The rise of fake online shopping platforms that let you pretend to buy things: Would you use a ‘dopamine site’?

Food Never Comes has all the trappings of a food delivery app. You can scroll through a list of restaurants, select your items and make modifications, then enter your address and method of payment and track the courier as they bring the food to your door. The only catch? As the app’s name implies, the food never actually comes. Food Never Comes has no real transactions or deliveries. Instead, it’s part of a growing trend of fake online shopping spreading from South Korea. On so-called “dopamine sites,” users can simulate retail therapy without the actual retail, getting the buzz that comes from purchasing something without any financial cost. The science behind the concept adds up: Dopamine is generally released in the brain in anticipation of a reward, not when it’s received. That means clicking a “buy” button should feel good even without a real product attached to it—but skeptics on social media aren’t so sure. The app’s origin story FoodNeverComes was created by a South Korean developer named Malhee, who shared on social media that the idea came to them on “one of those nights when I kept opening and closing delivery apps.” “I started it as a joke at first, but surprisingly, just satisfying that urge to ‘order something’ made it weirdly fulfilling without actually ordering,” Malhee wrote in Korean, translated to English. “Everyone’s like that these days, right? Not because you’re hungry, but out of habit, boredom, your hand just opens the delivery app first. This app’s made to break that pattern, just once,” they continued. “Anyone who wants to quit delivery apps but can’t, who’s on a diet but keeps reaching for the app, or just wants to check out a quirky app—you’re all welcome.” ‘Playing pretend for adults’: Social media weighs in Though dopamine sites are reportedly growing in popularity among South Korean Gen Zers, the broader internet isn’t as sold on the concept. When posts about FoodNeverComes and other dopamine sites went viral over the weekend, users on app