💘 Websites to love if you love love

Forget chocolate and cards. Making someone a website is the greatest act of romance.

I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day. I’m not big on holidays, but I surprisingly love this one. Over the weekend, I spent some time gathering websites that bring romance, passion, or just platonic appreciation and care. From the handmade to the vibecoded, these will make even the most solitary of us … just maybe … believe in love?

Did I miss one? Let me know, and I’ll add it here or include it in a future issue!

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Digibouquet by Pauline Wee

You can also build a bouquet in black-and-white. / Digibouquet by Pauline Wee

Want to deliver flowers to a long-distance love or online friend? Digibouquet lets you select from 12 “blooms” (orchid, tulip, dahlia, anemone, carnation, zinnia, ranunculus, sunflower, lily, daisy, peony, rose) and three different greeneries to arrange a digital bouquet, which you can also add a letter to.

Ping by Kasturi Khanke

After clicking a type of recipient, you can shuffle through different card greetings—think Hallmark meets tech Twitter. / Ping by Kasturi Khanke

This one is for the techies. Send a simple card to an engineer, product manager, designer, even a “situationship in production.”

for my love by Emily Zhang

You can see a gallery of others’ chosen vessels, with date, time, and character count visible, but messages hidden. / for my love by Emily Zhang

To celebrate both Valentine’s Day and Lunar New Year, Emily Zhang 3D-scanned three vessels of text. Choose from “handmade fortune cookie,” “shiny red packet,” and “tiny bamboo paper envelope,” and write messages inside them.

Link Bouquet by Danger Testing

Danger Testing, by Los Mayers and Marc Mueller, is also behind a number of bold, funny, viral sites and apps, from vandalizefriend.com to Criterion Wrapped. / Link Bouquet by Danger Testing

Much more romantic than texting a link, Link Bouquet lets you collect a bouquet of chosen links—articles, videos, Substack posts—to send to a loved one. You can also change your flower choice and background color.

A Map of Us by Gabe Szeto

AMOU also gives you the option to bookmark different “memories.” / A Map of Us by Gabe Szeto

Similar to Queering the Map (see below), A Map of Us is a collective map of memories. “It’s a feelings journal, world guide, and letter to the world, all in one place. Leave a mou, read others nearby, and slowly stitch together A Map of Us,” the site describes.

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From previously on PHONE TIME…

i feel so much shame by Jackie Liu

This interactive browser narrative will make you feel

i feel so much shame is an interactive, browser-based project combining buttons, dropdown menus, hyperlinks, and Risograph printing. Through clicking, you’re taken on a journey, exploring shame, desire, self-doubt, confidence, and renewal.

“I thought that the Web 1.0 aesthetics—plain links, really basic forms—would fit into that constraint of keeping it simple. I just liked the idea of something raw and stripped down to the basics—working with subject matter that’s very personal and core, but also universal,” Liu told me.

Rithm by Tina Tarighian

This website uses your Instagram Explore page to help you 'find ur scrollmate'

“Other dating apps make you perform. Curate. Lie about loving hiking. Your algorithm already knows who you'd swipe right on.” That’s the sell of Rithm, which wants to help you find love through a screenshot of your Instagram Explore page, which Rithm calls a “scrollshot.” You’ll also get a “digital pheromone,” a description of the essences your scrollshot emanates.

Tarighian was inspired by Tega Brain’s Smell Dating service in making Rithm. / Rithm by Tina Tarighian

say-one-more-thing.com by Tina Tarighian

Ever wanted to say one more thing to a past lover? This is your chance. Type whatever you want. There’s a one in a million chance your message will be delivered to the recipient within the next year.

A lot of Tarighian’s work, including the email lottery, explores themes of surveillance. / say-one-more-thing.com by Tina Tarighian

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Classics

The Unsent Project by Rora Blue

“The term first love is open to interpretation and messages have been submitted to lovers, best friends, exes, parents, siblings, and even pets.” / The Unsent Project by Rora Blue

The Unsent Project, started in 2015, is described as a collection of “unsent text messages to first loves.” But that almost doesn’t do it justice. The project is an expression of deep vulnerability, of what ifs and right places wrong times. Look up your own name, and wonder who the intended recipients are, and if any might have been you.

See also: After the Beep

Many are short, under 30 seconds, yet full of depth and emotion. And one is called “not a booty call, just dating a DJ.” / After the Beep by Rora Blue

Also made by Rora Blue, After the Beep is a collection of submitted voicemails, organized by color (maroon, red, orange, light orange, tangerine, peach, tan, brown, yellow, light green, green, dark green, army green, turquoise, blue grey, pale blue, light blue, blue, dark blue, dark purple, purple, light purple, dull purple, pale purple, pale pink, light pink, pink, white, light grey, grey, black, and uncategorized). You can also read the transcriptions of the voicemails.

PostSecret by Frank Warren

The postcards range from the artistic to the simple, the vulnerable to the brash. / PostSecret by Frank Warren

While snail mail clubs have become a favorite way for people to connect offline, PostSecret has been a way for people to share bits of intimacy since 2004 via the simple postcard.

“I feel like PostSecret is almost like an anti-Facebook. It’s the true story that you would normally never share in a public arena. But in some ways, the more of ourselves we share online through social media, the less value it has.” — Frank Warren in a 2015 interview with Ben Huberman, Longreads

The PostSecret instructions.

See also: The PostSecret Valentine’s Exhibition

Queering the Map by Lucas LaRochelle

There’s also a print book companion to the project. / Queering the Map by Lucas LaRochelle

Queering the Map is a community map chronicling queer life and experience, “from park benches to the middle of the ocean,” the site describes. What stands out to me about Queering the Map is the amount of behind-the-scenes moderation work.

“Internet projects typically have short life spans, and Mx. LaRochelle has learned in the past six years how time-intensive and expensive it is to tend a continuously growing archive with a small team of stewards.” — Katherine Oung, “Just Made a Queer Memory? Drop a Pin,” The New York Times