25 jokes and memes only people who play the NYT Connections game will understand

The NYT Connections game, which launched on June 12, 2023, has achieved almost Wordle levels of ubiquity in recent months. In fact, it’s the second-most played NY Times app game to Wordle at this point.

Like most NY Times games, it’s a simple concept: on a board of sixteen-word boxes, find the four groups of four that fit together. The titular connections are not often obvious and sometimes extremely tenuous and/or infuriating, throwing you for a loop that’s understandable for any normal human brain.