‘New!’ above friends icon

In my town, on the main screen bottom right just above the Bart & Milhouse friends icon I now have the word ‘new!’

I’ve searched and normally this signifies you have a new friend request, but I’ve checked and I don’t have any requests.

Any ideas what else this could mean? It only appeared a couple of days ago and is doing my mild ocd right in with it hanging around like that!

Thanks.