The MySpace Top 8 was the most brutal social experiment of our generation.
By @quinnwelp · Nostalgia
I'm not even kidding. TikTok comments and follower counts have nothing on the sheer political and emotional warfare of arranging your top friends on your profile for the whole world to see.
The full story
You had to be there to understand. This was before algorithmic feeds, when your social standing was manually curated by YOU in a single, ranked list. MySpace was everything, and your Top 8 was your inner circle, your squad, your public declaration of loyalty. Of course, my best friend since kindergarten was my #1. It was an unspoken rule. We'd a C-tier Justin Timberlake song on our profiles and spent hours coding the glitter text on our bios to be perfect. And then this other girl started hanging out with our group. She was cool, knew all the upperclassmen, and had a Razor phone before anyone else. And then the psychological warfare began. She'd leave me comments like "omg we had so much fun last night, can't wait for the weekend <3" knowing my best friend wasn't there. Then she started asking, half-joking, "So when am I making the Top 8?" I'd laugh it off, but the pressure was real. In my 15-year-old brain, being associated with her felt like a level-up. So one night, I did it. I moved my OG best friend to #2 and put the new girl at #1. I felt sick immediately, but also kind of powerful? I figured she wouldn't notice for a few days. Wrong. She must have been checking it compulsively, because I got a Gchat message within an hour that just said "wow." That was it. She didn't talk to me for a month. A full month of silent treatment, seeing her in the halls, sitting at different lunch tables. It took a tearful, multi-page apology note passed in chemistry class to even start fixing it. All for a spot on a webpage. We laugh about it now, but at the time? It was world-ending.
How people voted
- Bad Move — 31% (11 votes)
- Needs Context — 50% (18 votes)
- Reasonable — 19% (7 votes)
Readers say “Needs Context” (50%) — 36 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@ameliaa — lmao
@umaok — Oh my gosh, the Gchat 'wow.' is exactly how it went down. Those were stressful times for a teenager, glad you guys can laugh about it now!
@pia — I wonder what the modern equivalent of the Top 8 is?
@hollytbh — the psychological warfare part is so real lmao
@leo — Soft.
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