Words: Lara Pacillo // Photos: The Weekly Fifty
Tom, from The Weekly Fifty asks us if we know what horse won the 1986 Melbourne Cup. We don’t, and neither does he nor the other four members who make up The Weekly Fifty, or anyone else aged under 30 (DM us if you disagree). Tom says it’s questions like these you’ll often find in dated newspapers.
However, we do enjoy trivia; even more so when its relatable, debatable, and socially engaging. That’s precisely what Tom, Cale, Patrick, Alex, and Jarrad had in mind when they launched The Weekly Fifty quiz in May 2022 as a group of friends.
“The biggest thing that started us out was frustration with quizzes from newspapers that asked us to name the lead actress from a 1932 film that no one had ever heard of,” explains Cale. “It was born out of frustration for trivia that didn’t account for our generation, or didn’t have any questions that catered to us.”
The five men in their mid 20s would catch up on a weekly basis to do newspaper quizzes. While they tried to add a social element to this through group chats with friends, they felt the quizzes themselves were still out of touch.
“They were usually behind a paywall, and usually run by a corporation with values that don’t typically align with us,” Patrick says.
“We thought we can do this sort of thing better — more towards our age, more independent, and something that was definitely more open access.”
Starting out as more of a monthly fifty, the group began developing an online quiz model. Initial questions were Adelaide-centric, but as the participant numbers grew and national submissions began, the focus became more Australia-wide.
“We realised that ‘unscramble these letters to reveal an Adelaide suburb’ probably wasn’t the best question for old mate who lives in Sheffield Tasmania; so, we definitely made a conscious decision early on to make sure that the quiz was really accessible for anyone, everywhere,” Cale says.
Every seven days, a new set of 50 questions are uploaded online which people can access through The Weekly Fifty website which can be found in the link in bio of their Instagram account, as well as through QR codes at multiple cafes around town, including Carton Deli and Sibling café. When scores are submitted, team photos to accompany are encouraged and make for a likely feature on The Weekly Fifty Instagram account.
The account now has over 1.2k followers and more than 500 weekly participants. It’s a platform that brings people together both in person and online, where social sharing and two-way engagement is a big part of the quiz structure, and a key attraction to quiz players.
“We wanted to create a space for people to have that inbuilt social frame of the quiz that normally is really one way,” Patrick says.
“Usually, media delivers quizzes to consumers and there is no interaction after that, but we wanted to do something a little more involving.”
The collective create the questions themselves, which they load up and categorise on a shared spreadsheet. Questions are screened by three elements: is the question itself interesting, regardless of the answer; does the answer give the audience something interesting to know; and finally, how easily guessable is it?
“We always want the questions to be as interesting to complete as they would be to someone getting them correct or incorrect,” Patrick explains.
“We always prefer when the process of the quiz is fun, regardless of the outcome.”
Although the initial vision of The Weekly Fifty was to be played between friends at a café, it has grown to be much more than that. Now people play it in bars, with their families on a Sunday night, at the barbershop, and even while camping in national parks (provided there is an internet connection).
Although there is more venue integration planned, and even a potential app on the cards for the future, The Weekly Fifty remains a fun activity to enjoy either by yourself or with friends. It sparks interesting discussions and provides an opportunity to learn something new in the process.
A final message from the crew is submit your answers, regardless of the score because “democracy dies in darkness”. Also, Cale asks to please submit photos vertical, not horizontal (for cropping purposes).
