New York-based Cathryn Logan’s* introduction to Instagram’s Close Friends was when she noticed she’d been added to someone else’s. "Frankly, I think I just started putting people on it – people that I usually talk to on Instagram – so it's not like everyone that I knew in real life," she said.
Throughout the evolution of social media, there’s one thing that platforms create new ways to provide over and over again – that serotonin boost of instant gratification via notification. From "vintage" social media products like MySpace’s Top 8 or the Facebook Poke to being someone’s Close Friend on Instagram or within their Circle on Twitter, all of these play into very common, prehistoric human behaviors and desires to connect.
"We have to think about the backdrop of social media," Dr. Akua Boateng, the Philadelphia-based licensed psychotherapist, said. "When we think about neurochemistry, it really works on our internal reward system that is well studied by app developers and people in market psychology that really build out things that we get internal rewards."
New products that could arguably be credited to the user-developed "Finsta" account, "IG's Close Friends and Twitter's copycat Circles are a place for content that isn't meant for your entire following, just a selected group. And that little green glow that surrounds an account’s avatar tells you one thing – you have been granted exclusive access to content that others are left out of.
That little green glow that surrounds an account’s avatar tells you one thing – you have been granted exclusive access to content that others are left out of.
The pursuit of validation
Logan’s list has steadily grown since she initiated it. "Sometimes I’ll drink a little wine and go to my Close Friends and then just start adding a shit ton of people," she laughed. Typically her IG Close Friends content is a more casual version of herself but not necessarily private or something she’d want to keep from people.
"You know, when you're a little drunk or high and you're like, 'Oh, I'm gonna make a story,' and it's stupid, makes no sense, and it's not even funny at all, but maybe it's funny?" she said. "You think it's funny at the time, so that is something like that I would put on Close Friends." Some of her family members and certain colleagues are excluded from the Close Friends content, but not many other people are.
"If they're cool or they look cool, they get added," she said. "I want the cool people to know I’m cool." Logan’s criteria for following people in general and adding them to her Close Friends are so similar, she’s not sure what differentiates giving someone additional access. "Maybe I want them to feel special. Because when I'm added to somebody’s, I'm like, 'Oh, cool. They liked me enough to do this,'" she said.
"Sometimes I’ll drink a little wine and go to my Close Friends and then just start adding a shit ton of people."
Based on our physiological reward system, humans really thrive on this feeling. "The idea that you would be included in any type of inner something comes with prestige, a sense of belonging, maybe even validation, a feeling of importance and value, depending on a person's framework and how differently they need that sense of value is on a spectrum," Boateng said.
Where someone falls on this spectrum tends to guide the way they leverage social media, and it’s ultimately what diversifies how people use functions like Close Friends and Circles for things outside of simply a place for content for people they have a deeper connection with.
Close Friends can be strategic for work
Once anonymous Twitter personality NYDoorman(opens in a new tab) known for live-tweeting from the most exclusive parties in New York City, Michael Tommisielllo’s relationship with the function has significantly changed since adopting it. "Initially, I was using it to try to be kind of provocative. I would post ridiculous things like thirst traps or vaguely inappropriate things that maybe I didn't want other people to see." he said. "Then I was like, this is stupid. I hate this. I'm not hiding smoking weed and I wasn’t uploading lines of cocaine."
What he was once using to manufacture exclusivity has pivoted to strictly business for the partner at No. 9, an New York-based agency for influencer, social and content strategy for their cannabis and web3 clients.
"I started using it for work when I needed to get a core group of people's attention to support something so that the IG algorithm would pop and and help me out." He explained users naturally just flip through stories, but he believes the content on Close Friends gets a bit more attention. Now, he posts sponsored content or client’s content there with directions on how to engage with it and his list full of verified users, celebs and other influential accounts fluctuates as it is curated more towards what it is he is sharing at the time.
Delaware-based artist Akvile Les adds people she doesn’t know to her Close Friends based on their potential to connect. She does PR and marketing for design and hospitality brands and uses her account for work. She leverages Close Friends as a network of talent or individuals that there’s a potential to work with for future projects.
"If I see that there's an amazing landscape designer that's based in my state or nearby state, and I have an interior design client who's working on hotel projects, and they will definitely need somebody new to bring on a project," she offers as an example. "It's shortlisting personalities who are amazing landscape designers that I might want to build a future relationship with."
For Les, it functions as both a bookmarking tool and a means to progress a relationship. "Many years ago, LinkedIn used to be a great and easy way to connect with somebody. You add them, you exchange a message and you remember each other. It was great until it became very spammy."
It’s for exclusivity and exclusion
There’s also a safety factor. Users may leverage their abbreviated lists to share their kids or recognizable locations that they do not want everyone to access, or they want to be more selective about who they allow to engage in the specific content.
Carol Ott is the tenant advocacy director for Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition. The intention behind compiling her Twitter Circles list is twofold. First, she wants to avoid derogatory and racist engagement under her work-related posts. "My job is 80 percent focused on direct service to tenants who are experiencing some kind of horrible landlord tenant issue, and the other 20 percent is focused more on equity issues," she said.
She doesn’t walk on eggshells or play it safe when discussing the reality of the disparities she comes across in her role. "Sometimes that draws very negative engagement, particularly if the conversation is centered around housing equity and other equity for Black people."
Her Circle includes both people she knows personally and does not know personally, because the criteria is about her perception of them and their Twitter content. "Whether it's an opinion I need about something that happened to me personally, or an opinion I need about a current event or work issue or – it’s the people that I trust to always be honest with me." She includes individuals whose point of view she trusts, although she wishes there wasn’t a 150 person limit to her Circle.
Some offer access to those they aren’t close with to get closer
Not only does the way people leverage Close Friends and Twitter Circles range from strictly for work only, to keeping certain people away from viewing private content to validation from respected accounts some use it to flirt(opens in a new tab) by posting things they know the person is interested in or will respond to as bait.
Adding a crush offers a more private, and sometimes, more authentic side of you to attract them to engage. There’s a desire for closeness being pursued by offering more access. Boateng says it’s almost creating a world where there can be a common exchange between them and the person they’re interested in. It’s deliberate in its creation but passive in the approach.
"I’ll see that I’ve been added to Close Friends and ten minutes later there’s a post of a girl laying on her bed saying 'I’m so bored.'"
Los Angeles-based producer/creative Eddie Jr. says he’s been added to a lot of Close Friends and often doesn’t know why as they aren’t people that he actually knows. "I’ll see that I’ve been added to Close Friends and ten minutes later there’s a post of a girl laying on her bed saying 'I’m so bored.'"
In wondering why someone would add him for this content, that he comes across often, he said it makes him think like it’s a call to action. "Is this an invitation to step up and shoot my shot?" He likens it to searching for a job, "You’ve made it past the initial screening and this is round two of interviews."
He isn’t into it, though. "I don't think it's super personal. I know I'm not special, as much as I want to think I am. I'm not the only person seeing this. I'm not the only individual," he said. The lack of intention in the pursuit of connection isn’t for him.
"Digitally, you only get a glimpse of this person," Boateng said. "You only see parts of the person they want you to see."
Not everyone wants to be that close
And, there’s no opt out. Once a user has been added to someone’s Close Friends or Circle, they can’t get off the list without asking to be removed or opting out of their content completely by muting, blocking or ending the connection altogether by removing the follower. There’s no way out of the Close Friends or Circles content. Jr. said if there was an option to make the decision for himself, he would unsubscribe himself from some people’s Close Friends list because it’s simply too much access. He doesn’t want to know that much. "Sometimes I get to a point where I’m like, yo, I do not want to be on this side of it anymore."
Despite being on plenty of people’s Close Friends, Jr. himself doesn’t use it. In addition to not wanting to spend the time to curate a list, he doesn’t want to differentiate the content. As he mostly shares memes, he thinks that if it’s not appropriate for everyone on his account, he just doesn’t post it at this point.
Twitter and Instagram users seem to be using Circles and Close Friends functions much more based on the content they’re sharing than whether or not the accounts they’re sharing it with already have an established connection. The only commonality is that it’s used to engage and relate to a desired subset.
Boateng said that social media platforms often add confusion by the way they name their parts. She points to the use of the term followers. "These people are followers, but what level of devotion really makes them a follower," she said. "This can draw some internal confusion around even the term friends. These are my followers, but are these my friends?" She said it’s confusing as it pertains to healthy connections, and it’s exactly the reason why so many of us have strangers in our Circles and on our Close Friends list.
*Some names have been changed.
