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Dopamine Sites Trigger A Fake Consumption Trend
Dopamine download // Image by Kait Cunniff with DALL-E
A growing number of satirical “dopamine sites” are giving consumers the rush of fulfilling an online order without actually buying or receiving anything.
Why It Hits: One-click online shopping, gamified stock purchases, and food-delivery apps have made it way too easy — and fulfilling — to place orders. Dopamine sites hope to deliver the rush of chemicals associated with that satisfaction while also raising awareness of the problem. It could either make everyone a little more cognizant of their bad habits or motivate people to look for a realer hit.
Behind The Carts: Dopamine sites, which originated in South Korea, have become a global phenomenon. Here are a few examples:
Fake Haul, created by Microsoft developer Jack Yang, is a fake Temu-like megastore that lets people add endless amounts of items to a fake cart.
FoodNeverArrives, built by mechanical engineer Seohyun Park, lets people “order” food for delivery and see what their monetary and caloric intake would be.
FoodNeverComes, created by Purvansh Parmar and Anshul Sharma, was inspired by FoodNeverArrives but also shows people recipes for what they “order.”
Damta World, developed by Seojin Ko, mimics taking a smoke break. It also includes a chat with floating messages, so users can get the full experience.
Checkout: Amazingly, these sites have racked up millions of views and hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. The founders told NYT they’ve heard countless anecdotes about how these sites have made people more conscious of their bad spending habits, limited real shopping, and, at least in the case of Damta World, even led to real-world friendships.
Who knew a joke could have such an impact?
Prediction: Could dopamine sites become part of professional rehabilitation therapy? Crazier things have happened.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.