Except you need to pick your own UTF-8 character to make it shorter, which is a pain because a lot of them are already taken.

no you don't, it's just a weird interface. Random UTF8 characters like the above example are generated automatically if you enter a url.

You _can_ input your own to have something like http://✩.ws/awesometastic

I wouldn't call it a weird interface.

I would call it the one of the most confusing and idiotic interfaces I've used in a while. Or perhaps I'm stupid? That's how the website made me feel.

Seconded. Am stupid. Website made me remember.

I had to delete the "Type a word here" placeholder text to get it to pick something for me (using Safari). I almost certainly would've given up and assumed it was a required input if you hadn't hinted that it can be made to work.

Hmm tinyarrows can link to itself too: http://➡.ws/Z̶̷̡̤̺͎̝͕̺͚̺̖̞̫̘͔̟̈́ͮ̍̃͋̇ͪͨ̎͒͂̍͑̕͡À̿ͣ̓ͩͭ̉ͬ͑̈̀͊́̊...