Day 10: Having A Smartphone Is An Advertisers Wet-Dream

Today I went to Panda Express for the first time in awhile. They were running a new special: 20% off your order if you sign up for rewards.

When I got to the counter to pay, they offered me the same special. I told them I'd like to sign up, but I don't have a smartphone to get the app. The cashier looked at me perplexed, like I was a caveman asking how to make a fire. Certainly nobody could not have a smartphone!

So I didn't get the rewards or the 20% account. Even though I asked if it was possible to set up a rewards account on their computer instead. She said no... so it got me thinking.

Why is Panda Express offering 20% off orders for signing up through the app? That seems like .. a bad business practice. That would have saved me a whole like, I don't know, $5 off the meal or so? Listen, I like to get a large plate at Panda, don't judge me.

But the whole ordeal made me think, surely this corporation has something more up their sleeve I'm not seeing. Then, it hit me.

The reason Panda Express, and other fast food shit joints, want us to sign up for rewards and apps is so they can tap in to our psyche. Enable notifications so they can send you a random notification at 2PM saying "Hungry? Try our new Teriyaki chicken!" or "Craving Walnut Shrimp?" It's a marketing ploy. I mean, of course it is, I'm not Johnny Rocket over here.

But it made me think. These companies know we're all addicted to our smartphones like little lab rats going after cheese all day. They know they can tap in to our psyche and our dopamine hits through pretty little colors and cute little buzzing notifications. They're literally pavlov-dogging us.

It makes me think; how much literal shit-slop from Chipotle, McDonalds, Panda Express, and elsewhere have I consumed simply because of the smartphone? From Reddit ads to YouTube reels talking about the new honey shrimp at [insert shit joint here], all of it taps in to our caveman brain:  food! food! I waaaaant the honey shrimp. Next thing you know, you're wobbling to the car like a mindless zombie and driving to the local McDonalds or whatever to get your fill. 

It's made me realize having a smartphone is a marketer's wet dream. We literally spend thousands of dollars so these soulless fucks can reach our brains  easier and at our most relaxed state. What a  sick  joke!

I just imagine the team of PhD-level psychologists sitting in a cramped, LED-light room  in D.C. or wherever the fuck their shit-joint headquarters is, putting their braincells all together and trying  to think of ways to trick consumers in to eating their literal slop. Fuckin' dumbasses, don't they know the same tricks and ploys are going to be used on themselves and their family? It's like the idiot Oppenheimer who invented  the Nuke;  I bought he thought he was the fuckin' Man himself, until he released the same technology can be used on his country, now.

Fuckin' dumbasses, the lot of 'em. Anyway, give me a Big Mac with a Large Fry and Diet Coke.