REPPED BY MELLINA KONG @ TIKTOK

**I also write and produce for the prolific comedian Barney.** **Check out the recently released VICE documentary on our work!**

I often make the top weekly rankings on TikTok, sometimes taking the first slot!

**My show "Diversity & Other Freak Shows" at the Caveat NYC with Means TV's Barney.**

I’m a writer and video game streamer who goes by the moniker Venti. I’m one of the top-ranked video game streamers on TikTok. Our discord community, the “Lattes” to my Venti, has over 2000 active daily members.

I’ve served as a script reader for Lena Waithe’s Blacklist/Muslim list, and consulted for network television. I’ve also served as a cohort advisor for the Warner Media Early Access Career Bootcamp.

Not For Profit, my comedy pilot about a group of Arab American women running a nonprofit in Dearborn, Michigan, was a part of both the 2021 and 2020 Comedy Central & Center Media and Social Impact Laughter Lab, a recipient of the 2020 Creators of Culture Grant, and a recipient of the 2020 Culture Source Grant.

The Ridge, my first web series about a group of youth in Brooklyn’s predominantly Muslim Bay Ridge community who acquire superpowers, was named a “hot watch” by NOW THIS.

My web series The Girl Deep Down Below, which the Chicago Reader called a “Muslim American Horror Story,” was funded by the Chicago Filmmakers Grant in 2018, and named a “must watch” show by Black Nerd Problems and Pop Sugar.

I’m the proud parent of a pugnacious pug named Moogie, a model for Amazon’s Wag.com and several Lower East Side (shop local!) boutiques in New York City.

Current Works

THE NEW GIRL AT SCHOOL AND OTHER TERRIFYING HORRORS

Cream and Green World Environment Day Talk Instagram Post (2).png

NOT FOR PROFIT Cocreator & Writer

Not For Profit is a half-hour single-camera comedy that follows a group of young Arab American women running a community center in Dearborn, Michigan. The series explores the pains of trying to create change in a world run by money. The series is currently in the 2021 CSMI and Comedy Central Laughter Lab.

Since creating the series with Iman Saleh in early 2020, we’ve been awarded funding for our first season, been profiled by Audie Cornish for NPR’s All Things Considered, wrapped production on our pilot in March, and spent the summer of 2020 workshopping our series pitch as finalists in the CSMI & Comedy Central Yes, and Laughter lab.

Not for Profit is funded by the Detroit Creators of Culture and Culture Source.

The LOOKING GLASS Cocreator & Writer

Covering a range of topics. from the racial ethics of Amazon’s facial recognition software to the gendering of animations in video games, The Looking Glass is a docuseries I’m developing and hosting about the intersections of real-world technologies, science fiction, and fantasy.

The series tracks the specific ways the technology we see in our favorite shows ends up the technology we own in our homes. I was scouted to create The Looking Glass by producer Eleanor Fye (VICE network, Io9) while moderating a panel at Comicon NYC about similar themes and topics.

The Looking Glass began development through Univision and Gizmodo, before the latter was acquired by Great Hill Partners in 2020.

IUDEX
CREATOR & WRITER

Set in a near-future Chicago, Iudex is a black comedy-drama in which a young transgender cyber crimes detective teams up with a tech-savy, genius murderer to catch a killer of transgender women.

Iudex is inspired by and pays tribute to the transgender women being murdered across America at an increasingly alarming rate.

Since writing Iudex in 2017, the series pilot has gone on to be a finalist for the 2018 Project Greenlight Digital Studios GLAAD initiative, a finalist for the 2019 Sundance Episodic labs, and winner of the 2019 Hollywood Bureau labs conducted by How to Get Away with Murder Writer Erika Green Swafford and Grey’s Anatomy producer Zoanna Clack.

CONSULTING

Below are some of the wonderful clients I’ve had the pleasure of advising, consulting, and assisting in developing content and programming that better service and represent queer, Muslim, POC, and immigrant communities.

I’ve developed several writing labs and mentorship pipelines for Muslim and queer writers with Amazon and Warner Media.

Most recently, I was selected by MPAC and Netflix to consult on the creation of an upcoming 2023 flagship program to staff Muslim women in the writer’s room.

PANELS & WORKSHOP

My research is focused on exploring how Arab, Muslim, queer, and immigrant identities are iterated in pop culture. I’ve presented my work “Muslim Girls and Monsters” and “The White AI, How We’ve Coded Identity into the Future of Artificial Intelligence” at cultural institutions and comic conventions cross the United States. Please direct booking inquiries here.

OUR NOT FOR PROFIT CREW DISCUSSING THE REPRESENTATION IN OUR WORK WITH AUDIE CORNISH FOR NPR’S ALL THINGS CONSIDERED — OUR *NOT FOR PROFIT* CREW DISCUSSING THE REPRESENTATION IN OUR WORK WITH AUDIE CORNISH FOR NPR’S *ALL THINGS CONSIDERED*

PANEL ON MUSLIM REPRESENTATION IN FILM AT THE TENEMENT MUSEUM (2020)

COMICON NYC, 2019 PANEL WITH VICE’S ELEANOR FYE. — COMICON NYC, (2019) PANEL WITH VICE’S ELEANOR FYE.

FLAMECON, 2019 PANEL ON POC/QUEER REPRESENTATION IN SCIENCE FICTION

SHARING MY WORK WITH CBS PRODUCER LIZ KENEK ON NPR’S STORY CORP (2019) — SHARING MY WORK WITH CBS PRODUCER LIZ KENEK ON NPR’S *STORY CORP (2019)*

NERVOUSLY GIVING A PANEL JUST BEFORE POWER HOUSE KRISTEN RITTER AT COMICPALOOZA 2019 — NERVOUSLY GIVING A PANEL JUST BEFORE POWER HOUSE KRISTEN RITTER AT COMICPALOOZA (2019)

Past Works

THE GIRL DEEP DOWN BELOW CREATOR & WRITER

The Girl Deep Down Below is a black comedy mystery web series about a group of young women attempting to solve the supernatural disappearances of girls in their Chicago Muslim community.

Funded by Chicago Filmmakers and the Chicago Digital Media Production Fund, The Girl Deep Down Below went on to screen at the Chicago Cultural Center, Comicon, Flamecon, and Comicpalooza.

Though low-budget in nature, the series was called “Muslim American Horror Story” by the Chicago Reader, “a gem” by Black Nerd Problems, and a “must-watch” by Pop-Sugar.

THE RIDGE CREATOR & WRITER

The first web series I ever wrote (yikes, my early 20’s), The Ridge is a supernatural dramedy that follows a group of Muslim youth in Brooklyn who acquire strange powers in a freak accident and then accidentally kill the surveillance officer monitoring their community.

Shot on a budget of $5,000 for four episodes, The Ridge was my first venture into screenwriting that gained traction with an audience.

We were invited to showcase at places such as Comicon and went on to do several high profile interviews with mass media companies such as NOW THIS.