FoodNeverComes belongs to a new internet genre: “dopamine sites”, which recreate the rituals of consumption without the consumption. There are fake shopping sites, fake delivery services and even fake holidays.
The genre took off in South Korea, external and has since travelled well beyond, spawning a growing crop of sites – Dopamine Shop, external or Fakehaul, external, for example – that mimic everything from food delivery and shopping to travel.
What, exactly, are we enjoying when we enjoy buying something?
The idea began with the founders’ own shopping habits. Parmar and Sharma met on a computer science diploma course and later started NeuroX AI, which builds software and AI products and makes Instagram content. They noticed it in their own lives: online baskets filling up with things they wanted, but never actually bought.
Sharma would browse electronics, fill an online basket and abandon it. Parmar’s mother did much the same. “She would add things to the cart and say, ‘I will order this later’,” he recalls.
Parmar’s own version ended at food delivery checkouts. During a two-month project in Mumbai, he says, he was spending 5,000-10,000 rupees a week on food, sometimes ordering treats he did not necessarily need: Belgian waffles, ice cream and, once, a large jar of sour cream he barely wanted and gave away to friends.
He believes “perhaps the real craving was not always for the food, but for the ritual of ordering it”.
