Let me just try Cookie Clicker for five minutes…
Andddd I’m opening portals to the cookieverse three hours later.
As of this moment, I have produced some 490,000,000 cookies in my web browser, enough to set all of North America on a steady course for Type-2 diabetes (you’re next, Europe).
History books, I am told, have been written about me. My product has been named a wonder of the world, and strange creatures from other dimensions are zapping into existence just to get a taste. Some would say I’ve achieved a certain degree of success, if only virtual. Others would refuse to even speak of cookie supplies that number less than one hundred trillion. There is work to be done.
But how did it come to this? How did a well adjusted 25-year old who so deftly avoids “brain traps” like Candy Crush fall into a world of cosmic grandmothers and flux capacitors? The answer, I am loath to suggest, is mind control. You heard right.
It begins with a foot in the door. Here, click this cookie! It’s a simple, harmless request that simple, harmless people like myself can’t help but comply with. “But clicking cookies will get old after about 15 seconds!” You are not wrong, anonymous reader. However, Cookie Clicker is supreme in its understanding of the exact threshold where your attention span will run out.
In this moment, you’re presented with something wondrous.
Now you can buy cursors to click for you! or Here’s a time machine so you can go back in history and retrieve all of the cookies of the past! This is pretty compelling stuff by itself, trust me. Add to that a cookie count which quite literally increases exponentially every minute, and this little application suddenly has the power to bring the entire internet to its knees. If that weren’t enough, Cookie Clicker runs silently and patiently in the background while you work. Perfection.
All in all, it’s a fascinating case study, and it’s growing fast. Really fast. It has inspired artists, and struck up existential conversations. We have gone so far as to recognize its evil, and embrace it. I’m quite sure it won’t be long before brands jump onboard. This, my friends, is a phenomenon. So what?
When I originally decided to write this piece, there was some greater lesson I wanted to share with all of you. There were symbols and motifs that would help you avoid the same fate myself and millions of others have suffered, and continue to suffer. There was purpose. But I’ve just hit one billion cookies, and it’s time to introduce this little universe I created to macadamia nuts. So, it’ll have to wait.
Sorry.
[Edit: Less than 24 hours later, I am consulting web advisors on how to spend the 477,000,000,000 cookies that greeted me this morning. This will doubtlessly be my last correspondence.]
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By day, Luke Kingma is a senior copywriter at VaynerMedia, one of the leading digital and social media agencies in NY. By night, he documents a world he’s always hungry to explore with UntappedCities. On occasion, he dabbles in professional beer glass stealing. Please don’t tell. Follow him @LukeKingma.
