The TikTokker bursting the celebrity bubble
“I feel like every publicist in New York low-key follows me,” Clara of @colormeloverly says.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
Yes, I’m over the men-think-about-the-Roman Empire discourse, but I didn’t say anything about men thinking they can land planes. —Kate
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This has been the year of the public pressing their feet firmly on celebrities’ necks. From successfully pressuring Drew Barrymore to reverse her decision to break the writer’s strike to outright rejecting the smears against Sophie Turner in her divorce from Joe Jonas, celebrities can no longer get up to their old tricks. Social media is the primary reason for this, and not just because it’s the place where the pressure is applied. It’s also been the place where education about the world of celebrity—particularly, how PR works and other peeks behind the curtain—has meant the general public is now more savvy to when they’re being misled, or when something is being covered up.
This education comes in the form of TikTok explainers from creators like
, but also through humor. Clara, who goes by @colormeloverly across TikTok and Instagram, has been part of the latter since 2021, when Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah inspired her to make a video impersonating Buckingham Palace’s HR department.“And then I eventually moved it over to PR and started growing my client list, so to speak, from there,” she tells me over Zoom. Clara now has over 220,000 followers on TikTok, and a podcast she shares with fellow Embedded interviewee, Clare Brown, called One More Chapter, which is about to embark on its second season.
Clara’s main focus recently, though, has been her newsletter. In
, the creator goes deeper on the subjects she playfully skewers on TikTok, from Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher’s apology to the Spanish Football Federation.“We've grown up watching celebrities react poorly to things they've done badly. And the more you start looking into it, the more you're just like, what are they thinking?” Clara says. “It would be so easy to make a normal-person response to this. Why are they fumbling it so poorly?”
In this interview for paid subscribers, Clara and I talk about TikTok discourse, toeing the line between funny and cruel, and how social media is has demystified the world of celebrity.
I feel like in the past few years with platforms like TikTok, there's become a bit more of an awareness from the general public about how PR works and how celebrities work, and videos like this unmask it a little bit. From where you're sitting, is that something you would say has happened?
I agree. I feel like it used to be very black box-y, or we assumed that celebrities operated of their own accord or we didn't realize how big a team celebrities had and how much their perception in the media and in the public is dependent on a cohesive message that people are putting together for them. Especially the more famous they get, the more that's true, I think. And I think there's more of an awareness and it's like, “Oh, she went out with this person, that's a PR thing.” Or maybe not. Maybe she didn't listen to her PR and that's why she's still going out with this person.
This Joe Jonas, Sophie Turner thing feels like the tipping point. I know I'm very much in my own algorithmic bubble, but I feel like from the get-go everyone was like, “We're not buying this.” Not only were they not buying it, but they immediately suspected it was all strategic and coming from his team.
A hundred percent. I was shocked honestly by how everyone kind of fell into the truth—what I assume is the truth—immediately. I think it was too bold, right? I think he self-owned so much because it's just like, his team could have leaked one thing, and that would've been maybe acceptable, but it was the drip, drip, drip of it all. People aren't that dumb. Like we'll buy that one story maybe came from an anonymous source, but like three, four, five? So it was just a comedy of errors, honestly. And she was very savvy too, with the silence.
Do you have any experience in the PR space? Or is it something you’ve learned about it through making these videos?
I've definitely learned more about it. I feel like every publicist in New York low-key follows me because I get DMs all the time, probably on a daily basis, being like, “Oh my God, your videos are so cathartic for me, it's everything I wish I could tell my clients.” Or like, “I don't know how you do it, but you nail it with your responses every time.” I feel like anyone who's worked for someone has the ability to be…not fake, but, you know, tweak and just massage words in a way that makes someone more receptive to the message. So I think that's why I'm able to do it, especially if you've worked a corporate job for any length of time, you can never be completely, completely honest with your thoughts.
How do you decide what news to respond to? Do people make requests?
I am on Twitter a lot—X, formerly known as Twitter. And I feel like from there I get my pop culture news. Less now than I used to now that it's gone to shit, but it's still where I get a lot of my pop culture stuff from. I feel like I'm very aware of pop culture in probably a relatively unhealthy way. And once you've observed it for long enough, you know what's gonna be a big deal and what's not. And sometimes I do niche stuff that I care about, like the Lea Michelle stuff, I find it so funny.
I get requests all the time, but usually by the time I'm getting the requests, I've already decided whether or not I'm gonna do it. I feel like I'm always very, especially as more time has passed and more people watch my videos, I feel like I'm extra aware of like trying not to fall into the trap of being outraged for outrage's sake, or being like mean for meanness sake, cause that's the kind of thing that gets engagement. So I feel like a lot of people fall into that, intentionally or not.
It's not a super permanent thing, TikTok, it's a revolving and renewing cycle, but the things that you post there, I don't wanna look back a year later and be like, "Oh, that was really mean of me. There was no need for me to talk about this person or to say these things." So usually I try to talk about things that, and this is probably me taking myself very seriously, but that can have a deeper meaning than just the one person. So with Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner, it was just like, "Oh, this is how men treat women in public after they've perceived being wronged."
Sometimes the topics you do wade into, anything with the royals especially, can provoke responses. Do you deal with backlash or do you deal with something not landing the way you want?
I used to respond to some negative comments just because I was like, "Are you serious? Like, why are you, a stranger, posting on a fellow stranger's video?" Because what I do is never rude or offensive. Then when people leave me negative comments or mean comments, I'm just like, are you serious? Like, use your time more wisely. But now I don't respond usually, or I just delete them or block those people. Constructive things I always leave up because it's fine, it's whatever. If you think the royals are God's gift to Earth that's on you, that's not my problem. Sometimes I don't do a video if I think there's gonna be like a ton of—so like for the Royals, like I've really pared back on royal content because some diehard monarchists and royalists are insane. Like they're unwell and there's no need for me to expose myself to that. I'm doing this for fun.
When did you start your newsletter and how do you see it in relation to your TikTok content?
I started it March 2022, I think, so a year after I started TikTok. And have been working on it consistently since then, probably more consistently this year. I initially saw it as a companion to my TikTok just because I feel like when I make videos it's like, what, a minute, minute and a half? It's not very long to wade into any topics. It's enough to be pithy, but not enough to be smart and informed and educated and all of these things in addition to hopefully being funny. So I have always loved writing, so it was a very natural progression slash pivot for me. But I feel like I've definitely, at least at first, had to convince people to go follow it because it's maybe not a natural thing for someone who makes short form video content to hopefully be good at writing more long form things.
I've been really, really happy with it. It's honestly probably my favorite platform on social media right now because it can be very draining to put your face out there all the time for potentially millions of people to see. And it's a very weird thing when you are a normal person with a regular job. So I really enjoy being more behind the scenes that writing allows me to be. It's still my voice. I feel like it's a very similar voice to what I do on TikTok and it's just more. Which I really enjoy.
You also have a podcast, and your co-host is someone we previously interviewed on Embedded—Clare Brown.
Clare's great. She's one of my really good friends. We met because we were both fashion bloggers in the early 2000s. And then I think she started doing comedy content a little bit before I did. And then I did, and then we became better friends through that. And at one point she came to New York and we started talking about something that we could do together. We're both voracious readers, et cetera, et cetera. So we decided to start a podcast, very originally. We did one season earlier this year and we're actually recording the first two episodes of our second season this weekend. It's like, again, kind of more long form content, which I think both of us really appreciate. We can talk about books very much at length from our two different perspectives. So it's been great and it's so nice to do something with someone as a creator. I feel like as a creator it's kind of like a lonely-ish business. So it's nice to share at least one part of it.
Do you find you people know you for just one thing? Are there people who follow you on all platforms?
Obviously my TikTok audience is my largest proportion of my audience. And I think it all kind of fed from there. So I do think there are people who just follow me on each platform. I would say that the Venn diagram of Instagram and newsletter is a circle more or less. It's growing, the amount of people who first find me on the newsletter, which is very nice. But I'm very aware that most of my newsletter audience is originally from Instagram, which I'm very grateful for obviously, because it's hard to get people to follow you across platforms.
Do you have a larger hope or goal for what you want to do as a content creator?
I would like to grow the newsletter. I feel like that's my goal right now. I'll keep doing videos probably, but I enjoy the writing process so much and I enjoy just being able to wax poetic about things in a lengthy way. I think that's where I see myself dedicating more time over the next year. I just really enjoy writing and I would like to make it a bigger part of my career.