People are paying strangers to line up for pizza, ice cream and passports for them in Toronto

With a packed summer of events in Toronto, people are likely to line up for anything, but why?

It’s no secret that in dense corners of the GTA, massive line-ups in the summertime are almost as common as mosquito bites and sunburn.

With Toronto’s summer programming now in full swing with major sporting events, food festivals, street parties, and more, it looks like people will do just about anything to keep the clout of waiting in line for something trendy — without actually having to do so.

Taskrabbit, a digital handy-service that uses on-the-spot contractors for household tasks, has a service beyond hiring someone to assemble IKEA furniture after your fourth attempt.

The ‘Wait In Line’ service with Taskrabbit is exactly what it says on the box. For a fee, you can pay someone to wait in line for you to maximize convenience while still being able to jump on the newest trend, dessert, or pop-up of the summer.

Internal data from the platform has shown that when presented with such a notion, an overwhelming number of Canadians would pounce on the opportunity, with one in three respondents saying they’d use the service if they’d known about it sooner.

“As the city is slowly becoming one that relies more heavily on lineups, the data on our side shows that people use the service for concert lines and launch events; that’s where you’ll usually see ‘taskers.’ What I wasn’t expecting, however, was people even going as far as using it for lines in government offices, to get health cards or ID renewed,” Pashv Shah, general manager of Taskrabbit Canada, told INsauga.com.

The program launched in New York roughly a decade ago to massive success and quickly trickled up to Canadian cities, made far easier as the vetting process is quite simple.

Unlike other taskers, according to Shah, who need some form of qualification for more hands-on tasks, all you need to qualify to work for the Wait In Line service is to have a body that can shuffle forward every 15 minutes.

As for the psychology of people who hire these taskers (who charge $30 to $50 an hour), Taskrabbit’s data showed that about 50 per cent of Canadians who wait in a queue for, say, an hour-ish, get incredibly frustrated at the 20-minute mark, resulting in a vehement need for an alternative

“There are different needs for different people, and I think it really comes down to essentially the question of ‘what are you waiting in line for?’” Says Shah. “I think people who are waiting in line for a slice of pizza are not the same people waiting in line for a new product,” says Shah.

Prominent lines often seen throughout Toronto include pop-up events, such as this month’s massive Shein takeover on Queen St, and the common giant line seen sprawling down Ossington Ave for Bang Bang Ice Cream.

Steve Joordens, a professor at the University of Toronto and a Cognitive Psychologist, has been studying the quirks and social behaviours of the human brain throughout his career.

When reviewing the human need to wrap around a city block for an ice cream cone, he conveys that this attitude is stitched into our social DNA.

“They all value whatever it is they are lined up for. Thus, in some sense, the line acts as a way of bringing these people who share this value into close proximity. Close enough for them to meet, talk, and form relationships around their commonality. We all seek community, we all want to belong to something — the line feeds that need,” Joordens told INsauga.com via email.

This feeds further into Joordens’ initial prognosis of ‘lineup culture,’ as, while a service exists where you can hire a body to keep your place until required, in Toronto, the line itself — for many — is the event.

Unsurprisingly, this leads to the ‘social’ part of social media, as footage of a line and proof of being there, especially with friends, is its own social capital.

“To outsiders, it may seem silly to line up for whatever they lined up for, but no one in the line thinks so, or they wouldn’t be there,” says Joordens. “As soon as I see the line, I see a line of others who care; they are social proof that it is not stupid to value that,” says Joordens.

However, not everyone values said social capital of that pedigree in the same way.

“Value of your time shifts generationally, and we’re seeing that in the way our services shift across all categories. Some people have time, and others are willing to invest in certain things, rather than elsewhere,” says Shah.

Shah shared an anecdote about using the wait-in-line extension, where he chose to spend more time with his kids in the park, had a tasker in line at Toronto’s famous pizzeria Badiali, and then, once his kids were tuckered, he was ready to swoop in and grab a few slices for the family.

Joordens builds on this idea of priorities, using the psychological bedrock of a dopamine hit.

Shah relays that priority is given per generation, resulting in the busy parent or swamped social climber likely using a wait-in-line service, as opposed to college-aged adults looking for an activity.

As a result, the dopamine shifts based on generational and social priorities, i.e. dopamine from time saved vs. dopamine from being in the line itself.

“When the neurotransmitter dopamine is released into our body, we feel good. One context that causes this is the expectation that you are just about to get something you think will be amazing. It’s not when you get that amazing thing; it’s much more the thrill of the chase or, more specifically, the feeling that you are ‘just about to” get that thing,’ says Joordens.

Shah remains confident that Taskrabbit’s service will likely see a huge uptick in use throughout the GTA this summer, and eagerly awaits the data of who is using it and, more importantly, why, as it will likely continue to map how Torontonians think.

“We are seeing a big shift in the way people interact with society, and that’s one of the things we are looking to tap into as it grows. How do we be there as a service, when we know there are other things you’d be rather doing with your time.”