Scaachi Koul

Last updated

Scaachi Koul
Scaachi Koul at In Conversation at Indigo Chapters - 2017 - IMG 2959.jpg
Koul at a book reading in Toronto in 2017
Born (1991-02-07) February 7, 1991 (age 33)
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Alma mater Ryerson University
OccupationWriter

Scaachi Koul (born February 7, 1991) is a former Canadian culture writer at BuzzFeed Canada. [1] [2] She is the author of the book of essays One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter and was one of the reporters in BuzzFeed's Netflix documentary series Follow This . Before BuzzFeed, Koul worked at Penguin Random House Canada, the acquiring publisher of her book. [3] Her journalism has appeared in Flare , [4] HuffPost Canada, The Thought Catalog, The Guardian , The New Yorker , [5] The New York Times , [6] The Globe and Mail , [7] and other publications.

Contents

Career

Koul freelanced while still at the Ryerson School of Journalism where she wrote for Maclean's from 2009 up until her graduation at the end of 2012. [8] [9] From April to November 2014 Koul wrote the "Unf*ck Yourself" column for Hazlitt . [10] In 2015 her column was rebranded "Scaach-22" with the new tagline "managing your own privilege without being a dick". [11]

In March 2015, while Koul was still employed by Penguin Random House Canada, they announced publication of a collection of her essays. [3] Originally the collection was titled The Pursuit of Misery [12] then it was changed to One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter. [13] The book covers subjects including family, race, feminism, body image, and rape culture from her perspective as an Indian-Canadian woman growing up in the suburbs of Calgary. [14] She also discusses her writing career and social media, including temporarily deactivating her Twitter account as a result of invective and threats following a request for long-form submissions from people who were "not white and not male". [15] Koul was praised for her wit and humour, [16] ability to mix sarcasm and sentimentality, [17] and for her effective use of confessional writing as a complement to analytical rigour. [18] She received a shortlisted nomination for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Award for the best book of humour written in English by a Canadian writer. [19]

She hosts the Scamfluencers podcast with Sarah Hagi, which covers scammers who are influencers. [20] Scamfluencers won the Ambie award in 2023 for best podcast covering the entertainment industry. [21]

She also co-hosts a BBC production podcast Where to be a woman with Sophia Smith Galer. [22]

In March of 2024, she appeared in 4 episodes of the Nickelodeon documentary “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” as a consultant.

As of 2024 Slate lists Koul as a senior writer. [23]

Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story

In May 2023, Koul revealed in a Huffington Post article that she was investigating former pornographic film franchise Girls Gone Wild and its founder Joe Francis. [24] She also revealed that she had interviewed Francis for nine hours at a home he had in Punta Mita, Mexico. [24] In December 2024, the three episode series Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story, a documentary detailing Koul's investigation of Girls Gone Wild and Francis, became avaiable to stream on Peacock. [25] [26] The documentary provided insight into Girls Gone Wild's influence and sex abuse allegation against the franchise and its founder. [25] [26] Koul's 2022 interview with Francis, who was revealed to now be living outside of the United States in Mexico since 2015 following a criminal conviction for imprisoning three women at his Hollywood home and assaulting one of them, was included in the series as well. [27] [25] In Koul's documentary series, multiple people, including a former Girls Gone Wild cameraman, alleged that Francis engaged in sex with underage minors and that some his sexual encounters, no matter the age, where nonconsensual. [27]

Personal life

Koul was born to Indian parents and raised in Calgary, Alberta. [1] She was a member of the Girl Guides of Canada and participated in their youth programs. [28] She currently lives in New York [29] with her cat, Sylvia Plath. [30] She was formerly married.

Koul is an Indian-Canadian of Kashmiri descent, and her writing on race and shadism draws from her own life. [7] [31] Of her ethnicity, she has stated although she is of Indian descent herself, her fairer skin has given her a privilege when she goes to India. [32] [33]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Francis</span> American criminal and founder of Girls Gone Wild (born 1973)

Joseph R. Francis is an American entrepreneur, film producer and the founder and creator of the Girls Gone Wild entertainment brand. Francis worked as a production assistant on the syndicated program Real TV (1996) before releasing the direct-to-video film Banned from Television (1998).

Joan Clark was a Canadian fiction author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheryl Strayed</span> American writer (born 1968)

Cheryl Strayed is an American writer and podcast host. She has written four books: the novel Torch (2006) and the nonfiction books Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2012), Tiny Beautiful Things (2012) and Brave Enough (2015). Wild, the story of Strayed's 1995 hike up the Pacific Crest Trail, is an international bestseller and was adapted into the 2014 Academy Award-nominated film Wild.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiona Sampson</span> British poet and writer

Fiona Ruth Sampson is a British poet, writer, editor, translator and academic who was the first woman editor of Poetry Review since Muriel Spark. She received a MBE for services to literature in 2017.

<i>Girls Gone Wild</i> (franchise) Adult entertainment franchise

Girls Gone Wild (GGW) was an adult entertainment franchise created by Joe Francis in 1997, who occasionally appeared as the host of the videos.

BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Kenneth Lerer, co-founder and chairman of The Huffington Post, started as a co-founder and investor in BuzzFeed and is now the executive chairman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elaine Lui</span> Canadian journalist

Elaine "Lainey" Lui is a Canadian television personality and reporter. She has a website called LaineyGossip, is an anchor on CTV's etalk, and was a co-host on CTV's daily talk series The Social.

Trisha Paytas is an American media personality. Her content consists of a wide variety of genres including lifestyle-oriented vlogs, music videos, and mukbangs. As of July 2022, she has accumulated roughly 5 million subscribers and almost 1 billion lifetime views on YouTube.

Casa Aramara is a private, seaside estate in Punta Mita, Mexico. The property was built by media entrepreneur, Joe Francis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hanif Abdurraqib</span> American poet and essayist

Hanif Abdurraqib is an American poet, essayist, and cultural critic. His first essay collection, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was published in 2017. His 2021 essay collection A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance received the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Abdurraqib received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kimberly Drew</span> American art curator, writer, activist

Kimberly Drew is an American art influencer and writer. She is best known as the former social media manager for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and her use of the social media handle @MuseumMammy. Drew released her first book, This Is What I Know About Art in June 2020, as part of a children's book series from Penguin, and published an anthology titled Black Futures with New York Times staff writer Jenna Wortham in December 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Durga Chew-Bose</span> Canadian essayist

Durga Chew-Bose is a Canadian writer and film director. Her first book, Too Much and Not the Mood, was published in 2017. Her first film, Bonjour Tristesse, which she adapted from the Françoise Sagan novel by the same name, debuted at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

Kai Cheng Thom is a Chinese-Canadian writer, performance artist, mental health community worker, youth counsellor, and former social worker. Thom, a non-binary transgender woman, has published five books, including the novel Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir (2016), the poetry collection a place called No Homeland (2017), a children's book, From the Stars in The Sky to the Fish in the Sea (2017), I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World (2019), a book of essays centered on transformative justice, and Falling Back in Love With Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls (2023).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Weinman</span> American journalist and crime fiction author

Sarah Weinman is a journalist, editor, and crime fiction authority. She has most recently written The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World about the kidnapping and captivity of 11-year-old Florence Sally Horner by a serial child molester, a crime believed to have inspired Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. The book received mostly positive reviews from NPR, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe.

Gwen Benaway is a Canadian poet and activist. As of October 2019, she was a PhD candidate in the Women & Gender Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto. Benaway has also written non-fiction for The Globe and Mail and Maclean's.

Olivia Gatwood is a poet, writer, and educator on topics that include coming of age, feminism, gendered violence, & true crime.

<i>Swindled</i> American true crime podcast

Swindled is an American true crime podcast written and hosted by an anonymous man that uses the pseudonym "A Concerned Citizen". The scripted series explores the world of white-collar crime, con artists, and corporate greed.

Anne Helen Petersen is an American writer and journalist. She worked as a Senior Culture Writer for BuzzFeed until August 2020, when she began writing full-time for her newsletter "Culture Study" on Substack. Petersen has also been published in the opinion section of The New York Times.

Alicia Elliott is a Tuscarora writer and editor.

<i>Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story</i> 2024 film

Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story is a 2024 documentary film series which explores the making of Girls Gone Wild and its creator Joe Francis. The three episode documentary series, which was made by Scaachi Koul and began streaming on Peacock on December 3, 2024, also explores the influence of Girls Gone Wild, including it's popular culture influence, as well as its controversies, including the numerous sex abuse allegations concerning both the company and Francis.

References

  1. 1 2 "Scaachi Koul Biography". penguinrandomhouse.ca. Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  2. ↑ "Scaachi Koul". Buzzfeed.com. BuzzFeed Canada. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  3. 1 2 Robertson, Becky (March 12, 2014). "Doubleday Canada acquires essay collection by Scaachi Koul". quillandquire.com/. St. Joseph Media. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  4. ↑ Koul, Scaachi. "Scaachi Koul on the Reality of Dating a Much Older Guy". flare.com. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  5. ↑ "Contributors: Scaachi Koul". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  6. ↑ Koul, Scaachi (February 6, 2017). "Meanwhile in Canada … Things Are Just as Bad". The New York Times. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  7. 1 2 Koul, Scaachi (May 6, 2016). "Review: Kamal Al-Solaylee's Brown is essential reading for understanding the non-white world". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  8. ↑ "Contributors: Scaachi Koul". Maclean's. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  9. ↑ Hansen, Leah. "Scaachi Koul". Ryerson School of Journalism. Grads at Work. Archived from the original on May 23, 2017. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  10. ↑ Koul, Scaachi. "Unf*ck Yourself". Hazlitt. Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  11. ↑ Koul, Scaachi. "Scaach-22". Hazlitt. Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  12. ↑ "Author Scaachi Koul". Hazlitt Magazine. Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  13. ↑ "Scaachi Koul | Authors | Macmillan". US Macmillan. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  14. ↑ Donahue, Anne. "12 Days of Feminists: Anne T. Donahue on Fierce Truth-Teller Scaachi Koul". Flare. Archived from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  15. ↑ Ansari, Sadiya (March 9, 2017). "Scaachi Koul on Race, Anxiety and Her Brand-New Book". Flare. Archived from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  16. ↑ Volmers, Eric (March 18, 2017). "Calgary's Scaachi Koul tackles Twitter trolls, Indian weddings and body hair in new collection of essays". Calgary Herald . Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  17. ↑ Arnone, Ted (March 13, 2017). "Jagged utter pill: Scaachi Koul turns social media rage and mockery into an enthralling essay collection". The National Post . Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  18. ↑ Rosenberg, Alyssa (May 2, 2017). "In Scaachi Koul's debut essay collection, life is ridiculous–and deadly serious". The Washington Post . Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  19. ↑ "Scaachi Koul, Laurie Gelman and Jennifer Craig shortlisted for 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour". CBC Books, May 2, 2018.
  20. ↑ "Scamfluencers (Podcast Series 2022– )". IMDb. April 11, 2022. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  21. ↑ Chan, J. Clara (March 7, 2023). "Ambie Awards: 'Chameleon: Wild Boys' Wins Podcast of the Year". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved July 20, 2024.
  22. ↑ "Award-winning journalists Sophia Smith Galer and Scaachi Koul launch new podcast". BBC. February 14, 2024.
  23. ↑ "Scaachi Koul". Slate Magazine . Retrieved July 20, 2024.
  24. 1 2 Koul, Scaachi (May 18, 2023). "Inside The Stunning Rise And Fall Of Girls Gone Wild". Huffington Post. Retrieved December 9, 2024.
  25. 1 2 3 Ingram, Hunter (December 3, 2024). "'Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story' Producer Scaachi Koul on Exposing Joe Francis' Criminal Enterprise: 'He Will Be Relevant Forever'". Variety. Retrieved December 9, 2024.
  26. 1 2 Dunaj, Mikhayla (December 3, 2024). "How to watch 'Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story' on Peacock". MLive. Retrieved December 9, 2024.
  27. 1 2 Adams, Abigail (December 4, 2024). "Joe Francis Says Having Daughters Hasn't Changed His View on Girls Gone Wild: 'Not at All'". People. Retrieved December 9, 2024.
  28. ↑ "Diamond Isinger on Instagram: "Created my own Girl Guide role-model edition of "Guess Who?" for @girlguidesofcanada girls to play, featuring lots of accomplished 🇨🇦 women…"". Instagram. Archived from the original on December 25, 2021. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
  29. ↑ Scaachi Koul [@Scaachi] (March 19, 2019). "i live in new york now sorry to disappoint" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  30. ↑ Koul, Scaachi (2017). One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter: Essays. Doubleday Canada. ISBN   9780385685368.
  31. ↑ Koul, Scaachi (November 2, 2015). "I Was on a CBC Panel and the Internet Wanted To Guess My Race". buzzfeed.com. Buzzfeed Canada. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
  32. ↑ Catherine Whelan (May 4, 2017). "White privilege in brown Canada". Public Radio International.
  33. ↑ "Scaachi Koul's One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, reviewed: Honest and humorous" . Retrieved October 14, 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.