FoodNeverComes has all the trimmings of a meals supply app. You’ll be able to scroll via a listing of eating places, choose your objects, and make modifications, then enter your handle and technique of cost and observe the courier as they carry the meals to your door. The one catch? Because the app’s title implies, the meals by no means really comes.
FoodNeverComes options no actual transactions or deliveries. As a substitute, it’s a part of a rising pattern of pretend on-line purchasing websites spreading from South Korea. On so-called “dopamine websites,” customers can simulate retail remedy with out the precise retail, getting the excitement that comes from buying one thing with none precise monetary price.
The science behind the idea provides up: Dopamine is generally released in the brain in anticipation of a reward, not when it’s obtained. Which means clicking a “purchase” button ought to really feel good even with no actual product hooked up to it—however skeptics on social media aren’t so certain.
The app’s origin story
FoodNeverComes was created by a South Korean developer named Malhee, who shared on social media that the concept got here to them on “a kind of nights once I saved opening and shutting supply apps.”
“I began it as a joke at first, however surprisingly, simply satisfying that urge to ‘order one thing’ made it weirdly fulfilling with out really ordering,” Malhee wrote in Korean, translated to English.
“Everybody’s like that as of late, proper? Not since you’re hungry, however out of behavior, boredom, your hand simply opens the supply app first. This app’s made to interrupt that sample, simply as soon as,” they continued. “Anybody who needs to stop supply apps however can’t, who’s on a weight-reduction plan however retains reaching for the app, or simply needs to take a look at a unusual app—you’re all welcome.”
“Taking part in faux for adults”: Social media weighs in
Although dopamine websites are reportedly growing in popularity among South Korean Gen Zers, the broader web isn’t as bought on the idea. When posts about FoodNeverComes and different dopamine websites went viral over the weekend, customers on apps like X decried the idea as a tragic reflection of late-stage capitalism.
“The world is such a miserable place, man,” reads one viral response. Another user joked that simulating on-line retail is like “window purchasing for individuals who can’t contact grass.”
Although apps like FoodNeverComes could lack broad enchantment, they may serve particular communities like these affected by on-line purchasing dependancy. On a subreddit for shopping addicts, customers debated the deserves of the app for maintaining them away from precise on-line shops.
Some had been on board, like one person who likened the app to how nonalcoholic beer may help recovering alcoholics. “Scratches the itch, particularly to start with,” they wrote. “You find yourself shifting on from it, however it may be a very useful stepping stone.”
However others stated the app could be extra aggravating than useful. “This is able to not work for me,” one person wrote. “It will simply piss me off figuring out nothing is definitely coming.”
A 3rd person stated the app is like “enjoying faux for adults,” including, “We’re mainly experiencing play purchasing like a baby once more.”
“There are much more necessary issues we might be doing with our time and a spotlight,” agreed one other commenter. “But when enjoying faux retains you from spending your cash and cluttering your own home up, perhaps the time invested is value it.”
