Markazi, who is of Iranian descent, was born in Oklahoma City and raised in Los Angeles, graduating from Notre Dame High School. He attended Arizona State University and later University of Southern California. He wrote a regular column for the Daily Trojan and also had work published in several magazines and newspapers outside of USC, including SLAM Magazine, XXL, King magazine, Vibe, Playboy, the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News and Associated Press. He graduated with a degree in Print Journalism from the USC Annenberg School for Communication in 2004. Markazi wrote for Sports Illustrated on Campus, appearing on the cover of the March 31, 2005 issue, and began writing a weekly column for Sports Illustrated’s website SI.com called "The Hot Read." Markazi's intimate and quirky portraits of , , caused the Los Angeles Times to name him one of the Faces to Watch in 2006 He is a two-time cancer survivor and a cancer advocate. While Markazi underwent cancer treatment in 2005, comedian Jay Mohr filled in for him at SI.com. Markazi has been involved in several stories which went viral. In 2005, he tracked down Jenn Sterger, a Florida State student who had gained notoriety after she was briefly shown on television during the Florida State-Miami football game and helped her write a first-person story about her experience for SI.com She would later become a regular contributor to the site until she left in 2008 to become a "Gameday Host" for the New York Jets. While Andrew Bynum was rehabbing his right knee, Markazi wrote a story about Bynum partying at the Playboy Mansion on March 29, 2009 while the Los Angeles Lakers played the Atlanta Hawks in a game they would lose 86–76. The story was accompanied by a photo of Bynum carrying a Playboy Playmate on his shoulders at the mansion which was picked up nationally. Markazi gained notoriety on July 28, 2010 when he wrote an article for ESPN.com Los Angeles detailing decadent partying by LeBron James in Las Vegas, which was pulled after only a brief period on-line. The article was also slated to be discussed on-air, but was also mysteriously pulled before airing. According to ESPN.com, the article was pulled as "The story should have never been published. The draft was inadvertently put on the server before going through the usual editorial process. We are in the midst of looking into the matter." This caused several other reputable news organizations to question ESPN's journalistic integrity. Markazi was never suspended or disciplined for the incident. When Markazi took Sports Illustrated swimsuit models Damaris Lewis and Kate Upton to the Los Angeles Clippers-Oklahoma City Thunder game on April 2, 2011, he helped catapult Upton's popularity when he recorded her doing The Dougie and posted it on his Twitter. The video quickly went viral, garnering over 1 million views. Markazi was placed on paid leave by the Times following allegations of plagiarism and failure to disclose of potential conflicts of interest that came to light in a Vice investigation published on July 16, 2020. The report indicated that staffers at the paper wrote to management to complain about Markazi's behavior, which included the praise of brands on social media in breach of journalistic ethics.
