REPPED BY MELLINA KONG @ TIKTOK
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
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.
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.
AWARDS AND GRANTS
#4 in the Global TikTok Streamer 2024 Summer Competition Rankings
2022 ATX TV Pilot Pitch Semifinalist
2021 Chicago Filmmakers Fellow
2021 CSMI and Comedy Central Laughter Lab Selection
2020 Culture Source Grantee
2020 CSMI & Comedy Central Yes! And Laughter Lab Finalist
2020 Creators of Culture, Detroit Grantee
2019 MPAC Hollywood Bureau/ Wise Ent. Labs Winner
2018 Muslims for American Progress Leadership Award in Entertainment
2018 Project Greenlight Digital Studios Finalist
2018 Chicago Filmmakers Grantee
2018 Chicago Digital Media Production Fund Grantee
2018 Upright Citizens Brigade NYC Diversity Fellow
2017 Upright Citizens Brigade NYC Diversity Fellow
PUG
As photogenic as he is dramatic, Moogie the pug has a long list of demands for any works commissioned. Serious and cheese-related inquiries only.