Faking it digitally

Imagine scrolling through a food delivery menu, placing your order and even tracking its delivery — only that the transaction simply never goes through, and you ‘fulfill’ your ritual of ordering without the calories or the bill.

Welcome to the world of ‘dopamine websites’, currently a rage in South Korea, that allow users to simulate the online shopping experience and get the dopamine hit when making an impulsive purchase. Taking the window shopping experience online, these quirky, virtual platforms often offer hyper-realistic mockups of food delivery apps or shopping sites, albeit the last and often regretful step of receiving the product and making a payment.