ionlymadethiswebsite4u is an interactive narrative webpage that engages popup poetics to explore memory, love, and loss.

i use popups to depict how memories come back unbidden yet are necessary to confront in the grieving process, and how those memories can look and feel different every time they resurface. i also explore the relationship of digital documentation and human memory. the text on the popups is unedited snippets of my diary that lives in google docs, and the photos are from my camera roll.

i started making this after i was driving down sunset one night in april, listening to music so good i got a little scared (in the “encounters with the divine” way), and i was suddenly overcome with a flood of memories i didn’t want to face.

you can choose whether to close out all popups as soon as they appear, whackamole style, let them flood the screen, or somewhere in between. you can also choose whether you'd like to see the photos or not. like the memories they carry, they degrade with time. the popups work as a metaphor for negotiating the past, the present, and the ways that they’re inextricable.

this project asks, how do we understand and narrativize our lives through memories and digital archives of the self? how do we grapple with the explanations we won’t find by revisiting memories? how does documentation complexify our relationships to nostalgia, grief, and healing, and what do we do with our archives of digital ephemera as we fall apart and carry on?



inspirations and thank yous –

to dss, who told me i could do it when i thought i couldn’t; to the web writing workshop, who gave thoughtful and generous feedback; to the short formers, who also gave me guidance while making sure i didn't crash out

to pockets, twenty-twelve; to read it and weep; to interrupt; to the desert lighthouse

to last songs everywhere, especially – when avalon emerson played her edit of unlock it at four tet & friends 2024; when objekt played lift you by moin under the sixth street bridge on may 18, 2025; when ben ufo and joy orbison closed out their b2b with you ain’t got to go home by james massiah; when objekt closed his nts rush mix with an emotional rollercoaster that soundtracked my last few months

& to you, curls – may you always find your way home from the vortex