Image by Tara Jacoby, featuring the shade artist at a young age. :
Hello. We are all here, on this Earth, breathing in and out, trying to stay sane and hydrated. One day at a time, everyone. One very, very, very long day at a time.
In this week’s Shade Court, Katy Perry is probably still mad at Taylor Swift, the baseball mens don’t know what they’re talking about and Barack Obama is a stone cold savage.
The Case: Ms. Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, AKA Katy “the costume looks good but please add some enormous detail on the boob area please” Perry attended a Kanye West concert in Los Angeles. Being the connected young woman that she is, Katy filmed a video during the show where she made some funny faces while Kanye sang those lyrics that Taylor Swift totally approved beforehand.
The Defendant: My god, everyone. MTV UK, US Weekly, Page Six, Yahoo Celebrity, Consequence of Sound, Marie Claire, Popsugar
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: As I’ve preached in Shade Court before, context is key. The necessary context here is the current state of Katy and Taylor’s relationship. Naturally, the most obvious assessment is that they both still hate each other.
However, this week Katy and Taylor attended Drake’s birthday party, SO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS: Probably nothing. Drake throws great parties I bet. So, let’s just assume Katy still cannot stand Taylor and vice versa.
Now, I do wish Katy had refrained from the facial gesticulations at the end and the excess zoom? Indeed. I’m guessing this was her of saying: “Oh look at me. Just being goofy! And if I act goofy, maybe it will distract from the fact that I’m shading the absolute hell out of Taylor Swift right now.” This was good shade. She sort of retains some plausible deniability about the intentionality of choosing to film during that specific part of the song, but also, duh.
The Ruling: Shade
Shade Court Docket #2016JZ000202
Images via Getty. :
The Case: Barack Obama continued his, “Wow, I do not give a fuck, when is this all going to be over” tour with an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! where he participated in the show’s “mean tweets” segment.
By now you’ve seen my man Barry’s perfect retort to Donald Trump’s idiotic tweet but let’s play it again because goddamn that was satisfying.
The Defendant: Fuse TV
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: Have you people never seen a burn before? Is the idea of Person A responding to Person B in a bold manner that completely undermines and makes ridiculous the insult Person B tried to hurl at Person A a completely foreign concept in your world? THE MAN LITERALLY DROPPED HIS PHONE LIKE SOME SORT OF CROSS BETWEEN ATTILA THE HUN AND ARETHA FRANKLIN.
The Ruling: Not shade
Shade Court Docket #2016JZ000203
The Case: I’m going do something unprecedented and combine two incidents under a single case number because both are so pathetic that they truly are not worth evaluating separately. Both involve baseball and people in Cleveland acting up.
The first is this tweet from the Cleveland Police following a Game 1 of the World Series.
The second is some bizarre ad from a local Fox affiliate in Cleveland.
The Defendant: Cubs Talk, Awful Announcing, Dave Movius
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: Is anyone else wondering why the fuck the Cleveland Police are using an official Twitter account to make fun of a professional baseball team? Are you perhaps thinking that maybe they should be worrying about people who are actually missing? Does it not seem ludicrous that they peppered an already very bad tweet with emojis? Don’t even get me started on that #gotribe hashtag.
Regarding that petty-ass spot from Fox 8, is it really that serious? I suppose it is to you all, but if so, I think you could have done better than that bumpy segue.
Guys, look at all the sport mans thinking they know shade. They do not know shade. In fact, they are so absurdly off-base with their assessment of shade, I’m struggling to even begin to guess a context that would result in such a horrific lack of understanding of the concept of shade. The only likely explanation is that they get all their news from E! Online.
The Ruling: NO OF COURSE THAT SHIT IS NOT SHADE
Shade Court Docket #2016JZ000204
Images via Getty. :
The Case: Up until October 22, Taylor Swift had not performed a single concert in this year of 2016. Seeing as how 2016 has been abysmal, I’m struggling reconcile those two facts but I’m sure it’ll come to me.
During the show, Swift did a cover of “This Is What You Came For,” the song she wrote with her ex-boyfriend Calvin Harris.
She also added this:
“As a songwriter, the most rewarding feeling in the world is writing something and having a crowd sing it back to you because you know the words. I never played this song live before, but you know it. Maybe you can sing along.”
The Defendant: Sugarscape, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post
The Evidence:
So does this mean she’s over Harris? Or does it mean they’re good enough friends to play each other’s songs? Will Harris sample “Blank Space” anytime soon? Or was this just TSwift throwing a little shade her ex’s way?
The Deliberation: Hm.
HMMMM.
I think Taylor Swift does a lot of things that she thinks are subtle and clever and kind of are but definitely not to the degree that she thinks. It’s similar to her “sexy face.” Does she look bad? No, but I don’t think she looks quite how she sees herself in her head. All that to say, this feels shady but not a bullseye.
Again, it would be helpful to know if Taylor truly has moved on because then you can read this as a gesture of goodwill. On the other hand, she basically awards herself all the credit for the song—even though she co-wrote it with Calvin—and when have we ever known her to move on from a relationship quietly?
My gut is telling me this is shade if only because she so much wants to be liked that if she truly wanted to publicly bury the hatchet, I’m guessing her speech would have involved a more enthusiastic platitude or two. One thing I’ll give Taylor is that she always knows what she’s doing.
