papertoilet.com
What papertoilet.com is, in plain terms
papertoilet.com is a single-purpose interactive artwork on the web: you land on a page showing a roll of toilet paper, and your main action is to “use” it by unrolling it through scrolling or dragging. When you reach the end, you reset it and do it again. That’s basically the whole experience, and that’s the point. It’s not pretending to be a productivity tool or a game with levels. It’s a small loop of interaction that turns a familiar physical action into a digital one.
The site credits the artist Rafaël Rozendaal and dates the work to 2006, with code credited to Reinier Feijen. Those credits matter because, unlike most “random” novelty sites, this one sits inside the tradition of internet art where authorship is part of the object.
How the interaction actually works
The interaction is deliberately minimal: you scroll and the paper unwinds; you keep going until it’s gone; then you restore the roll and repeat. The feedback is immediate and visual, and it doesn’t ask you to learn rules. That simplicity is doing a lot of work. It makes the piece legible in seconds, which is important for browser-based art where attention is fragile and exits are cheap.
A lot of web experiences try to reduce friction so you can get to “content.” Here, the friction is the content. The repetitive motion is the whole thing, and you notice the rhythm of your own input. It’s a small design move, but it’s a real choice: the site doesn’t reward you with a new screen or a punchline, it just lets you keep doing the action because the action itself is mildly satisfying.
Why a “useless” website can still be serious work
papertoilet.com often gets described as a “useless website,” which sounds dismissive, but it’s also a pretty accurate category label: there’s no utility output and nothing to optimize. The value is experiential. You’re not meant to walk away informed. You’re meant to notice how easily a browser can become a tiny toy, and how quickly your brain accepts a digital version of something physical.
In internet art, that matters because the medium isn’t neutral. A web page is usually framed as a container for information or commerce. When an artist uses the same container to host a single, looping interaction, it pushes against the default assumptions of what websites are “for.” That’s not a huge manifesto on the page, but the constraint is the statement.
The art-market angle: a website as an artwork you can collect
Rozendaal’s web works are also known for raising practical questions: if a website is the artwork, what does ownership look like? papertoilet.com explicitly includes collection credit (not just author credit), signaling that the work is situated within a collector-and-artist ecosystem, even though you can access it freely in your browser.
That tension—public access, private ownership—is part of the modern internet-art story. The page you see is free, but the domain, the hosting, the code, and the ongoing maintenance are real assets with real costs. In older art forms, the object is stable and the venue changes. For websites, the venue (the live internet) is inseparable from the object. If the domain expires or the code breaks in a modern browser, the “same” artwork might disappear or mutate. That fragility is not an accident; it’s one of the defining properties of web-native work.
Design details that make it stick in memory
A lot of novelty sites rely on randomness or surprise. Paper Toilet relies on familiarity and repetition. The visual is instantly readable: you don’t need instructions because you already know what a toilet paper roll is and what it’s used for. That recognition lowers the barrier to interaction. Then the site adds one twist: you’re “wasting” something, but without consequence, which creates a tiny guilty pleasure feeling for some users.
There’s also something quietly clever about choosing toilet paper as the object. It’s mundane, slightly private, and tied to routine. Putting it at the center of a webpage collapses boundaries between the clean, public interface of the internet and a very ordinary, bodily-adjacent object. The site doesn’t make a speech about that. It just puts the object there and lets the user perform the action.
Safety and trust: what to know before you click around
Because papertoilet.com is an artwork and not a storefront, the usual signals people look for—product pages, policies, contact forms—aren’t really present. That can confuse automated “is this site safe?” scanners, and you’ll find mixed ratings from different reputation-checking sites. Some flag it as questionable due to heuristics like low traffic or proximity to other domains, while others rate it as likely safe.
If you’re evaluating it like a normal user, the common-sense approach is simpler: it’s a single interactive page, it’s been online a long time, and it’s broadly referenced as an established internet artwork. Still, basic hygiene applies anywhere: don’t download random files you weren’t looking for, don’t enter credentials into pages that don’t need them, and if your browser throws a security warning, take it seriously. The site’s purpose doesn’t require you to provide personal information.
Where it fits in the bigger history of web-based art
The mid-2000s were a fertile era for small, self-contained web works: pieces that were easy to load, quick to understand, and focused on one interaction. papertoilet.com sits right in that lineage. It’s also tied to a contemporary art context via artist attribution and cataloging in places that track web artworks as cultural artifacts, not just internet ephemera.
What’s interesting now, years later, is that the piece still reads clearly even as the internet around it has become louder and more optimized. In a feed-driven world, a page that does one thing, slowly, on your terms, can feel oddly direct. Not relaxing in a mystical way—just direct. You move, it responds, and nothing else is trying to happen.
Key takeaways
- papertoilet.com is a minimalist interactive web artwork: you unroll a virtual toilet paper roll and reset it.
- The simplicity is intentional; the looped interaction is the content, not a gateway to something else.
- The page is credited as a 2006 work by Rafaël Rozendaal, with code credited to Reinier Feijen, and it even notes a collector context.
- It’s commonly framed as a “useless website,” but it fits a real tradition of internet art focused on experience over utility.
- Reputation scanners give mixed signals because the site doesn’t behave like a typical business site; the safest assumption is to treat it as a view-only experience and avoid sharing data.
FAQ
Who made papertoilet.com?
It’s credited to artist Rafaël Rozendaal (dated 2006), with code credited to Reinier Feijen on the site itself.
What do you actually do on the site?
You interact with a virtual roll of toilet paper by unrolling it (commonly via scrolling), reach the end, then reset it and repeat.
Is it a game?
It depends on how strict you are with the word “game.” There’s interaction but no objective, score, or progression. Many people describe it as a “useless website” or a tiny interactive distraction, which is closer to what it is.
Is papertoilet.com safe to visit?
Different automated checkers disagree, largely because the site is atypical. From a practical user standpoint, it shouldn’t require downloads or personal data. Use normal web caution: don’t enter sensitive info, and heed browser warnings.
Why would someone “collect” a website?
In web-based art, the artwork can be the domain, the code, and the right to present the work as the authentic instance. papertoilet.com explicitly includes collection credit, hinting at that art-market framework even though the page is publicly accessible.
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