The 1% Guild

What it is

The 1% Guild is an exclusive club with a single admission rule: your device's battery must be at exactly one percent when you arrive. The page reads your real battery level and draws it as a big battery graphic in the middle of a very serious-looking cream card. At anything above one percent the door stays shut. The club describes itself as being for those who live life on the edge, and it is not wrong.

How to play

Open the page and look at the battery. If it says anything but one percent, you are not getting in today. Either drain your device down to the wire and come back, or admire the concept from outside. Membership is closed to new names now, but the page still lets you look in as a guest once you qualify, which is the whole reward. That, and the satisfaction of having timed a battery to a single percentage point on purpose.

What makes it different

Most useless websites ask nothing of you. This one asks for a genuinely stupid amount of commitment for a genuinely tiny payoff, and the gap between the two is the joke. It also uses a browser feature almost no site touches, the battery reading, for the least practical purpose imaginable.

Why it is on Bored

Almost real means a fake institution played completely straight, and this is a country club with a velvet rope and one absurd condition of entry. It is a page you cannot fully see without doing something silly in the real world, which makes it a rare kind of dare.

Tips

• Use a phone or laptop on battery, a plugged-in desktop will never qualify
• It needs a browser that exposes the battery level, so try a different browser if the meter does not move
• Watch the color of the bar, it shifts as the level drops
• Do not run the battery flat in the middle of something you needed

FAQ