By Cozy Cooper
Some days, the internet feels like the same handful of pages wearing different logos. Then you find a website devoted to rotating sandwiches and remember that somebody can still buy a domain and use it for absolutely that.
This is a collection of ten such detours: small jokes, peculiar interactions and places with a magnificent lack of ambition. Open whichever sounds best. You do not need to visit all ten to get the point, though getting the point is quite literally the purpose of the first one.
The mouse-driven experiments are best explored on a computer. For a quick visit on your phone, start with the pug or the sandwiches. Keep your volume low before trying the musical ones.
Pointer Pointer: someone has located your cursor
Move your mouse, hold it still, and wait for a photograph of somebody pointing at the spot where you left it. That is the entire premise of Pointer Pointer. Somehow, seeing a stranger correctly identify the location of your cursor is enough to make you move it again.
The fun is in the pause before the next picture. You already know the punchline, but you still want to see how the site will deliver it this time. It makes an ordinary mouse pointer feel briefly like the most important thing on the internet.
A little detour: Try three wildly different positions. A mouse or trackpad is the natural way to enjoy this one.
Pointer
Pointer
Move your cursor.Someone will point.
Pug in a Rug: your presence is the achievement
There is a pug. There is a rug. There is a counter keeping track of how long you have been honoring the pug. A small title gives your very serious new occupation a name.
Most websites want you to finish something. This one has made simply remaining on the page into an activity. It is an excellent joke about the tiny rewards that keep us looking at screens, delivered by a dog who appears to have considerably fewer concerns than you do.
A little detour: Stay long enough to appreciate the absurdity, then leave whenever the pug has received sufficient recognition.
Pug in a Rug
A pug. A rug.Stay for a little while.
Rotating Sandwiches: lunch, viewed from every angle
A gallery of sandwiches rotates in front of you. It is exactly as advertised, which is part of the pleasure. The sandwiches receive the kind of patient visual attention usually reserved for expensive products in a showroom.
Browse a few and notice how quickly you start having opinions. That filling looks good. That bread deserves another look. You arrived at a visual joke and somehow became a sandwich curator. There are worse ways to spend a minute before lunch.
A little detour: Choose the sandwich you would actually order. No need to pretend this is an objective ranking.
Rotating Sandwiches
Sandwiches in a spin.Nothing more or less.
Eel Slap: a remarkably specific mouse gesture
Eel Slap turns a short visual gag into something you control: move your cursor across the image to scrub through a man being slapped with an eel. The name gives away the joke. Controlling the timing supplies the rest.
The interaction is wonderfully excessive for such a small idea. A quick sweep and a slow pass feel different, even though the same ridiculous event is unfolding. It belongs to the tradition of websites built because somebody thought, “What if this had its own domain?”
A little detour: Use a mouse or trackpad and try one slow sweep across the picture.
Eel Slap
A mouse-powered eel slap.Ridiculous. That is the point.
The Long Doge Challenge: an extremely questionable use of scrolling
An ASCII dog stretches down the page while you scroll and collect “wows.” It takes a familiar browsing habit and gives it a thoroughly ridiculous destination: more dog.
The text-art appearance makes the whole thing feel like a joke passed around an older corner of the web. Watching the counters gives your scrolling just enough purpose to become suspiciously compelling. You may decide that your dog is quite long enough. You may also scroll once more to be certain.
A little detour: Set yourself a modest wow target before starting. The challenge is remembering that you chose it.
Bongo Cat: the internet has hired a percussionist
Bongo Cat lets you make music with a little illustrated cat. The page shows the controls for its instruments, so you can go from arriving to making a noise without much ceremony.
The charm is in the gap between your ambitions and the cat’s extremely cute performance. You can attempt a proper rhythm or tap a few keys and consider that your debut single. After several sites with almost nothing to do, this one gives your fingers a small job.
A little detour: Start with the volume low and follow the on-screen controls. Try a simple repeating beat before adding more sounds.
Bongo Cat
A little cat.A lot of rhythm.
Is It Christmas?: one question, very little ambiguity
This website answers the question in its domain name. Visit on an ordinary October afternoon and the answer is a very clear no. There is something satisfying about a page with such a narrowly defined responsibility.
The joke is how much infrastructure the internet can devote to a question you almost certainly knew the answer to already. Save it somewhere you will rediscover it months later. The bookmark itself is likely to make you smile before you even open the page.
A little detour: Put this one in your December bookmarks. Its moment in the spotlight is unusually predictable.
Is It Christmas
One very seasonal question.Is it Christmas yet?
Chicken on a Raft: you have arrived at the chorus
Press the chicken to begin. A chicken, a raft and a musical accompaniment provide the rest of the experience. It is a tiny destination with the confidence to commit completely to its own silly premise.
Some web jokes need a reveal. This one tells you what it is immediately, then lets repetition do the work. Whether you last a few seconds or linger longer probably depends on your tolerance for a song that may follow you into the next room.
A little detour: This one has sound. Start quietly, press the chicken, and give it a moment to establish its very specific atmosphere.
Chicken on a Raft
A chicken. A raft. A song.Stay aboard for a while.
Blank: a nearly empty corner of the web
After the cat, the chicken and the unusually long dog, Blank is a palate cleanser: an almost entirely empty page. Resist the urge to assume that a missing feed means something needs fixing.
Its place in this list comes from the contrast. You have spent the last few minutes visiting pages devoted to increasingly specific things. Now you are looking at a site that offers almost nothing at all. It is the browser equivalent of leaving a very eccentric party and standing outside for a moment.
A little detour: Give it five seconds without opening another tab. That may be the strangest challenge in the article.
Blank
A blank page.That is the whole website.
The Useless Web: let the next detour choose you
The Useless Web is a jumping-off point for more of this kind of nonsense. Press its prominent button and let it send you to another odd little website. The destination is the surprise.
It is a fitting final stop because it keeps the discovery going beyond a fixed list. Several of the projects above live in this same playful orbit. You may meet a familiar idea, or land somewhere that makes you wonder who thought to build it in the first place.
A little detour: Try one destination and spend a moment there before asking for another. The little joke deserves time to land.
The Useless Web
A useless websitefor when you’re bored.
Keep a little room for pointless things
The best part of a site like this is the person-shaped idea behind it. Someone decided that a sandwich should rotate, a pug should be honored, or a mouse pointer should receive photographic confirmation. Then they made it happen.
Save the two that made you laugh. Give your bookmark folder an appropriately unhelpful name. When the usual pages start to feel a little too familiar, you will know where to find a small detour.
For a gentler next stop, try our five websites for a slow afternoon, or browse the full collection of curious websites.
