One Million Checkboxes Creator Dubs It 'Dumbest Website of All Time' – and Proof the Internet Can Still Be Fun

“When I call the website dumb I say that with a lot of love for dumb websites on the internet," Nolen Royalty tells PEOPLE

There's a new website the internet can't get enough of — and its creator calls it the latest in a line of "dumb" sites that exist solely to provide joy.

A week ago, Nolen Royalty, a software engineer and independent game developer, launched One Million Checkboxes. The premise of the site is simple: as the name suggests, there are one million checkboxes, which anybody can check or uncheck. If you check a box, it becomes checked for everybody and the same is true for unchecking.

"That's it," Royalty wrote in a social media message announcing the launch. "Have fun!"

Speaking on X, formerly known as Twitter, Royalty dubbed One Million Checkboxes the “dumbest website of all time," while going on to admit that working on it has been "some of the most fun I've ever had."

Speaking to PEOPLE on Wednesday, July 3, the developer explains that “when I call the website dumb I say that with a lot of love for dumb websites on the internet."

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"The internet that I grew up on was filled with silly websites and flash games built purely for the joy of sharing something with the world," Royalty adds, acknowledging that things have changed a lot since then.

“It's very cool and very special to build something that calls back to that era. I truly hope this encourages someone to build a simple, joyful site with no regard for scaling up or monetization," he adds. "The internet can still be fun!”

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As for the work that went into launching the site, Royalty tells PEOPLE he built it in two days and initially thought he'd "get a couple hundred players total."

Instead, he's already had "hundreds of thousands of players who have checked hundreds of millions of boxes!"

“I've been so delighted that people are enjoying the site," he adds.

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Since launching the website last week, the creator has been extremely busy, telling PEOPLE he's been "working like crazy (and up at very odd hours) trying to keep the site online."

Of course, there have been a few hiccups.

"I slept for about seven hours total between launching on Wednesday and Friday night as I frantically spun up more servers and updated the code to support the crazy usage," Royalty told The Washington Post, noting that one of his friends even helped rewrite the site on Sunday when it temporarily went offline.

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Speaking with PEOPLE, Royalty has nothing but thanks to everybody who's helped support him.

"I'd like to shout out my friend Neal (of neal.fun) - the site first came up during a brainstorming session with him. Neal is brilliant and inspiring and there's no way the site exists without him," he said. "Thank you also to my friends Greg and Eliot for helping me keep the site online, and to my girlfriend Emma for putting up with me during a crazy week."

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