Are Your Best Friends on Snapchat Messed Up? Snapchat Says They're Working on It

If you’re a millennial who was on the internet somewhere between 2004 and 2007, then you are very familiar with MySpace and the drama that ensued when they introduced the Top 8 feature. Basically, anyone with a MySpace page could decide who among their MySpace friends were worthy enough to be on their Top 8 and from there, you could rank those individuals. 

Social media app Snapchat went ahead and tried something similar with their Best Friends list feature. Recently, users have begun to wonder why their list was messed up or even completely gone. Is Snapchat getting rid of the feature or is it just a glitch? 

Your Snapchat best friends are users on the platform with whom you interact with the most. So whoever you’re sending and receiving the most photos and videos from will automatically be added to the top of your Best Friends list.  

“Best Friends are the friends you Snap and Chat with the most! They’re featured front-and-center on the Send To screen, and the Chat section of your profile! You can have up to eight Best Friends, and they’re updated regularly. No one else can see your Best Friends list. This feature is just for you. Best Friends get special Friend Emojis next to their names,” Snapchat writes on their website.

The app doesn't allow you to pick your best friends, however, you can influence it by exchanging more snaps with users whom you wish to add to your list. It’s also important to keep your streaks with friends going in order to maintain your list to your specificity. If you’re a big Snapchat user who is frequently sending snaps to many different people, it can become quite difficult to add specific people to your best friends list. 

Every couple of years, it seems that Snapchat users reach out to support to air their grievances when it comes to the Best Friends feature on the photo sharing app. In 2019, there was an entire Reddit thread dedicated to people struggling with the Best Friends feature, hoping to get some answers. 

It seems that users are noticing that despite having streaks and “best friend” status with certain people, other users are going to the top of list despite having more interaction with others. One user tweeted in Feb. 2021, “@Snapchat, whenever someone snaps me or I snap them on my best friend list, no matter what position they are in they go right to the top, any reason why? I still have my heart with my bestie.” 

So, why is this happening? Most answers lead toward a glitch or bug within Snapchat’s app after an update went through. According to Snapchat’s Twitter account, they claimed to have solved the issue in October 2020. However, users are now tweeting the company that nothing has been fixed for them. 

“I already reported my problem on the snapchat support page and they have not resolved anything, my best friend list is still messed up please fix this,” one user responded.