Imaginary Friends Reunited

What it is

Imaginary Friends Reunited is a social network for the friends who never existed. Around one in six adults had an imaginary friend as a child, the site surveyed a thousand people to check, and this page brings a hundred or so of them back with a profile each: a name, a category, the age their inventor was at the time, and the story in the inventor's own words. The day we looked, the featured friend was a penguin who lived under a bed, and the grid runs from animals and people to entries that are not either.

How to play

Start with the imaginary friend of the day at the top, then scroll the grid. Tap a name to open the profile and read the story. The tabs sort them into people, animals and other, and other is where it gets strange. The stories are short, submitted anonymously, and range from sweet to slightly unsettling, often within the same paragraph. Budget five minutes and expect to spend fifteen.

What makes it different

The design is a straight-faced copy of the reunion websites of the early 2000s, which is the joke, but the content is real: these are actual memories from actual people, and the survey figure at the bottom is the site's own. It manages to be funny and oddly moving at once.

Why it is on Bored

Almost real means a fake product built by hand and played straight, and this is a social network with members who cannot log in. It is the kind of page that starts a conversation about your own childhood, which is more than most links here can claim.

Tips

• Read the other tab first, the non-human friends are the best
• Check the friend of the day, it changes
• Ask whoever is next to you what theirs was called
• The footnote has the survey numbers if you want the real statistic

FAQ