Paris Is Burning Rhetoric

My age generation has recently popularized the usage of a single adverbial clause to elucidate a situation. I received a Snapchat, a few weeks ago, from a high school friend with the text “When your roommate throws shade at Scranton.” Snapchat, an app that allows users to send and receive "self-destructing" captioned photos, has contributed to the popularity of this grammatical phenomenon. This structural convention exists primarily to humor. The sender’s facial expression in the picture replaces the absent main clause. The picture communicates the sender’s response to the situation presented in the adverbial clause. In this instance, the sender grimaced. I supposed this high school classmate did not appreciate her roommate “throwing shade” at her hometown. …show more content…
A Google search recalls thousands of news stories, including: “Nicki Minaj Throws Epic Shade at Miley Cyrus During VMA Acceptance Speech.” “To throw shade,” according to The Huffington Post, means to publicly criticize someone, and it originates from African American and Latino gay communities. In the 1990 documentary “Paris is Burning,” drag queen Dorian Corey explains: “Shade is, I don’t tell you you’re ugly, but I don’t have to tell you because you know you’re ugly.’’ Perhaps misjudging the finesse involved with throwing shade, the sender of this Snapchat hyperbolized the incident, like most who have contributed to the proliferation of the