Farouk Kannout is an Arab-American freelance writer and cultural critic based in Chicago. He loves writing about film, television, video games, and how we make meaning from culture broadly.
His work has appeared in
A.V. Club,
Inverse, and
Unwinnable, among others. In 2025, Farouk
received special recognition as a "Writer to watch" from the Chicago Film Critics Association and Rotten Tomatoes Emerging Critics Program.
In addition to being a writer, Farouk is a creative producer and award-winning game developer at the independent video game studio
Play Underground Games! (PUG!), which he co-founded with a number of his closest friends. Together, they are currently developing a number of unannounced projects.