Female BFFs: The New Power Couples

Great. Let's all choose our friends by how they look on Instagram. Are people really THAT shallow?

Female BFFs have ALWAYS been the ultimate 'power couple'. Who picks you up when you're down? Who is there for you when your child is sick and you're late for work? Or late for your period? Or you significantly outlive your husband? Female friends are your true lifeline. Perhaps the difference we see in Taylor's depiction of the easy intimacy she has with her BFFs is a LACK of competition/envy/back-stabbing, which has long been the male media's favorite depiction of the 'challenges' of female friendships. Long live young women and their BFFs!!

If this article had been written by a man, I would have stopped reading about two paragraphs in and written the author off as a misogynist. As it was, I read the whole article in the hope of understanding Ms. Witt's discomfort with female friendships. This seems like a somewhat aggressive attack on what I view as a pleasing phenomenon—celebrity women actually celebrating their friendships with each other. No one disputes that relationships presented on social media are fake and staged and usually leave the consumer of such material feeling a little worse about themselves. But there seems to be something specific about female friendships that troubles Ms. Witt. Is she worried that men will feel neglected, if women find too much enjoyment in their female friends? Is that why, in her list of "real" friendships, Ms. Witt includes a female-male friendship, as if there are not enough examples of "real" friendships that are women-only? Is that why she asks the question, "Have you betrayed your gender by preferring the company of men?" No, Ms. Witt, you haven't betrayed your gender by preferring the company of men. You have betrayed your gender by devoting an entire article to the denouncement and denigration of female friendships among celebrity women.

Wow, what a depressing, negative piece. Everything on social media is faked and maneuvered to shape others' perceptions. I don't see the display of female friendship as any more fake than anything else on social media. So in that context, I prefer to celebrate the fact that women want to celebrate female solidarity and friendship. Jeesh.

I am confident that flaunting one's life highlights on social media is rampant, vacuous, and publicly acknowledged as a half-truth. And yes, digital friends who lack off-screen intimacy or the resources to create it probably suffer somewhat at its flippant presentation. However, I am less sure that suppressing the portrayal of strong feminine bonds should be encouraged as a solution to individual pain. Should we reach out to those who are lonely, isolated, or unable to initiate their own friendships? Absolutely. Should we shame those who celebrate and share the power of feminine relationships carved from actual interaction rather than literature? Absolutely not.

With hook-up culture putting less emphasis on satisfying emotional connection with sexual partners, and a lot of people being honest about how even committed romantic relationships can be hardly "happily ever after" it only makes sense platonic ones get put up on a pedestal instead. It's all very Golden GIrls/Sex and the City/Seinfeld/Friends/Insert-Friendship-Based-Sitcom-Here

Point taken: sometimes it seems these celebrities are selling their friendships a little too hard. On the other hand, it's a refreshing blow to the misogynist stereotype of women as competitors. My heart sinks whenever I hear a woman say "Women are bitchy; I prefer to hang around men." And I still hear this too often. I hope that all depictions of female friendship--whether in great literature or social media--can help erode this thinking.

Social media will make middle schoolers out of all of us. Even the in Pride and Prejudice, there are the negative examples of Kitty and Lydia, who long for nothing so much as vainglorious social display. This dichotomy between invisible (perhaps more genuine) versus staged friendship has been with us a long time.

I don't look at instagram, so don't know what you are talking about, but I would say you need to look at this differently. Life is not a competition.

Glad Adam had a rib to spare.

Put anything on social media, and it becomes an odious attention-grabbing flaunt. Political stances, social causes, romantic relationships, babies, you name it - once it rolls onto social media, the underlying motivation is to flaunt. This is a good reminder that the most genuine, real, and best parts of life are lived not on instagram but in the least photogenic moments.

I was just telling a friend this the other day. I've begun evaluating my motivations when it comes to taking photos with friends and then whether or not to post those photos. Am I trying to capture memories of a special moment so I can revisit them and remember? Or am I thinking about what would look cool on Instagram and prove to others that I'm loved? Thank you, thank you, thank you, Emily Witt, for writing this and writing it well.

As a gay man looking at an article about female friendship, I am reminded that the LGBT community fosters similar platonic friendships between men, and the gist of the article is the same: a true friend is the one who is there when the chips are down, all the rest are acquaintances.

Dear Emily, Thank you for this article! It's good to know I'm not the only one thinking this way lately. -K

The penchant for friendship flaunting on social media could be mirroring the elevated status of mutually desired friendships in our increasingly atomized world. As it becomes ever easier to recede within our screens, genuine and valued human contact is precious, a status symbol; more so that marriage. While marriage is bijective and a increasingly a capstone to youth, one's posse of friends is a lifestyle marker that arises from the new status of friendship. Taylor Swift's brand is not her voice, but her lifestyle; her instagrams with friends are as integral to it as her next sold out show.

What about Tina Fey and Amy Poehler? They're the ULTIMATE power couple.

Thank you so much for this beautiful and well written article!