Employees uses their personal handle to sign off on each post, an attempt to help her employees build their own personal followings and let the Roommates, the most important players in this game, create a connection with the editors. The Shade Room captions feel organic thanks to Nwandu’s editorial staff of 7 cool in-the-know kids, each of whom posts on behalf of The Shade Room. “Both Cassie and Diddy are out here winning so I’m sure they’ll be boo’d up with someone new in no time.” “Y’all know I keep my ears in the streets and brought up that their relationship has been low key a wrap, today Cassie’s rep confirmed to us that they have indeed broken up and “sources” say they have been broken up for months now!,” explained The Shade Room caption. “Every time I meet a celebrity, something breaks.” Diddy, in Diddy fashion, took the post in stride, noting he cares very little about what people write about him.ĭiddy’s breakup was just one of the 40 to 70 stories that The Shade Room posts to Instagram each day, in the signature Shade Room tone, which Nwandu defines as “Kool-Aid in a wine glass.” The captions read like group texts from your chattiest friends, with layers of inside jokes and slang that separate those in the know from those who aren’t. “I walked into the office and I said, ‘Listen, let me apologize immediately and let you know that it’s a curse,’” she recalls. A few hours later the same day, Nwandu had a meeting with Diddy. The day before our interview, The Shade Room broke the news of Diddy and Cassie’s breakup. Nwandu says the score is a reminder that she needs to keep her foot on the gas pedal, break stories before other sites, and serve the community a highlight reel of the day’s greatest hits with a variety of Black-first content. By noon, Nwandu has received more than 600 text messages.Ī few hours after TSR broke the news of Diddy and Cassie’s breakup, Nwandu had a meeting with Diddy. Then she heads into the office located in downtown Los Angeles. (“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”) Her mornings consist of prayer at home then private meetings and lunches, the occasional glance at her growing inbox. She’s been up since 6:33 am, the time she wakes up every day and a reference to the bible verse Matthew 6:33. It’s a Thursday in September, and Nwandu is doing what she does best: spilling metaphorical tea. As of 2018, The Shade Room was the second most popular publisher on Instagram in terms of likes and comments, behind 9GAG, a Hong Kong-based meme account. After five years of steady growth in a copycat industry, no other cultural media outlet has come close to its speed, exclusives, and sheer volume of posts and engagement. A community-sourced mix of celebrity gossip (star-powered feuds, messy breakups), celebrations of Black excellence, and cultural debates (Should you keep ketchup in the pantry or the fridge?), The Shade Room is an authentic expression of Black culture that can’t be easily imitated. At the same time, Nwandu created a unique and distinctly Black voice in pop culture news. The Shade Room fundamentally changed how pop culture news is delivered, consumed, and interacted with. Print media was still trying to figure out exactly how to transition to digital (or shutting down completely), and Nwandu was meeting readers where they were (and are)-endlessly thumbing through Instagram.īy noon, Angie Nwandu has received more than 600 text messages. With their group chats clogged, her friends suggested she use her newfound time and energy to start her own gossip blog. High-stakes celebrity negotiations have become business as usual for Nwandu, age 28, who started The Shade Room in 2014 while unemployed and thus freed up to text her friends the latest superstar breakups at lightspeed. It would affect their career and they had invited us to that same birthday party so it felt weird.” “You don't want to ruin their job,” she tells me over fried rice and noodles at The Shade Room office. In the end, Nwandu never posted the video. The clip would get clicks, but at what cost? The footage, the kind that TMZ reporters might poison Harvey Levin's massive water bottle for, created a conundrum for the Instagram-based culture and news outlet. The video showed two siblings-"Really, really high up, big celebrities, right?" Nwandu says-snorting lines of cocaine right next to their mother, a celebrity in her own right. An important party, the sort you really only read about in celebrity weeklies or, well, The Shade Room. A Roommate, the moniker given to members of The Shade Room community, passed along footage from a birthday party. About a year ago, The Shade Room founder Angie Nwandu received a tip.
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