the.com/shaded
An insult so smooth you only feel the cut once it's bleeding.
means Subtly disrespected or criticized through sly remarks, side-eye, or backhanded comments rather than open attack.
from From Harlem ballroom and Black queer culture of the 1980s, where 'throwing shade' meant insulting someone with elegant indirection; immortalized in the documentary Paris Is Burning.
Shade vs readA read is direct; shade is the polite cousin.
SunglassesEtymology nods to literal shade: blocking, dimming, obscuring.
Dorian CoreyBallroom legend defined the term on camera in 1990.