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Friendship 101stems from a desire by children to understand the strength of their relationshipsand embedded in this is an expectation of affirmation and reciprocity.Most friendship declarations take place verbally between friends,but girls have used symbolic accessories such as “BFF” heart charms andfriendship bracelets to formalize and display their connection. While thesepractices exist, they are far more common with elementary-school childrenand middle-school tweens than with teenagers. The idea of “best friends”does not disappear in high school, but the formal symbolism fades.In many ways, MySpace’s Top Friends forces teenagers to publicly articulatetheir best and “bestest” Friends. This feature requires participants tolist up to twenty-four Friends’ names in a grid. Designed to help participantsadd nuance to their Friends list, this feature quickly became a socialbattleground as participants struggled over who should make the list and,more important, who should be in the first position. Anindita, an Indianseventeen-year-old from Los Angeles, explains:People will be like, “Why am I number two? You’re number one on my page.” I waslike, “Well, I can’t make everyone number two. That’s impossible.” Especially withboyfriends and girlfriends, get in a fight like, “Why is she before me? I’m yourgirlfriend. I should be higher than her.” I’m just like, “Okay.” I don’t really thinkit’s a big deal, the top thing. If you’re friends, you shouldn’t lose your friendshipover that.Like many teens, Anindita finds the social dynamic around Top Friendsannoying. Yet she is not immune to its effects. Even though she thinks itshould not be important, it is a topic of regular conversation among herfriends. While Anindita may see her friends’ attitude as cattiness, TopFriends surfaces insecurities by forcing teens to face where they stand inthe eyes of those around them. As Nora, a white eighteen-year-old fromVirginia, explains on her MySpace: “It’s like have you noticed that youmay have someone in your Top 8 but you’re not in theirs and you kindathink to yourself that you’re not as important to that person as they areto you . . . and oh, to be in the coveted number one spot!” Many teens seethe Top Friends feature as a litmus test of their relations and this promptsanxieties in teens about where they stand.Reciprocity plays a central role in the negotiation of Top Friends.Many teens expect that if they list someone as a Top Friend, that personshould list them in return. Teens worry about not being listed andabout failing to list those who list them. Jordan, a biracial Mexican-white