BuzzFeedâs Scaachi Koul Talks Humor, Canadian vs. American Politics & Why Twitter Isnât Necessary
Photo Courtesy: Picador USA
I took Scaachi Koulâs collection of essays, One Day Weâll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, with me to Las Vegas during my bachelorette party a few months ago. I knew that Koul was extremely funny and thought the book would provide some light reading while poolside at a cabana.Â
Koulâs opening essay came out of the gate hot, and I could not put the book down.Â
Her writing is extremely honest and open, and for me it was relatable. When she talked about being the only brown girl around her white classmates in Canada, I was transported back to my entire childhood existence feeling that same isolation. Her essay about a mortifying mishap in a Toronto dressing room had me simultaneously laughing while also cringing in sympathy. Each chapter plays out like a scene from a TV show, so itâs no surprise that recently Koul announced her essays will be turned into a scripted series by First Generation Films.
Koul also works as a senior writer for BuzzFeed and wrote a brilliant piece called âA Userâs Guide to My Stupid Nameâ that should be required reading for anyone with a âculturally differentâ (aka foreign) name (Iâve lost track of how many times my name has been mispronounced in my life).Â
A few weeks ago, I chatted with Scaachi over the phone about her debut collection of essays, why Americans shouldnât threaten to move to Canada after an election year and whether or not you need to be on Twitter to get hired.Â
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.Â
Photo Courtesy: Barbora Simkova
Ngozi: What was it like writing this collection of essays and then seeing it come to completion and being published?Â
Scaachi: I mean, itâs weird. It feels like an out of body experience, but I feel some detachment to it at this point. Itâs been a few months, but Iâm happy with the result. I feel like people really like it, so thatâs always good.Â
What has touring been like? Whatâs been the response youâve gotten after talking to people who have read [O.D.W.A.B.D.A.N.O.T.W.M]?Â
Scaachi: I donât mind touring. I find it kind of taxing because I donât like traveling. Itâs tricky especially if you donât like being on a plane and then being on a lot of planes is not exactly an ideal situation. Itâs been nice to go to different cities and talk to different people and hear about different perspectives outside of Canada and in the States. Itâs been fun.Â
Youâve talked about just how personal you were able to get with this book, and you even open with an essay on anxiety. You talk about a lot of serious things. Did you ever feel like there was a sense of âSomeoneâs reading my journal without my permissionâ? Did writing these essays ever feel like that to you?
Scaachi: I guess so, but I donât experience shame that often so it doesnât really bother me. I think my general policy is if you write a personal essay and it feels too raw, then maybe itâs just not the time to write it. I have lots of stories like that where they just donât feel ready and maybe they donât feel funny and itâs not comfortable to get them up yet, and those are stories that I donât [put out].
Humor is a big part of all of your work â not just in these essays but also in your work for BuzzFeed. Where does your humor come from and did it almost feel like it was developed as a defense mechanism over the years? I know for me, thatâs how I developed mine. Do you think itâs your most powerful trait?
Scaachi: I feel like I was born with it. Itâs certainly something Iâve honed, but I think itâs something I had at first. I think a lot about being funny is just sort of inherent â you either kind of have it when you were born or you donât, and then from there you decide how important it is and how much youâre going to use it. I think itâs pretty clear for me in the book that I get a lot of my sense of humor from my dad because heâs insane. I think I realized pretty early on that being funny creates a social capital for yourself, but at 10-years-old if I could have traded being funny for being popular, I probably would have. But it was sort of like a thing that I had, so thatâs what I used.Â
In this book, you use your humor and youâre funny, and then you cut to something thatâs more serious or sad.Â
Scaachi: Well I do think that with the book, I canât give you ten essays about the inescapable tragedy of human existence and not give you a joke. So there is something to be said about luring the audience in to talk about something thatâs kind of serious and weighty, but I donât feel like itâs disingenuous. I think the book is presented the way I would present myself in any social situation.Â
In your book, the essays that really resonated with me focused on race and identity and seeing oneself as a first-generation adult. In your essay, âFair & Lovely,â you talked about pushing away your brownness for a long time, and I think most of us experience that feeling of otherness and go through that period of time. Was writing that essay cathartic, in a sense, knowing where you are now with your identity and how you see yourself?Â
Scaachi: Yeah, I mean sure. [All the essays] are kind of cathartic.Â
What was the process like writing that particular essay?Â
Scaachi: I mean I feel like it came quite naturally, so I donât know if Iâve got a clean answer for how cathartic it felt because I feel like I came back from that wedding and just sort of had that in my head. Everything just kind of came together. That was the fourth or fifth trip Iâd made to India in my life, and so I had all of these old memories, and I didnât really know what to make of them. That was the first trip Iâd made to India as an adult, and it was the first time weâd gone with my niece [Raisin] whoâs biracial. Iâd never had that point of reference, so I think it just kind of came together quite simply. I wasnât really ruminating on it for very long because I think while I was there it was like, âOh okay. Now I understand,â and so all these pieces that were sort of missing came together simply.Â
Youâve talked about growing up Indian-Canadian, and youâve mentioned how sometimes Americans think there are no racial issues [in Canada] and that itâs this âmythicalâ land. How do you explain to people here in the States why that isnât true? Iâm also curious because so many people here after an election year say, âIâm going to move to Canadaâ after their candidate loses. What do you think when you hear people say that?Â
Scaachi: I think itâs laziness. I understand the instinct, but I think itâs sort of lazy. I mean in terms of the comparison point between the two countries, itâs hard to compare the two. You guys are 350 million, and weâre 35 million [people], so just by scale our issues are going to seem a lot less severe. The other part of it is in your recent election, the US has elected what is quite seriously the worst possible candidate they could have elected for president. So then by comparison, everything we do [in Canada] will not seem that bad.Â
I am troubled over the international fawning over Trudeau. I think for the first few months it made sense and it was fine, and now it kind of bothers me because heâs been in office for almost two years, and he hasnât done anything. I have not seen him do anything, and I am more irritated by progressives who lie to you and lie to the base and say that theyâre going to do something, and then they do nothing. That bothers me on an intellectual level and on an emotional level. It seems dangerous to dismiss what can and is happening in Canada because there are a lot of people here who are suffering, and itâs difficult to say, âOh racism doesnât exist.â Well itâs really hard for me to listen to that when I know that there are swaths of communities â largely poor indigenous communities, poor people of color â who donât have access to clean water in the country. If you look at whatâs happening in Flint, itâs the same thing.Â
In terms of moving to Canada, I get it, and certainly there are things that Canadians have that Americans donât, and Iâm very thankful for those things. I can understand people who say they need to move because they need healthcare. Thatâs a reasonable thing. But this idea that âIâm going to move to Canada and everything is going to be fineâ â I canât tell you how many times I do events in the US, and someone comes up to me and is like, âSo if you go to school in Canada itâs free, right?â No itâs not free. Itâs cheaper, but by that token, our schools are not considered as prestigious [laughs]. Thereâs this set of lies that I feel like people told themselves about how things work up here, and then people think that theyâre just going to show up. I donât get it. I feel like theyâre just going to be woefully disappointed.Â
Yeah, and itâs like obviously if you visit as a tourist youâre going to see or experience, a lot of times, the best parts of a country because youâre on a vacation and naturally youâll be like, âOh this place is great.âÂ
Scaachi: Sure, and I mean thereâs this thought that fundamentally Americans arenât taught anything about Canada when you guys go to school. I mean you literally know nothing about us and then you become of voting age, and you think this is a bastion of socialism and I can go there and live there. I donât know. I remember thinking that about Europe when I was younger. I thought that Europe was where you go if you want to live in a really liberal, hippie-dippy place and you can drink at sixteen, schoolâs covered and blah blah blah. Thatâs a really adorable way to think, but considering how many shootings have been happening there and the level and the tone of the racism â even just looking at whatâs happened to London in the last few months â how can you continue to believe that? So I mean it just strikes me as lazy ideology. Nowhere is good. I hate to phrase it like that, but I donâtâ know where the good, safe place is. Iâm really not too sure.Â
Also the solution to your country being fucked up isnât leaving. Itâs not, especially when people who are often saying, âIâm going to move to Canada,â they more often tend to be white, and they tend to have enough money to pick up and go. Itâs never poor people of color who say Iâm going to move to Canada. Iâve never seen that. Itâs always these white people who have some capital and some control in changing how the world is working and changing how their country is working. After Trump won, he won in part because of white women voted for him and then there were all these white women who said they were going to move to Canada, and I was like, âYou know what, this is kind of your fault.â So donât fuck it up and then pack your bags and say youâre going to come here and probably ruin the few things we have here [laughs]. Itâs just sort of shirking a lot of responsibility, and itâs often the people who are responsible for those problems.Â
Photo Courtesy: Barbora Simkova
I know everyone always talks about Twitter with you, but I wanted to talk to you in a different context in terms of your essay that you wrote speaking out against it. You quit the platform for a while and then you came back to it. Do you ever feel like being in media that weâll ever go back to a point where your boss says, âYou know what? You donât need to be on this for me to hire you.â Do you think that we should? I know that you edit for people too, and itâs a great way to even the playing field finding writers on social media.Â
Scaachi: I think right now you can get hired without having a Twitter account if your work is good. I donât think itâs necessary. I think in some places my Twitter account is a detriment to my hireability. I donât think that everybody likes it, so Iâm not sure if that is even necessary. I think itâs just something that people have told themselves like, âOh I need to do this.â You donât need to do this. I get a lot of young women who come up to me at my events and they ask me, âHow do I make my Twitter account good so I get hired?â You donât need to. If youâre fighting with the platform and the platform sucks â and it does suck because it doesnât give a shit about anybody â and it doesnât feel good to be on it and youâre not having fun and you canât see an upside? Donât use it. Do the work instead. Do the work quietly. I get that itâs maybe less sexy because you donât get to count how many retweets or whatever, and thatâs obviously frustrating, but if you donât want to do it, donât do it.Â
I think right now younger people going into the industry are just born of that internet phase, and I certainly was. I was raised on social media and accessible YouTube and torrenting. I lived in that world so Iâm very comfortable with it, but I donât know if you need it. I mean my partner isnât really using it that extensibly because it sucks [laughs].Â
Frankly, I think all of us who are using it right now are waiting for something better to show up because the company has made it so clear that they donât care about us.
In one of your essays, you talk about your family meeting your partner. Thereâs the age difference and the fact that youâre in an interracial couple that made the reaction not what you guys would have preferred at first. In the context of what weâve been talking about, did you ever feel like you had to be different in public around him or worry how people perceived you guys in a certain space?
Scaachi: I mean not particularly. I donât think the racial aspect [was an issue]. Because we had a large age difference, there were more growing pains because I felt pretty young, and I think he felt quite old [laughs]. We didnât spend time with my family, and that was where I would have felt like I needed to adjust my behavior.Â
Your family is good now with you two?Â
Scaachi: Yeah. The ending is like, âYeah, everythingâs okay.â Like all things, it just took a minute, and now weâre fine, and Iâm sure my parents will present some other sort of conflict for me. But everythingâs okay right now.Â
Earlier you mentioned your dad, and heâs a big part of your essays. We see his humor throughout the book through the email excerpts at the end of each chapter, but there are a lot of complicated layers in you guysâ relationship that you talk about. Did you feel any type of guilt complex when writing about your parents?Â
Scaachi: In addition to not experiencing shame, I do not experience guilt. They are taxing and lovely people, so I feel like I have an inherent right to write about them. [My dad] is a highly emotional, easily irritated funny person, but he has sort of a set of standards â like a lot of parents â that seem impossible to meet, so that causes a lot of conflict. In the book in the initial drafts of him, he sort of came out a little cartoonish, and so we made an effort to make him an actual person and not just a cartoon. In the book, heâs presented through the lens of writing about where he grew up versus where I grew up or about the things that he wanted and then the things that I wanted that disappointed him. Between every chapter thereâs an objectively insane email from him that makes no sense. Just to give you a taste.Â
Is there a particular essay from the book that youâve received the most response from readers about? Or the one that was your favorite to write that you definitely wanted the world to read?Â
Scaachi: I donât really have a favorite, and I think people respond to different chapters differently. I donât know if I could pick one. I mean thereâs only ten. I donât know if thereâs one that sort of sticks out the most.Â
Is there anything youâve read lately that you would recommend to your readers?
Scaachi: I finished Omar El Akkadâs American War, which was really good. Itâs fiction, but itâs excellent. Then I actually just read an oral history of The Daily Show. Itâs this massive 420-page book, and I loved it. I would imagine itâs only appealing if you really love The Daily Show, but I really loved that. I have in front of me Theft By Finding by David Sedaris, which I havenât opened yet. Then I also read Sam Irbyâs We Are Never Meeting in Real Life which is very, very funny. That one is so good. Itâs nonfiction essays, and itâs so hilarious and so brutal.