Let’s face it: the internet’s got boring

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the online world is irrevocably enshittified, but every now and again it’s nice to be reminded of the fact that there are still good things out there. Which is why, for the fourth year running, I’ve been involved in running the Tiny Awards, celebrating the very best of the small, non-commercial web.

Every year we open nominations for the best website of the past year – the only rule is that they should be entirely non-corporate and non-commercial. A panel puts together a shortlist, the world then votes to pick its favourite, and we award a tiny cash prize and a handmade trophy. 

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No, your phone isn’t listening to you

Matt Muir

The Tiny Awards exist because it’s easy to forget what the internet, at its best, can be: an infinite canvas for human expression, delivered through words and images and code. 

Just look at a few of the sites nominated for this year’s Tiny Awards and remember all of the ways in which the web is brilliant and beautiful and inspiring and human. 

Take Cursor Camp. Built by Neal Agarwal, it’s a slightly-dizzying (and very silly) achievement, recreating the experience of a US summer camp in your browser. Explore the hand-drawn environment, find the hidden games, crack secret codes, go dancing, play football, ride down the river in a rubber ring, all the while experiencing it alongside everyone else from around the world who’s visiting the website at the same time. 

Or maybe you’d prefer to indulge in some Train Jazz; over in New York, Joshua Wolk has created a site which makes live jazz music, improvised from the realtime movement of the trains of the NYC subway network. Each line is an instrument, each train on each line creates the notes, and the site is a constantly-playing, never-repeated series of riffs and refrains born from the maths of the city’s mass transit system.

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2026 – the year fakes finally broke social media

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One of the defining terms of the modern internet era is “Dead Internet Theory”, the belief that human content and activity online is being squeezed out by AI, bots and automation. Another of this year’s nominations is a site called “Alive Internet Theory” by the artist Spencer Chang, which draws on material from the Internet Archive to bombard you with a multimedia onslaught of images and videos and audio files from our digital history. 

Every time you open the site, the experience is different, taking you to a different moment from the web’s past and letting it wash over you, an overwhelming river of digital memories and ephemera that we collectively created. 

It’s not all arty and high-concept, of course; Hallucinate, by George Stagas, calls itself a “massive, multiplayer online rave” and delivers on that promise. Experience the collective euphoria of a shared dancefloor experience while sitting at home on your laptop, as real-life DJ sets stream on big video screens and ravers chat, wave and attain musical transcendence.

Much of the web is made up of memories, and Paul Brown’s iPod, built by one of Paul’s children, is a digital recreation of one person’s iPod Mini, complete with the music and photos that were on it at the time of their passing; there’s something heartbreaking and poignant about the iPod as memorial site, and it’s strange how using the central wheel to scroll through the albums and tracks takes on newfound significance when you know you’re replicating the gestures of the device’s owner who can no longer make them himself. 

These are just five of the eleven shortlisted sites – you can see the full list of nominations, and cast your vote here – but they demonstrate the infinite possibility of the web as a creative medium.

Remember when we used to joyfully “surf” the web rather than doomily scroll through it? It’s time to make the internet great again.

Voting for the Tiny Awards is open until 25 September 2026