No Scrubs was the song.
Anyone who knew Karan Nevatia knew that he could belt TLC’s “No Scrubs” at the drop of a hat. In fact, he once told NPR that the signature song became “part of his identity” after friends on his high school yearbook spottedSomething light
“Sooner or later, the whole school kind of knew that I was the guy who was singing ‘No Scrubs’ all the time,” he told the outlet. “It felt like I was putting smiles on other people's faces, and that made me feel good. I'm an introvert, and, like, I've never been a singer. I'm kind of a horrible singer. But once I started singing ‘No Scrubs’ over and over, it kind of became second nature to me.”
Even when he wasn’t signing TLC, Karan had a way of making people smile. The 21-year-old from Foster City, California, died on Friday, September 11, leaving his friends and family devastated.
PR did a story on Karan’s signature song, "No Scrubs" by TLC, and what it meant to him and his communities. Listen to it below!
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An everlasting impact.
“Karan was one of my best friends and was truly loved by everyone who knew him,” said Meghan Bobrowsky. “He was smart, thoughtful and more passionate about Harry Potter than anyone I know.”
Karan applied the same type of passion for TLC to everything else he pursued, making him a shining journalism star at the University of Southern California, where he was a Trustee scholar and Annenberg Ambassador.
He also worked at the Daily Trojan as wellness editor, and held various jobs and internships, including at Pineapple Street Media and Neon Hum Media.At the California Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) workshop — a two-week high school journalism workshop he himself attended — Karan helped teach a podcast class every summer in San Luis Obispo. He also served as a counselor, whom students loved to be around.
“I learned as much from him as the students said,” said Matt Hanlon, who co-taught the podcast class with him. “One year I asked him if we could change up the presentation and within a couple of days he’d sent over an entirely new one with several slides I knew nothing about, and of course Karan patiently explained them. He was that type of person. I will miss teaching with him, laughing with him and learning from him.”
“It was clear how much the students loved him and looked forward to working with him because their faces lit up whenever he was nearby,” said Laura Nelson, a CSPA instructor and Board member. “He was natural teacher — funny, kind, thoughtful and so smart.”
Harry Potter and Wizarding.
Karan’s passion for Harry Potter inspired him to help form a bookclub with his journalism workshop friends and host a Harry Potter-themed murder mystery birthday party over Zoom in August. He was an active member of the Harry Potter Alliance, a nonprofit that describes itself as “a Dumbledore's Army for the real world.”
Most recently, he participated in a virtual panel called “Unpacking The Daily Prophet: Media Literacy and News Bias.”
“He and I shared a love for Harry Potter, and it’s truly sad to know that I won’t ever again get to hear the joy with which he spoke about the wizarding world at our Harry Potter book club meetings,” Kellen Browning, who met Karan at CSPA, said.
Like many, Karan struggled during the coronavirus pandemic. But he was transparent about his mental health journey, sharing his thoughts on how others can cope. In his last piece for the DT, he wrote about how loneliness is one of the pandemic’s most harmful symptoms.
“However, there is hope,” he wrote. “Being alone or isolated doesn’t necessarily translate to loneliness. Loneliness is a feeling, not a fact. It takes work, but nurturing existing relationships can make you feel as connected to each other as ever.”
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The world was too small for Karan and his effervescent curiosity, his father Ranajit said. Karan entered USC in Fall 2017 as a journalism major on a Trustee Scholarship and was a student in Thematic Option, learning about the power of the written and spoken word. Before his junior
year, in June 2020, he declared an additional major in psychology to learn more about the intricacies of the mind and become more informed on ways to support others who have been affected by mental health issues.
He was a go-getter from the start, recalled alumna Emma Peplow, who served as editor-in-chief during Karan’s first year at the Daily Trojan from Fall 2017 to Spring 2018. She remembers that for one of his first stories, Karan was sent to the Health Sciences Campus — a bus ride away — to cover a breaking news story. Peplow was nervous to send a freshman, but Karan insisted he wanted to do it.
“He worked really hard,” Peplow said. “But at the same time, he just generated joy. He could come into a lifeless newsroom and generate joy from nothing. And the joy would just last even after he left the newsroom.”