Today, I have the privilege of slightly correcting former CBS Evening News host Dan Rather.
Serious shade is lingo that more or less predates the era of massive use of the internet.
I first heard the term in early 1986 when I lived in NYC and became acquainted with many black gay men involved in the house-ballroom scene. The term goes back at least to the mid-1970’s, that I know of and some have traced the term backwards from black and Latino gay men to our church moms and aunties (which makes sense).
I’ll allow you to peruse the Wikipedia article on throwing shade (and even I have to admit that the fact that the phrase seems to go all the way back to Jane Austen is kinda awesome...and it kinda makes me wonder a bit about the company that Ms. Austen kept on occasion...but I digress!) for something that resembles the original definition of shade; that is, throwing shade is a non-verbal action and “reading” is its verbal equivalent.
Oh, there’s even online tutorials on the topic (granted I don’t think all that much of the quality of these tutorials...so I won’t link them).
But...after I tell you who we are and what we’re doing here I’ll tell you the most amazing part of this entire subject...at least to me…
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I know that the term “throwing shade” was popularized by the 1990 film of the house-ballroom scene, Paris is Burning, and on RuPaul’s Drag Race but ...even as I noted that the term was a little more well-known and popularized, it still had a bit of a subcultural niche as far as lingo was concerned.
Then one day about...4 or 5 years ago, I was reading a blog about one of my other passions, University of Michigan football, and, in a comment thread on a recruit, the commenter stated that the recruit decided to rescind their verbal commitment from Michigan because some of his people and/or other schools recruiting him were “throwing shade” at Michigan.
I think that I stared at that comment for a whole and entire two minutes...on a college football blog?
Really?
And now the lingo “throwng shade” permeates the culture; I mean, I hear the lingo all of the time and I read it on Twitter...a lot.
And I contnue to be amazed that over 30 years after I first heard of “throwing shade”...and in a sub-sub-culture that I belonged to and, in my heart, I still belong to...that the term is as popular as it is.
I never expected that.
(FWIW, I follow Dan Rather on Twitter and he throws some pretty dark and thick shade his damn self!)
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From gizmo59:
Two comments from Walter Einenkel’s recommended post on the hypocrisy of Liz Cheney scolding Trump for his nasty tweet aimed at Ambassador Yovanovitch. First there was this quip by boran2, and then writeon1 applies quantum physics to any communication from any Republican.
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