What Even Was Clairo Shade?
A retrospective on a meme from someone who lives under a rock, I guess.
By Sloane DiBari
I was scrolling through our beautiful WOBC Blog pitch list, pleased with myself for being up on all the music world trends, when I came across a term I was entirely unfamiliar with: Clairo shade.
I mean, obviously, I knew who Clairo was, and everyone says “shade,” but the way they appeared together suggested an alluring cultural phenomenon. So I was like, fuck it, I’ll bite.
Since this blog is mostly read by liberal arts school indie kids, I don’t feel the need to write too extensively about Clairo herself. But, for the uninitiated: Claire Cottrill, professionally known as Clairo, is an indie pop star who got her start making Tumblr-ready bedroom pop as a teenager in the mid-to-late 2010s. This past summer, she released her third full-length record Charm to critical acclaim.
Of course, Clairo’s Twitter stans went absolutely crazy for Charm, too. So crazy, in fact, that they started calling out entirely unrelated tweets for being “Clairo shade.” As in saying anything that’s not expressly lauding Clairo, or even talking about anything that isn’t Clairo, is throwing shade. Yeah. Take, for example, the following tweet about the Trump assassination attempt in July:
These people are very clearly saying such things in jest (I think? I hope?). But that doesn’t take away from the sheer magnitude of this meme. Clairo shade culminated in a disastrous “Bushwick lesbian rooftop party,” because of fucking course it did. The aforementioned function was technically not in Bushwick, either, but whatever. Apparently, a Twitter user named Willa was throwing herself a birthday party, featuring a cake iced with the phrase “Clairo shade” with Brat-green lettering, because OF COURSE SHE DID. And then, a twink fell through the skylight? There is no photographic evidence of this incident to my knowledge, but nonetheless, the defenestrated gayboy is now a main character in the Clairo shade saga. Because of course he is! Of course he is. Fuck.
Willa tweeted a photo of the cake with the caption “whole party lowkey felt like Clairo shade,” to which Clairo herself replied, “:/.” I think that just about sums up how I feel about this whole meme. Whatever, man. Wait…is this article Clairo shade, too? Ahhhhh!!! It never ends!!!!!!