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The concept of tulpa was popularized and secularized in the Western world through fiction, gaining popularity on television in the late 1990s and 2000s.[3] In 2009, anonymous posters on the discussion board 4chan started experimenting with creating tulpas, and the community gained popularity through the emergence of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fandom.[14] The anthropologist and cognitive scientist Samuel Veissiere wrote that on February 2015 the Reddit forum, which carries most of the tulpamancy conversations in English, had 7740 members, but less than 200 active posters. The fans attempted to use meditation and lucid dreaming techniques to create imaginary friends.[15][16] Surveys by Veissire explored this community's demographic, social, and psychological profiles. These individuals, calling themselves "tulpamancers", treat the tulpas as a "real or somewhat-real person". The number of active participants in these online communities is in the low hundreds, and few meetings in person have taken place. They belong to "primarily urban, middle class, Euro-American adolescent and young adult demographics" and they "cite loneliness and social anxiety as an incentive to pick up the practice." 93.7% of respondents expressed that their involvement with the creation of tulpas has "made their condition better", and led to new unusual sensory experiences. Some practitioners have sexual and romantic interactions with their tulpas, though the practice is controversial and trending towards taboo. One survey found that 8.5% support a metaphysical explanation of tulpas, 76.5% support a neurological or psychological explanation, and 14% "other" explanations.[15]