If you feel like the internet is a lot less fun these days, you're not alone. For many of us, the online experience now consists of algorithm-driven sameness, punctuated by dangerous misinformation and the occasional horrifying image. But amidst all that, there's still Rotating Sandwiches — one of the few remaining sites on the internet that exist purely for fun, silliness or simply no reason at all.
Rotated Sandwiches is out there holding the torch for "weird internet" against endlessly regurgitated memes, unfunny Instagram reels and X (formerly Twitter), which is more of a cesspit than it's ever been. We spoke to its creator, Lauren, about winning an award, making the internet silly again and her all-time favorite sandwich.
How did Rotating Sandwiches come to be?
Lauren: The inspiration is probably fifty-fifty a post on Twitter from the depths of the internet archive account of spinning food GIFs, and the old Scanwiches blog from the early 00s. When I realized I had most of the equipment to make similar GIFs already on hand, thanks to a videography background, I tinkered around in Adobe AfterEffects and Photoshop until I had a viable workflow. I had been looking for a new creative outlet that wouldn't be a big time commitment and this seemed like a fun twist on food photography.
How much work is involved in creating the site, and getting those sandwiches up there? How do you pick which ones deserve to be rotated?
The site was relatively easy to set up, but it has proven more challenging to add some features I would like to provide, like pop-up alt text saying where the sandwiches are from. It probably needs a total redesign on a platform other than WordPress. Maybe I'll figure it out some day, but for now, I think the simplicity is part of the appeal.
I've changed out the sandwiches on it a few times, but I don't keep it to a set schedule or anything. I have phased out some of the older sandwich GIFs that were a little messier, from when I was first figuring out my process — I have a little over 100 GIFs total, and want to keep the site at 40 to 50 or so to prevent the page load times from getting any longer than they already are.
Rotating Sandwiches won the Tiny Awards' inaugural prize earlier this year (congrats!). How did that feel?
It was great to win, because I really admire the Tiny Awards' goal of encouraging site design that's smaller, funkier and less commercially driven than we typically see on the web these days. I think we would all be a lot better off if the internet was a stranger place, with more accessible tools for people to express their half-thought-out, cockamamie ideas.
Rotating Sandwiches is a weird, silly kind of refuge at a time when the internet is increasingly becoming an unpleasant and altogether less fun place. Was it your intention to create something like this, or has the nature of the internet now changed how you feel about the site and its impact?
I think it's definitely true that the current iteration of the internet is a darker, less fun place than it was when I was younger, and I wanted something that reminded me of the kinds of sites I might have found on StumbleUpon back in the day.
Rotating Sandwiches got added to The Useless Web a month or two ago, and that has led to a few thousand bored middle- and high-schoolers finding the site every week — so wasting time that would otherwise go towards young people's formal education is probably as close as I'll get to "paying it forward."
What's your favorite sandwich?
My favorite local sandwich is the Italian hoagie from Bub & Pop's that I keep right at the top of the site. Almost all of the sandwiches on Rotating Sandwiches are from Washington, DC, where I've lived for a few years now. It's a much better sandwich town than anyone gives it credit.
All-time favorite is probably the roast beef po' boy from Parkway Bakery in New Orleans, where I grew up — but sandwiches that messy are very hard to make look nice while spinning on an electronic jewelry display.
[Image credit: Rotating Sandwiches]
