![]() ![]() ![]() They want us to be involved in social justice…I accept that responsibility, but we aren't held to the same standards as like a TMZ where they don't really care if you are a social justice warrior or not, or if you're amplifying protests…all of that is not attributed to them. I feel like being a Black woman owner, people expect a lot more. Nwandu: And also, I feel like being…and I hate to pull this card, but it's the truth. Media plays such a big role.Īsare: You feel the weight of everything on your shoulders because you are the creator, people know you specifically by name and anything that gets posted, it's a reflection of The Shade Room, but it also may come back on you. There’re so many people who have benefited from being on a stage where they normally may not be mainstream or given mainstream publicity but because we have a big platform, they're able to come on The Shade Room and get that. It built my career.’ There were people we posted, they went to Ellen and started doing book tours. There are days when I wake up and I'm like, ‘What is The Shade Room doing?’ Then I run into people randomly and they're like, ‘Hey, I was on your platform and you don't know how this helped my life. What am I doing? Why is this hard?’ And a friend of mine told me, ‘Well, you know that you have the right intentions because it's hard.’ I remember talking to another head of a media company and I said, ‘Isn't this hard?’ And they were like, ‘No, it's easy.’ I went home with that and I said, ‘Well, wait. For me, it's a daily struggle because first of all, I love the Black community…but I also feel the responsibility and the weight of it all…I'm constantly getting criticized about our reporting. There are so many stories that we could have put out. There’re so many exclusives we could have had. We’ve gone further into politics, we’ve diversified our news, we do inspiration, too, and people look at us as a reliable source.The Shade Room has become the premier place for Black celebrity news gettyĪsare: Do you ever feel like you have a responsibility as a Black woman to not put out certain stories? Do you ever have those moments where you're like, ‘I know that this is breaking news, but for whatever reason, we just feel like morally this isn't something that we want to put out?’ ![]() Obama has stepped into TSR, President Joe Biden has stepped in twice, Stacey Abrams, and the list goes on. ![]() But, over the course of eight years, I’ve seen that we’ve done just that. The vision that I got was basically that TSR would become an information hub and be more important than just Black culture, but would go further into the news.įor me, at that time, it looked so crazy because we were very singular at what we posted. So, I asked God to give me a vision to transform TSR into something more important and better. It was at that point that I was like, ‘I need a vision.’ I felt like I had built up a community of people. It was very edgy and funny, and over time, not only was I not satisfied, but the roommates were no longer satisfied with that kind of content. When I first started TSR, it was just a salacious platform where I was sharing my opinion on everything that was going on. I needed to figure out what I was going to do. My purpose for creating TSR was because I was unemployed, and I was in a situation where I needed to find a hustle. When I launched it, I was moving on my own. Nwandu joined AfroTech in an exclusive interview to discuss how technology seemingly changed her life, the vision that led her to create TSR, and what’s kept her in the game so long after building a multimedia platform from scratch that managed to outlast some of its peers.Įditorial Note: Portions of this interview have been edited for clarity and length.Īngie: It wasn’t a vision from God. To date, they now have over 25 million followers who are affectionately known as “Roommates.” It is now one of the most popular accounts on the I nstagram platform. Little did she know, taking one leap of faith would soon propel her into a vision that was greater than what she had for herself.ĭuring its initial launch, The Shade Room (TSR) had around 300 followers. On the heels of quitting a pretty stable accounting firm job, Nwandu chose to follow her dreams of becoming a screenwriter, a passion she first discovered as a kid. At the time, she simply did not have the funds needed to afford the classes to prep for the exam. Building an empire is no easy feat, but for Angelica Nwandu, there was no other option.Īfter hitting a bit of a storm in her early adult years, Nwandu found herself flunking both the LSAT and GMAT exams while some of her peers went on to the next step of graduate school. ![]()
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