WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. — In 2014, Angelica "Angie" Nwandu felt as if the world was closing in on her.
Broke, unemployed and facing eviction, the aspiring screenwriter and grad-school reject needed a quick hustle to keep the lights on. That's when the Shade Room (TSR) flickered to life.
From her cramped apartment in South L.A., Nwandu launched the page on Instagram and began serving up biting commentary on celebrity gossip spanning the Black Hollywood hierarchy: Atlanta reality TV star Phaedra Parks's messy divorce, Chris Brown's ongoing legal struggles, Jay-Z and Solange's infamous elevator fight.
Now, 10 years and more than 150,000 posts later, Nwandu's last-ditch effort has exploded into a burgeoning Black media empire — drawing more than 29 million followers, reportedly generating millions in revenue, and attracting venture-capital suitors and, lately, greater access to the White House, where TSR has covered the Biden administration and the 2024 election as an official member in the presidential press pool.
After CNN's presidential debate in Atlanta, TSR staffers followed President Biden to a stop at a local Waffle House, where they pressed him on his debate performance and growing concerns about his ability to serve a second term in video posted to TSR's social feeds. And the outlet has met with Vice President Harris — who is now being considered by some party leaders for the top of the Democratic ticket — in a roundtable discussion and exclusive interviews.
The growth signals how much the platform has become a cultural force in the Black community, wielding enough power to not only cover culture but also to shape it. Nwandu, now 34, describes TSR as "the people's blog" or a family cookout where followers, known as "roommates," are spilling tea, dropping hot takes and clapping back in the comments. Aided by their input and news tips, TSR now delivers content across a bevy of social media platforms and digital products, including a website, newsletter and video programming — all while maintaining a distinct voice coded in Black lingo and barbed wit.
But Instagram remains its most engaged community, with a following that far exceeds those of other entertainment media and legacy news outlets and a visual brand identity that breaks through cluttered feeds: the bold, blocky font; the haphazard red zigzag lines marking celebrity breakups; and the enduring hashtag-themed posts (#TSRCutTheFoolery, #TSRMorningInspiration).
Forbes said Nwandu has "revolutionized celebrity gossip." Refinery29 dubbed her the Oprah of her generation. And the New York Times in 2015 described her brand as "Instagram's TMZ" — though TSR has since become a more general-interest platform, with coverage of pop culture, news and politics.
The pivot has come with some challenges. As a platform that largely depends on secondhand sources, TSR has often faced accusations of spreading misinformation. Still, as Black Americans increasingly turn to social media for political engagement, TSR remains a target for elected officials, including Barack Obama, Biden and Harris, who have stepped "into The Shade Room" to address issues affecting the Black community, such as childbirth mortality rates among Black women, tax cuts for the middle class and criminal justice re structuring.
Amid another consequential election year, Nwandu, who serves as CEO, is eager to harness TSR's influence and to grow it into a larger multimedia entity. Her team of more than 30 employees aims to revitalize its politics coverage, partnering with a consultancy firm to improve its journalistic standards and planning a new live-stream series, "Read the Room," to break down hot-button issues. Nwandu envisions it as TSR's version of "a CNN war room."
"The future of this investment will be branching out into live political news coverage in a way where 'roommates' have a voice in the conversation, engaging with the discussions on pressing issues," TSR's head of content, AC Trybula, told The Washington Post. "We want to make sure that we're shining an unbiased light on political matters our audience cares about and really cutting through that clutter, especially during an election year."
Political coverage is not entirely new to the Shade Room. It is has long been offered and aggregated through the brand's #TSRPolitics vertical, which includes more than 8,000 posts and offers a snapshot of the topics that have resonated most with followers: social justice issues, antiabortion legislation, a potential TikTok ban, the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity.
The efforts reflect Nwandu's greater ambitions.
"I have an interest in wanting to elevate the platform. If you're coming here every day, you've got to get some type of news," Nwandu said during lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant on a gray April day. "I don't want to completely walk away from everything [followers] love about the Shade Room, but I want to elevate it slowly."
Impeccably dressed in all black with long, wavy tresses sweeping down her back, Nwandu exudes both flair and formality — a cross between the Bravo housewives she once blogged about and the media mogul she has become. She orders her usual entree, spaghetti pomodoro, but that's where the routine ends for the Nigerian American entrepreneur. "I don't like every day to be the same," she said. "I hate routine."
As for her team, "they have consistency," Nwandu insisted. "Me? I don't think so. … I can't tell you what tomorrow will look like."
Nwandu's schedule is chock-full of events: meetings with advertising partners and her executive leadership team; a talk with journalism students at the University of Southern California; a flight to Cannes, France, for a panel discussion about women in leadership; and interviews for a "Chicken Soup"-esque book that she's working on featuring Black women's stories about love. Even her homes around the Hollywood Hills have changed: from a $3.4 million Sherman Oaks villa to an almost $6.2 million estate in Tarzana. And she refuses to vacation in the same place. "I always want to go somewhere I've never been."
TSR is charting a similar trajectory. Nwandu's hope is that the new reporting efforts could begin to shift how people view TSR. "I want it to be very respected," she said. "I don't want people to say, 'Oh, they're just a gossip blog,' or, 'Stay out of politics, stick to celebrity news.' … I feel like we could be a more important platform. And so I want us to have stellar election coverage."
Facing sagging poll numbers and declining support among Black voters, Biden's reelection campaign has endeavored to increase its engagement with the Black press — notably bypassing the Beltway press to grant interviews with smaller Black and Hispanic outlets. Last year, Nwandu said, she joined other Black media outlets for a roundtable discussion at the White House with Harris. "They allowed us the floor to be able to say how we could engage politically," she said.
In a statement to The Post, Jasmine Harris, the Biden campaign's Black media director, said: "Our campaign is committed to meeting voters where they are and earning every vote, which is why we have carried out the largest and earliest investment into Black media for any reelection campaign in history."
TSR has also been granted greater access to the Biden administration and coverage of White House events. Last month, TSR reported from the White House's Juneteenth concert. About a week later, staffers, including popular "TSR Investigates" host Justin Carter and Nwandu's sister Judith, traveled with other journalists on Harris's Air Force Two to cover the presidential debate.
Research has found that Black Americans are increasingly turning to social media for political coverage, making platforms like TSR a powerful vehicle for news dissemination. "Sources like the Shade Room or other sources that are native to social can play a really important role in making sure communities are informed and have the information they need," said Cheryl Thompson-Morton, Black media initiative director for the Center for Community Media at the City University of New York.
The Biden campaign has also invested in paid media with TSR: On Juneteenth, the page ran an ad from the Biden campaign that commemorated the holiday and boasted the president's commitment to serving the Black community. (The frequency with which TSR posts political advertisements varies, according to the company's head of revenue, Joshua Ott. But he said TSR is open to running advertising content from the Republican Party, too.)
Comments on the recent ad for Biden's campaign — criticizing his administration for not doing more on issues such as reparations and student loan forgiveness — reflect a long-held skepticism among Black voters, who have accused candidates of both parties of pandering to the community.
Presumptive Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump has lodged similar accusations against Biden. Janiyah Thomas, the Black media director for Trump's campaign, has argued that Biden is "gaslighting Black voters." Biden has torn into Trump's record on race, accusing him of causing more harm for Black America. (The Trump campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.) Both candidates have raced to court Black Americans, a voting bloc that has long been critical to presidential elections and that helped deliver Biden's 2020 victory.
"I think it's impossible to be Black around the election cycle and not see those kinds of overtures," Thompson-Morton said.
Most recently, that included a skit at the BET Awards in which host Taraji P. Henson FaceTimed with Harris to voice her concerns about the election. "Yeah, girl, I'm out here in these streets," Harris responded. " … These extremists, as they say — they not like us," a reference to Kendrick Lamar's recent hit song.
The segment was widely mocked online, harking back to other clumsy efforts by Democratic leaders to appeal to Black voters. In 2016, Hillary Clinton claimed she carried hot sauce in her purse during an appearance on the radio show "The Breakfast Club." When host Charlamagne tha God warned she'd be accused of pandering to the Black community, Clinton responded, "Okay, is it working?" On the same program, in 2020, Biden said, "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't Black." He later issued an apology for the remarks.
Thompson-Morton said that she appreciates the outreach efforts of the Biden administration but added that she wants to see more commitment to engaging with traditional Black newsrooms, just as there is with social-first news outlets.
"I think they're both important, … but I think we often see, when political candidates engage with our community, they often engage with things that are more entertainment-driven and not as often with people who are engaged in kind of more traditional models."
Nwandu is also hoping to cover candidates outside of the Democratic Party — a shift from how she approached TSR's coverage during the 2016 and 2020 elections. At the time, she said, TSR turned down interview opportunities that she felt did not align with the community.
"I was completely against doing any kind of Republican interviews," she said. "Back then, I was under the assumption that Black people are Democrats. So [TSR] was leaning toward one party, and if you were a Republican, you could not even get in."
But, over the years, Nwandu has realized that Black people exist along the political spectrum.
"Black people are not a monolith. A lot of them ... are conservative in their viewpoints," she said, but added that many may feel wary of embracing the label. Comments posted to TSR's page, which Trybula said can total 2 million to 3 million a week, offer varying views on multiple issues, including student loan forgiveness, reproductive rights, health care and the economic climate.
"They want to know [how policies] impact their everyday life," Nwandu said. Although this has largely informed TSR's editorial strategy around political coverage, Nwandu admits that there have been major mistakes along the way.
Notably, TSR faced backlash last August for a post about the Biden administration's relief efforts for Maui wildfire victims. Following the disaster, the account shared a post with a headline that announced Biden's one-time payment of $700 per household to victims. Commenters pounced, saying that the administration was sending "billions to Ukraine" but not doing enough to help Americans who lost everything to the fires. (Along with the one-time payments, Biden also deployed hundreds of FEMA workers to Hawaii, who provided 50,000 meals, 75,000 liters of water, 5,000 cots and 10,000 blankets. The agency also activated a transitional sheltering assistance program to help displaced residents find hotels, and other federal agencies were on the ground to help with disaster relief.)
In a TikTok video, creator Joshua Joseph criticized the post as an example of how TSR misleads followers and pushes right-wing rhetoric. Nwandu responded by pointing out that more context about additional aid in Maui was outlined in an accompanying slide of the carousel post.
"Immediately, I was defensive, because I know I don't have ulterior motives," Nwandu said.
Still, she decided that Joseph had a point, reminding her of how easily information can be misconstrued when distilled for social media and of the responsibility TSR has in presenting a full picture without bias.
"They're trying to run us out of politics," Nwandu said. "I'm not going nowhere, but we need to show up better."
Nwandu said the incident prompted her to hire a consulting firm to help TSR with its positioning and selection process for political news coverage. (TSR declined to provide the name of the company because of "contractual terms.")
"I invested in that, because I may not see from my lens why this is wrong, but let me get people who do this to come in and show us how to change our political reporting so that we aren't seen as a right-wing site," Nwandu said. "I'm not trying to be seen as a left-wing site, [either]."
Nwandu feels as if TSR, as a Black media brand, is held to a higher standard, despite its limited resources, she said. "[We] don't have the same access and the same resources to do what bigger media companies are still doing wrong."
Nwandu is hopeful that TSR can one day have its own team of reporters on the ground, instead of depending on other media sources.
"You don't know how badly I want to report on our community from our perspective," she said. "If there's another Mike Brown, God forbid, if there's another Trayvon Martin, God forbid, if there's another Ahmaud Arbery, God forbid — we would be there to cover it from the beginning to the end."
Nwandu said TSR has turned down numerous investment opportunities over the years in an effort to remain Black-owned. Though, in 2015, she did accept money from venture capitalist Bryce Roberts, before eventually buying back most of her equity to own 99.3 percent of the company.
"And I'm going to get that 0.7 back," she said. "For the culture."
Just then, a man who had been scrolling on his phone at a table across from Nwandu piped in. "I like how you said that!" he said. "Doing it for the culture — that's some real s---." Nwandu laughed.
"Somebody's got to do it," she said.
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