Scaachi Koul (born February 7, 1991) is a Canadian culture writer at BuzzFeed Canada. 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 Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

documentary series ''

Follow This ''Follow This'' is an American documentary television series produced by BuzzFeed. The show was released on Netflix on August 23, 2018. Netflix ordered 20 episodes, initially releasing the first seven episodes in August 2018, with seven more in ...

''. Before BuzzFeed, Koul worked at

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. On April 2, 2020, Bertels ...

Canada, the acquiring publisher of her book. Her journalism has appeared in ''Flare'', ''HuffPost Canada'', ''The Thought Catalog'', ''The Guardian'', ''The New Yorker'', ''The New York Times'', ''The Globe and Mail'', and other publications.

Career

Koul freelanced while still at the Ryerson School of Journalism where she wrote for ''

Maclean's ''Maclean's'', founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian perspe ...

'' from 2009 up until her graduation at the end of 2012. From April to November 2014 Koul wrote the "Unf*ck Yourself" column for '' Hazlitt''. In 2015 her column was rebranded "Scaach-22" with the new tagline "managing your own privilege without being a dick". In March 2015, while Koul was still employed by Penguin Random House Canada, they announced publication of a collection of her essays. Originally the collection was titled ''The Pursuit of Misery'' then it was changed to ''One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter''. 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. She also discusses her writing career and

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

, 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 men. Koul was praised for her wit and humour, ability to mix sarcasm and sentimentality, and for her effective use of confessional writing as a complement to analytical rigour. She received a shortlisted nomination for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Award for the best book of humour written in English by a Canadian writer. She hosts the ''Scamfluencers'' podcast with Sarah Hagi, which covers scammers who are

influencer An Internet celebrity (also known as a social media influencer, social media personality, internet personality, or simply influencer) is a celebrity who has acquired or developed their fame and notability through the Internet. The rise of social m ...

Personal life

Koul was born and raised in

Calgary, Alberta Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Canadian Prairies, Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,30 ...

. She was a member of the

Girl Guides of Canada Girl Guides of Canada (GGC; french: Guides du Canada) is the national Guiding association of Canada. Guiding in Canada started on September 7, 1910, and GGC was among the founding members of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (W ...

and participated in their youth programs. She currently lives in New York with her cat, Sylvia Plath. She was formerly married to

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and ma ...

reporter Scott Deveau. Koul is an

Indo-Canadian Indian Canadians are Canadians who have ancestry from India. The terms ''Indo-Canadian'' or ''East Indian'' are sometimes used to avoid confusion with the Indigenous peoples in Canada, Indigenous Peoples of Canada. Categorically, Indian Cana ...

Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...

descent, and her writing on race and

shadism Discrimination based on skin tone, also known as colorism or shadeism, is a form of prejudice and discrimination in which people of certain ethnic groups, or people who are perceived as belonging to a darker-skinned race, are treated differen ...

draws from her own life. She has stated that though she is a

brown person Brown or brown people is a racial and ethnic term. Like black people and white people, it is a term for race based on human skin color. In the age of scientific racism In the 18th and 19th century, European and American writers proposed geo ...

, her fair skin has allowed her access to a kind of

white privilege White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With roots ...

, and when she goes to India she is "basically acting as a white person."

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Koul, Scaachi 1991 births Living people Canadian people of Indian descent Canadian people of Kashmiri descent Canadian Hindus 21st-century Canadian women writers BuzzFeed people Kashmiri people Kashmiri Hindus Kashmiri Pandits Canadian columnists Canadian feminist writers Canadian women essayists Canadian women columnists Writers from Calgary 21st-century Canadian essayists