In the flickering glow of a thousand screens, a new, shared weekly ritual has quietly taken root. It is not found in a house of worship or a community hall, but in the vibrant, bordered space of a digital grid. Every Friday, a simple yet potent question ripples through social media feeds and group chats: “Did you do it?” The “it” in question is Connections, the New York Times’ color-coded word association https://letterboxed.app/ game that has, with remarkable speed, become a cornerstone of modern pop culture. Its visual hallmark—a tidy, four-by-four grid of words presented in a letterboxed NYT format—is now as recognizable as the morning coffee cup. This phenomenon is more than a passing fad; it is a revealing case study in how we seek meaning, community, and a moment of structured escape in an increasingly fragmented digital age.