Initially, the mission of The Shade Room was to get down to the truth of any situation, whether it's politics, celebrity news, or covering a black boy being shot. We've had everyone from the Kardashains to Nicki Minaj to 50 Cent commenting on our Instagram. Very rarely did celebrities use blogs as a platform to communicate with each other, and The Shade Room quickly became the place for them to do that. Then they started fighting on our page, and it just got crazy. She came and commented on the story, then her boyfriend would respond to her in the comments. One of the first stories I did was on a popular transgender model named Amiyah Scott. I said, "There is no way I'm coming back tomorrow and losing this opportunity." And he said, "Fine, then you quit." In that moment I thought, Either I choose my dream or I choose my job. He yelled into the phone, "You'd better hop on a plane and come back here tomorrow or you're fired." I still had another week left of the program. I was about to get on stage and my boss called me. I didn't have anything except for some of my poetry. Big directors like Quentin Tarantino came to see us. Midway through the program, you're asked to present something you've written before to the audience of mentors and students. We hope our latest rewrite will get picked up. It helped Jordana and me reshape the screenplay, which has been in progress for three years. At times I thought, Why did you even choose me? But then they build you back up again and push you to think about your writing in different ways. You're paired with amazing writers and directors who are great mentors, but they also break down everything you've written - completely tear it apart. I did the daily grunt work of paperwork and filing taxes. Who else was going to help me?Īfter graduation in2012, I was hired to work with a senior accountant at a motorcycle shop in Los Angeles. My biggest concern was that I had to support myself. I went to Loyola Marymount University on a full scholarship. I studied accounting and human resources. I started to see myself as different than my circumstances. I joined the poetry program because I didn't want to do anything else like music or art. It's a program that helps foster youth find creative outlets to let their anger out. When I was 12, I met one of my mentors, Zaid Gayle, from Peace for Kids. I was angry all the time, and I was fighting a lot with other kids. Trying to cope with the pain and confusion of the situation led to me getting in trouble in school. When I was 6 years old, I lost my mother at the hands of my father to domestic violence, and I entered the foster care system. Nwandu, 26, who made this year's Forbes ' 30 Under 30 list, says she wants to create nothing short of a media empire. Today, the Shade Room properties - which include a website, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube pages - have amassed a following of more than 8 million people. In addition to giving plenty of blog space to stars such as Chris Brown and Nikki Minaj, TSR covers breaking news and political topics - from #BlackLivesMatter to #BlackGirlMagic - from the point of view of people of color. Nwandu's focus has always been on the news and celebrities that interest the African-American community. TSR attracted more than 700,000 followers within its first year, which led to he New York Times calling it the TMZ of Instagram. She'd spend hours scouring the social media pages of famous and borderline-famous people, and report on their lives based on their social media activity. Nwandu started an Instagram account and began to anonymously blog about celebrities. When she came up with the idea for The Shade Room (TSR) in 2014, a news site that follows trending stories and the actions of celebrities in real time, Angelica Nwandu was broke, unemployed, and had no blogging experience.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |