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88 danah boydspirit is at odds with her school’s approach to online sources of information.The fact that her school has restrictions against referencing Wikipedia frustratesStephanie but she ultimately understands that the school would takethis stance because “whoever could, like, write in whatever.” Yet it is preciselythis collaborative feature that makes Photobucket so appealing—you are ableto see the images that other users have associated with terms such as “love”and “best friends.” Many times these images simply reproduce conventionalgender roles and a culture of consumption. However, youth are able to pickand choose from among the images and, perhaps most important, contributetheir own works—some of which will challenge the representations of teenfriendship and love that have been created by outside forces without anyunderstanding of how youth actually negotiate relationships. Youth today aretaking portraits at social events, snapping pictures in the halls of their schools,and borrowing from the photo albums of people they’ve never met. The factthat they draw from all these sources suggests that youth’s friendship maintenanceis in tune with a discourse of love and friendship that is being widelydisplayed and (re)circulated.Making FriendsTeens may select their friends, but their “choice” is configured by thesocial, cultural, and economic conditions around them (Allan 1998).Studies have shown that most friendships American youth develop arebetween youth of approximately the same age, in part because of agestratifiedschool systems and other cultural forces that segregate youth byage (Chudacoff 1989; Montemayor and Van Komen 1980). Likewise, thesefriendship groups tend to be relatively homogenous (Cohen 1977; Cotterell1996), resulting in what sociologists call “homophily” (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook 2001). Homophily describes the likelihood that peopleconnect to others who share their interests and identity. Most of the teenswe interviewed tended toward building friendships with others of similarage who shared their interests and values. While teens’ friendships werenot completely segregated by race, ethnicity, religion, and gender, none ofthese factors was absent either.Social media theoretically allow teens to move beyond geographicrestrictions and connect with new people. Presumably, this means thatparticipants could develop relations with people who are quite different