With his online experiment, Reddit user Justin Foley is demonstrating the power exclusivity. He’s proving how people will fall for pretty much anything – or nothing – by merely tagging it ‘exclusive’.

Foley set up a portal called ‘mostexclusivewebsite.com’, consisting of just a few lines of text and a counter. Access is granted to only one person at a 60-second interval. With the click of a button, you will be added to a virtual line of over 2,500 people (at the time of this writing), waiting to gain access. If you close the website window, the ticket is lost.

“The internet was designed to be open and accessible; what if I made a design that was the antithesis of one of the defining qualities of the internet?” Foley told The Washington Post. He added that about one in nine people are making it inside the website – the rest leave before their number is called. And Wired.co.uk explaines why: “The website is simple, and the concept both alluring and incredibly frustrating.”

Although the site was launched in March, it rose in popularity only after it was included in a Johnny Lists roundup of completely useless websites. It now ranks among the most popular pointless sites on the internet. It has been compared to Reddit’s infamous ‘Button’ experiment that ran from April 1 to June 8 this year. The pointless activity had people click a button to reset a timer, and were awarded with a color for their efforts. When the counter finally reached zero on June 8, the site simply reported: “The experiment is over.”

Spoiler alert: There’s a YouTube video that shows exactly what happens when you are finally allowed into mostexclusivewebsite.com. The site turns blue, and you are asked to post a comment on the message board. If you do that, then you’re treated to a slideshow of cute cat pictures until your minute is up. Sounds terribly unexciting, but I went ahead and signed up for a ticket anyway!

via The Washington Post, Wired