Companion Cube/Real Life

Examples of Companion Cubes in Real Life include:

The Pet Rock, a 1970s phenomenon, was based around this idea.
- The digital pet craze of The Nineties could be seen as a variant of this.
- Then there were the Beanie Babies; each of them came with a name and a short biography, and people were paying hundreds of dollars for some of them.
As people who have witnessed isolated orphans with stuffed animals (or any object they can personify) or even grown people in some pretty tough circumstances can tell you, the declassified CIA study referred to in the trope namer's entry is pretty much valid.
- Tough circumstances? Thanks to the Internet, entire social groups have formed around what basically amount to people talking about their pets... or their children. Calvin and Hobbes planted a seed in a lot of people's minds.
In 2000, a ficus tree ran against incumbent Rodney P. Frelinghuysen for the 11th district New Jersey house seat... and won the election by a 4:1 ratio before being disqualified. The Ficus campaign was masterminded by Michael Moore for his TV show The Awful Truth.

Campaign ad: Rodney wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground, Ficus' ass IS a hole in the ground.

A New Scientist article on human interactions with robotics and attempts to bridge the Uncanny Valley notes incidents of US troops in Afghanistan seeking counseling after their bomb disposal robot was destroyed by an I.E.D. Other incidences include a report that an bomb disposal robot had been stolen, in Helmand, only to find the Commonwealth solders had taken advantage of its dexterous remote control arm to take it fishing with them.
- The internet demands a link!
  - Here is Washington Post article covering human-robot interactions in military, really interesting stuff. Also it covers aforementioned incidents.
This is basically why ships and other craft are always referred to as "she" and why men are compelled to paint naked ladies onto warplanes. The practice of personifying ships goes back so far it's very deeply rooted in tradition, and has since spread to other forms of transportation.
- Figureheads and eyes painted on the front of ships.
US Marines are made to memorize an oath that basically personifies their rifle. Presumably so that they remember to take care of the firearm and have it at their side whenever possible.
Utada Hikaru owns a plush bear, which she named Kuma Chan. Kuma was issued a staff pass at one of her concerts.
It is very common for tabletop RPG players to attribute personality traits to their dice and give them names.
In software development, when trying to fix a stubborn bug, it is sometimes considered helpful to discuss the bug with another developer. The practice is considered useful even when the other person is completely unfamiliar with the code, perhaps not even a developer at all. The reasoning is that the act of having to explain it to another person forces you to step back from the problem a bit and challenge some of your assumptions. Lone developers will sometimes resort to discussing the problem with an inanimate object, a practice which has come to be called "talking to the Furby."
- And then there's rubber duck debugging...
One university's engineering department has a teddy bear sitting in the dean's office. If a student comes in with an engineering problem that they can't handle, they are first urged to "talk to the bear". Often, after they go over the problem with the bear, they do actually come up with a solution.
A number of people name their cars and talk to them. There's even a service to register your car's name and get it a birth certificate.
- Computers too. Especially, but not exclusively by geeks.
  - This can also apply to electronics like external hard drives and MP3 players or things like bicycles- basically anything that can "exhibit a personality" regarding its performance. Note that naming computers can be really helpful when you have a lot of them hooked up to a network, and making those names somewhat specific to the machine in question helps the users keep track of which one is which.
  - It doesn't help that Windows XP and later (and most Linux, while we're at it) force you to fill in a name for your computer as a part of the installation process. The intention was probably to give the computer a meaningful hostname for private networks (e.g. home LAN), but that's not the way it comes off to even experienced home users.
    - You're also supposed to name iPods in a similar vein. By default their name is "[your name]'s iPod", but you can change it to whatever you want.
  - To say nothing of the action figures, character models, statuettes and transformer figures the owner of the computer keeps around them...
In a similar vein, Serge Kahili King in his book Urban Shaman explains that he named his personal computer and speaks to it. "All things have their own spirit. They cooperate better if you can relate to them well."
It's not entirely uncommon for musicians to name their instruments, especially adolescents in high school band. Girls almost always give the instrument a male name and boys give them a female name.
- B.B. King's guitar Lucille may be the most famous example.
- Willie Nelson's guitar Trigger is at least a close second.
- Andres Segovia at times ended up with rumors of a woman in his life after booking transit tickets for his guitar—by name.
- Stevie Ray Vaughan played a Strat which he named "Lenny" after his wife Lenora.
- The Sisters of Mercy has only two regular members left: Andrew Eldritch and Doktor Avalanche. Doktor runs the online advice column on the Sisters' website. He's also a drum machine.
- Often professional musicians who play a large instrument (cello, double bass etc.) travelling by plane will book a separate seat for the instrument (mainly to avoid it getting damaged in the hold). Owing to one or other of many absurd airplane regulations, they are consequently obliged to give the instrument a name so that all seats have a corresponding name on the flight manifesto. Most just name it "Mr. Cello" or "Ms. Bassoon" or what have you, though some are inclined to have a little fun with the concept and put down the instrument's name as "Dr. Stratovarius Cello" or something.
Steam Locomotives are always refered to as she, even if they have a male name. This often causes... confusion to the punters.
- Some drivers go even further. Joe Duddington apparently gently encouraged Mallard to help her break the World Steam Speed record.
Champion Detroit Tigers pitcher Mark Fidrych talked to the ball before throwing it, among other eccentricities. Proof that the Bunny Ears Lawyer exists in Real Life.
- In a related example, hockey goaltender Patrick Roy was famous during his active career for naming his goalposts and talking to them, thanking them when a shot bounced off one of them instead of going in. Considering his highly successful career, he was probably on to something.
Build-A-Bear Workshop is a company that basically caters to this trope, where children (or even grown-ups) go to the workshop and pick the skins of their stuffed animal, fluff it up themselves, put a goddamned heart in it, and proceed to give it a birth certificate and even enter it in a system quite like Amber Alert.
- This was done to a lesser extent previously with adopting Cabbage Patch Kids.
  - It's played out completely at the official Cabbage Patch Museum. Hundreds of dolls are arranged in theme rooms. The main room is the actual cabbage patch, where several times a day visitors can witness the labor and birth of a real doll out of one of the cabbages. The audience is then asked to help name the new "baby" and she is immediately put up for adoption in the gift shop.
Who hasn't gotten angry at and started screaming at, calling names or even threatening their television, car, computer or any machine that suddenly refused to work, as if it was sentient and was doing it on purpose? There's a theory that machines, or generally all inanimate objects, are all out to get you.
- This was made into a hilarious (pre-Cleese) Compaq Deskpro commercial.
  - And every once in a while, the threats seem to cause the machine to work...
Some people who own robotic vacuum cleaners such as Roombas get very attached to them, to the point of treating them like pets.
Pretty much every single person alive has had an emotional attatchment to a stuffed toy, household appliance, inanimate object, or imaginary friend at some point in their life.
- Some point nothing, some people grow so attached to their stuffed toy/inanimate object they would never get rid of it, even including the object in question in their last will.. sometimes even requesting it following them to the grave.
In a crossover with Cargo Ship, assigning names and personalities to sexual aides is incredibly common. Even on this very wiki the term Battery Operated Companion has been used.
The Inanimate Object's Party, a joke political party at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that has an inflatable whale run for the position of Grand Marshall (read: Student Counsel President) every year.
Many smokers will name their pipes and paraphernalia, even going so far as calling the first time the piece is used as its "christening."
- Not *tobacco* smokers, mind you.
  - Well, not cigarette smokers, tobacco smokers who use a pipe sometimes name it.
A more serious example would be the Holy Crown of Hungary, which was assigned legal personhood and is considered the sole holder of all state powers of the Monarch.
Delusional Misidentification Syndrome is a series of mental delusions where the identity of a person, place or thing is different or has been altered. One such delusion is called "Delusional Companions Syndrome", a condition that mostly affects Alzheimer's patients where inanimate objects are thought to actually be sentient.
Musician Angela Hewitt had a piano that was her “best friend” and was “mourning” it when movers broke it in 2020.

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