This dopamine phracking reminds me of neal stephenson's "snow crash".
"[.] a counter-virus (known as the nam-shub of Enki), which, when delivered, stopped the Sumerian language from being processed by the brain and led to the development of other, less literal languages, giving birth to the Babel myth. L. Bob Rife had been collecting Sumerian artifacts and developed the drug Snow Crash to make the public vulnerable to new forms of me, which he would control."
He's right - that phrase evokes what he means better than many alternatives.
But this feels like an article where you get all the useful info in the title. The rest is just a rant about the modern internet being bad for your brain.
This article has an odd juxtaposition between the complaints about apps and commodified content, and the author’s affinity for the very same content.
Right after complaining about the reductive concentration of content, outrage, and popular opinions for mass consumption, they link to a YouTube creator and advise us to go watch the videos. The topic is a reductive description of drug use that blames the bad part on evil capitalists, which is a popular opinion but hardly consistent with history.
They mention deleting apps that lead them to dopamine hits and trigger their outrage, but throughout the article they come back to Discord at where their anger at dopamine fracking was fomented.
I feel like I see this a lot lately where someone is partially aware of their own problems with self-regulation of content and app consumption, but they have a big blind spot for their biggest attention sinks. The common example is the person who proudly tells me they’re “not on social media” because they uninstalled Instagram but they spend 8 hours a day between Discord, Reddit, and gaming with some friends.
synthetic, pure, overly stimulating, taps into base mechanics of joy creation, prone to abuse but on the same time you still want it and tell yourself that you can control it. and sometimes you really do.
I've been maintaining a log of myself, instead of dopamine franking, I call this 'seeker behavior.' Frankly, adding a name to it is helping me avoid the high and letting me enjoy things more as time goes by, try it out!
A deeper dive would go into why this seems to be such a quintessentially American pursuit.
I'd speculate perhaps something to do with capitalism, and also maybe a culture made out of people coming together from other cultures was more able to throw out "baggage"(ie context) and distil pure experiences.
"All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."
I dunno, I love hating modern thing as much as the next guy, but this is just people being hyper sensitive. Your average 80s action comedy quips the same as any Marvel film.
I think the criticism isn’t around Marvel films being Marvel, but rather the reaction to Marvel films being popular to make every film like a Marvel film. Can’t really comment if that’s true, though I’ve definitely noticed an increase in films becoming franchises, etc, but I think that was the implication.
Humanity was fracking dopamine from art by first painting on cave walls, then oil on canvas, and eventually we got cinematography and video games. Author sounds like a luddite. Feel free to paint on cave walls. Nothing's happening to real strawberries either.
This dopamine phracking reminds me of neal stephenson's "snow crash".
"[.] a counter-virus (known as the nam-shub of Enki), which, when delivered, stopped the Sumerian language from being processed by the brain and led to the development of other, less literal languages, giving birth to the Babel myth. L. Bob Rife had been collecting Sumerian artifacts and developed the drug Snow Crash to make the public vulnerable to new forms of me, which he would control."
He's right - that phrase evokes what he means better than many alternatives.
But this feels like an article where you get all the useful info in the title. The rest is just a rant about the modern internet being bad for your brain.
Are there good recourses on common pattern/ techniques used for “dopamine fracking“?
We all know a hand full and dome are briefly touched on (emotional triggers). But a list of things to look out for would be nice.
This article has an odd juxtaposition between the complaints about apps and commodified content, and the author’s affinity for the very same content.
Right after complaining about the reductive concentration of content, outrage, and popular opinions for mass consumption, they link to a YouTube creator and advise us to go watch the videos. The topic is a reductive description of drug use that blames the bad part on evil capitalists, which is a popular opinion but hardly consistent with history.
They mention deleting apps that lead them to dopamine hits and trigger their outrage, but throughout the article they come back to Discord at where their anger at dopamine fracking was fomented.
I feel like I see this a lot lately where someone is partially aware of their own problems with self-regulation of content and app consumption, but they have a big blind spot for their biggest attention sinks. The common example is the person who proudly tells me they’re “not on social media” because they uninstalled Instagram but they spend 8 hours a day between Discord, Reddit, and gaming with some friends.
This seems in the same ballpark as the book Attensity!, which coined the term human fracking.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jan/18/how-can-we-def...
I like the idea of the term, but would want capture these:
1. Refinement, where things are made super-concentrated and pure
2. Supernormal stimuli, where the effect becomes unnaturally intense
3. How easy it becomes to consume the result
Something like 'dopamine super-refinement'.
digital mdma
synthetic, pure, overly stimulating, taps into base mechanics of joy creation, prone to abuse but on the same time you still want it and tell yourself that you can control it. and sometimes you really do.
I've been maintaining a log of myself, instead of dopamine franking, I call this 'seeker behavior.' Frankly, adding a name to it is helping me avoid the high and letting me enjoy things more as time goes by, try it out!
A deeper dive would go into why this seems to be such a quintessentially American pursuit.
I'd speculate perhaps something to do with capitalism, and also maybe a culture made out of people coming together from other cultures was more able to throw out "baggage"(ie context) and distil pure experiences.
Read the book Attensity they coined this
"All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."
"movies becoming too Marvel"
I dunno, I love hating modern thing as much as the next guy, but this is just people being hyper sensitive. Your average 80s action comedy quips the same as any Marvel film.
I think the criticism isn’t around Marvel films being Marvel, but rather the reaction to Marvel films being popular to make every film like a Marvel film. Can’t really comment if that’s true, though I’ve definitely noticed an increase in films becoming franchises, etc, but I think that was the implication.
Damn, that's a good way to describe it.
Humanity was fracking dopamine from art by first painting on cave walls, then oil on canvas, and eventually we got cinematography and video games. Author sounds like a luddite. Feel free to paint on cave walls. Nothing's happening to real strawberries either.
Also, I'd guess that more strawberries are grown today than ever before. After their artificial essence was created in the labs.
I enjoyed the article. It was very evocative.
“Grog are you in there dopamine fracking again?”
“It’s not what it looks like! Gawd, just leave me alone mom!”