many, many iterations, child and yeah, it took a long time. Yeah Yeah and then they were open to you kind of doing whatever you wanted to do professionally question work. There was just this expectation that I would work in the family business And so like I would always work with them part time and then do other things. and I'm just not very, as I mentioned before, very business minded, you know, It's not super intuitive. And so I've always just kind of liked doing weird little things. when I was applying for the job at the timimes. told my mom and she was like Okay, greatreat. Cratulations. and it was very lovely. Yeah. Do you feel like there is any overlap between your parents' business and yours Like, you're in mass media. Oh my go, interesteresting. I I've never thought about that. That's a great question. You know, for that. I guess yes, I truly never thought about that. That feels nice Oh Yeah I have a lot of respect for my parents. I've just seen them work hard my whole life and stuff. and it's like yeah cool to feel, you, connected to that in some way. I know nothing about your parents and I have a lot of respect for them. Oh thank you. It' interesteresting that I said that. It it seemed pretty amazing Well, yeah, I mean, people are like playing along with you. It does feel like I am in a way playing with you. likeike you are in there in a way that I'd ever imagined with a crossword or with Sadoku, which like I know that people make Sudoku puzzles but it just is math. You know, there's also the benefit because I like learned so much making the game as it went on, you know, there's like a lot of kind of trial and error. I've watched you figure out how connections works. Right, right. Yeah. yeah, sort of like that. And I feel like in that way, because the game has changed and solvers have gotten better, there is sort of like a feedback cycle that kind of goes back and forth. And then you have to work hard to not let have the barrier of entry get too high. Yeah. Where it's starting to be like crosswords where it's like, in order to play connections, you have to play connections. Yeah. it is. Which I do feel that sometimes, but I also still think that you should still be more mean Can I give you an example? Yes, please. So on the thousandth day of Connections, there was a special connections board that you got a special badge for playing This was a fun puzzle I wanted it to be mean. So the first line and sometimes in connections, the first, you know four words across the top say something. And this one said one thou sand and then the logo for connections. And then the first thing that I spotted and I think this is probably the guess for most people was thou being part of wherefore Art Thal Romeo was the category. I really wanted that to be the red herron and one thousand connections to be the actual category. That's great. That would have been so mean. That's great. Yeah. take get some notes. Everybody would have been talking And that's part of the that's part of the thing Yeah you probably don't think about the way that the internet deals with information in the way that I do, at least, where like I'm always thinking about how will a message travel? What will get people to click on something? I'm thinking about This in terms of the way that nefarious actors there Annoying little misinformation crimes on the internet. and like, Rge is a huge part of it. And so like you should once a month be really mean, it will be good for the business. Like, that's what gets people talking about it because you've done this before. You've had the first line look like the red herring but not be the red herring And that's a moment that everybody's not going to shut up about, but like, you're not hurting anybody. And don't do it all the time. How often, rightight? That's true. It's true. Be There there was one board, the one that I'm thinking of said Lions, tigers, bears, Oe. You're like, that's not a category, but that was the category. What I'll say as a person who's had people be mad at him on the internet It's part of it. It's part of it. Do have a thick skin or do you It really depends. It depends on the thing. If it's simple, then yes. if it's complicated, then though. L if it's hard, if it's actually like a difficult thing that I don't know how to handle well, that's always very difficult because it's not really about people being mad at me. It's about whether or not I've done harm And that's hopefully not something you have to worry about too much, Though certainly there are things you have to be careful with in any media Yeah. So I'm going to ask you a question I asked at the very beginning again Why do we do puzzles I think we do puzzles because It's likeike a fun and safe way to use your brain. You know, it's like, it's just it's something that like hopefully you do and you can expect at the end, you'll get like some satisfaction. It's just like a nice way to do something isn't that consequential, but makes you feel kind of like, you know, good after, right? You feel like good after you've solved a puzzle. There's something about it feeling knownable and then you can just like move on with your life That highlighted something that's really important, safe. Because when I play connections that are just like from connections, subreddit, where people make their own connections I don't feel safe because I know that there is like a fairly high possibility that it's a bad puzzle and that the reason I can't get it is that the writing is bad But when I'm playing connections written by Winnu, I'm like, I know that this puzzle will not betray me. It may get me But it'll get me in a way that I'm like, ah, she got me. It'll make sense and not like, oh, that's just a bad category Though it may betray me in the way that you assign the words to the color. And I know that we haven't talked about that and I know that that's like the chief frustration everybody has with it. but I have this frustration. Let's get into it. just did. Hit me. You said on a podcast recently ple was usually slash almost always when it was about the construction of the word rather than the syntax or the meaning of the word In the last week, that's not been true like four times. Oh no. I should never have listened to this podcast I'm sorry for it's a very loose rubric a fairly loose rubric. Until you said that, I never thought that that was the case. I thought that it was literally like which one was the hardest among your beta testers So there is a question on the Tester feedback form, that is like, did the colors match your solving experience And if there is a consensus Sir A change L everyone's like, this yellow is really blue or whatever. you know, I'll happily make the change. But like the way I feel about it is I think difficulty is really subjective because it's like sometimes people just like, you know know a lot about music or something and like someone, you know knows a lot about movies and one isn't necessarily harder than the other. It's like very context specific. And sometimes something's hard because there's overlap so you like solve it later, but it doesn't mean the category itself was harder. So I feel like there's like different reasons something might be like harder, which is why I try to move away from like how maybe hard something is in terms of assigning the colors. it It's like, oh, if it's like a trivia thing that'll be blue, you know, if it's more specific, and like If it's wordplay, it'll usually often But not always, be purple. And if it's like the yellow and green, which I haveve heard called Greo or you know, whatever. Yeah they're all, they're very similar. It's very similar and I don't dyes a clear. Yeahah. And so it's like My general sense is like If there's like a word that clearly defines the category that's like not that ambiguous. That'll maybe bump it to yellow, but like if parts of speech and like words are vague or like the group of synonyms is harder to see or that'll be green. But it's very loosey goosey. You know, I don't feel like there's always To me, a clear thing, which is why I'm happy to outsource that. Like I'm not very attached to the colors The problem is that we have introduced upon you the idea of getting the reverse, which is not you didn't do that. We did that. But now there's a badge, I think. Now there's a badge. So you did do it. and now it does matter to me. I'm a little worried more than it used to. You can always tell me what your opinion is Okay. againgain, we're new to this podcast, but I'd like to ask you a question that I'm thinking I might ask everybody at the end of the podcast.. What is something that you have learned from this work that you wish everyone on Eth knew. There's an idea that things can evolve, you know, that you don't always know when you start doing something, what it's gonna be And that's okay. It is okay to build in some knowledge or expectation that the thing that you start doing will not be the thing it is a year down the line or whatever and you don't need all the answers first You don't need to know everything that you're going to do or say or whatever how it's going to go and just doing it and like doing wrong stuff and like doing a bad job is okay and kind of like I guess iterating and just being like, okay, well, the whole thing is a process and That is okay. There's no good or bad about that. That's just kind of the way it is. And maybe also being just to that and also knowing that the sort of no effort is wasted kind of thing, maybe is tangentially related. You will do a lot of stuff. You willll put in a lot of work that doesn't go anywhere It's part of the process. and that is okay. And it does something even if you can't quantify or see it or it's not material. So that is something that I have believed and I feel like I've gotten out of doing this for a few years. This is very much true of my work where like John and I started and we were making a video blog every weekday And the response to every video affected the next video in a really deep way. It makes me feel like The thing that you're doing is also a collaborative enterprise where you're building from our reactions and from our failures and from our successes and our frustrations. and you're like playing the game with us that you want to play with us. We're all learning. We're all in this together. R Yeah. Yeah. And like of course, you would never know what it's going to be. and it's almost crazy to me that you had to write the first, did you say sixty without that feedback. And you're also like learning from the structure of the game The game is teaching you how It can be played in new and different ways The constraints, right? Yeah. veryery hard to like invent your own rules, but sort of easier in some ways to follow rules and just see where that takes you. Yeah. What would your advice be for Oh the same question. Do you have answer about me. I' sorry s sry Thanks to all the humans who helped make this episode. Morgan Levy is the show's supervising producer, and Greg Rippen is our engineer. Pyton Mitchell manages our social media, Andrew Wuang composed the music and James Barnard designed the artwork. You can and should, follow us wherever you listen to podcasts let's do it one more time. H. H bs