Tang Tang and The Year Of The Situationship: In conversation with Hannah Tang and Lucía Guzman

Photo taken by Zarah Hashim

Hannah Tang and her ‘soulmate’ Lucía Guzman launched their online zine, tangtang, in September of this year. They write about women, men, travel and the nuances which plague our culture, giving readers insights we didn't know we needed. 

Hannah is a third-year English student at  King’s College London, and Lucía goes to Queen Mary University of London, studying third-year History and Politics. Their introduction happened prior to their move to university – their love story began at an open day for KCL. Since then, the two have been inseparable and have used their insightful personal conversations to create a zine for everyone.

Their articles dissect cultural phenomena, particularly the infamous “situationship” trope. Their article titled “The Year of the Situationship” garnered popularity for giving their audience, including myself, a space to feel seen and heard and also, maybe, called out. Their mission is to provide much-needed nuance in the extremes of today’s popular discussions and to give Gen Z insight into Gen Z experiences, moving away from the millennial perspective typically found in creative spaces. 

They kindly sat down with us to discuss tangtang and “The Year of the Situationship.”

First and foremost, what was the inspiration for the name tangtang?

Image courtesy of Lucía Guzman

Hannah: It is actually a joke! My mum wanted me to double-barrel my surnames, so I would have her maiden name and my dad’s name. My last name is Tang, and I decided to text Lucía, but I didn't clarify what I was talking about, which is pretty common for us. I tell her how my mum wants me to double my name, and so Lucía responds in all caps “HANNAH TANG TANG!” and from then on it just stuck. 

Lucía: At the beginning, I had asked Hannah if she would let me name a band “tang tang” and she said, “yes absolutely.” And then as the idea to create this zine was coming to fruition, we were questioning what we should call it, and immediately we said tang tang.  

Hannah: The name is quite catchy, and that’s what I really like about it. Funnily enough, our other idea for a name was “Pleek” as I had misspelt ‘please’ and again it kind of just became a joke between us. 

Are there any plans to make this not only digital but also in print? 

Lucía: I would like to do a print version to give to my mother and to Hannah’s dad (he’s the best). I would want it to succeed greatly first, but in all honesty, the fundamental crux for our magazine is not just success. 

Hannah: We were saying how we don’t want social media for a reason. We didn’t want to do too much so quickly. There is always an awkward stage when you’re starting a project, where you have around ten followers on socials, one post, and it feels a little cringe. We didn’t want there to be a “Welcome to us!” vibe as that’s not what we wanted to do. We didn’t want to position ourselves as a project that almost gets completely abandoned in six months. 

Lucía: Our goal was to have the people that we know read it; that is our readership. These are the people that matter to us. Our friends and their friends are the target audience. And, to make a print would be expanding it to a level that we haven’t thought of yet. We want this to be intentional, but maybe one day!

The zine takes on a conversational style, and you told me that the process of your joint articles, like The Year of the Situationship, is: you both sit down, discuss and record yourselves. So my question to you both is, why choose to start a magazine and not a podcast?

Hannah: It was very much a thing of that we are both writers and there is an inherent humour within the writing. Writing it down, it becomes drier, and I find that with podcasts, it’s harder to get into them. I prefer seeing something in front of me, and it feels like a nice little thing that you’re able to keep. 

Lucía: As a concept, the thought of starting a podcast felt very obnoxious and there are just so many out there. And yes, there are many zines out there, too, but it felt harder for us to find an identity with a podcast. I also like being able to think about things, and with a podcast, you end up just saying stuff for the sake of saying things. There’s more reflection with writing and this magazine is a very collaborative process. We read each other’s work before publishing, and so we’re able to add, dissect, edit and really take care with what we want to say to our readers. This process, I don't think we'd be able to find within a podcast.  

Hannah, you described Lucía to me as your ‘soulmate,’ so how have you both found mixing your friendship with business, in terms of any conflicts which may arise? And if so, how have you both dealt with them? 

Hannah: There are definitely reasons why people don’t mix work and friendships or any sort of relationship with work, but for us, we’re just so honest with each other all the time that we actually haven’t had a single disagreement. We tend to agree on everything. I think if either of us wrote something that one of us hated, which I doubt will happen, but if it did, we would just tell the other “Oh, I hate this.” They would still be able to go ahead with the piece, but they would know how we felt about it. 

Lucía: If there was criticism to give that perhaps we disagreed on, I would never feel like it was personal because I believe that we are both very good at understanding that this is not an attack on each other or our writing, and it just so happens that we love each other's writing.   

Hannah: I feel like a big part of us getting to know one another and building a close friendship was that we had many of the same opinions. And our zine is what you would see in our texts to each other, basically. This is why most of our articles begin with a screenshot of one of our texts, as this is just how we talk to each other. Our everyday conversation is what you read; it’s just transcribed to a more accessible and readable format. Like how you told me that this reminded you of conversations you'd had with your best friend, that is what it is supposed to emulate and feel like!

So, as mentioned, there is a lot of digital media and zines out there, so what makes tangtang stand out from them, if that is even the goal? 

Lucía: Our main priority isn’t “how do we make ourselves unique?” or “how can we stand out?” I believe that we just have things to say. Opinions which we feel are so relevant, and like we said before, these are the conversations that we have every day not just with each other, but with our friends, and other people, which we are not seeing being talked about because it’s just something which we already talk about so much. These conversations aren’t being covered in the media because it is assumed that this is just something everyone knows, like our situationship article. 

I have very intellectual conversations with Hannah where I think “wow, this would be fantastic written down”, and I think if it were, then people would be interested in this, and that is another driver behind why we started tangtang in the first place. But I never find myself thinking of how to differentiate this from other people, because we want to relate to others. 

Hannah: Absolutely, and I do think that the best work stands out, not because it intends to do so, but because it has its own merits that it brings to a conversation. What was said about relatability is so true, as we don't do what we do to make it the most niche piece of material with a theoretical viewpoint on a situation that has never been discussed before. Rather, the zine is more of a: here are our thoughts, here’s how we connect it to broader concepts, maybe even academic ones sometimes, and a lot of people will find it relatable. They also find something interesting in bringing these things we talk about all the time, and putting them down on paper. I find it to be a really fun way to go about things. 

Since your launch, have you both found yourselves having conversations with people whom you might never have had these types of conversations with?

Both: Yes, absolutely!

Lucía: So many people that I never would have talked to have reached out to say that this is their exact situation, and that they feel so called out. I think it's very easy to see yourself in someone who's your age and in your situation, because I feel like most people in university go through the same thing, do the same thing, read very similar things, and understand similar situations which become ingrained in how we talk and discuss relevant topics like, the performative male epidemic, solo traveling and of course, the situationship. 

Hannah: I think there's also an element of people reaching out to you, who you've never spoken to before, telling you that they feel so seen. So I do think that there is a space for us, as a lot of written media is created by people outside our generation, therefore, outside our experiences and the culture in which we exist. Cosmopolitan, for example, may write about topics like the situationship, which tend to be written by millennials who have used social media to gain insight into what that actually means, but because they exist outside these experiences, we tend not to be able to relate to such articles. So in that sense, I do think there is a place for us. 

In the article “The Year of the Situationship”, I felt like there was an element that enabled us to present a variety of nuanced points of view. We didn't want it to just be so cutthroat, and we also wanted to express that we've seen ourselves in this. It was meant to be very fluid, in that, we know you guys are doing this and so are we (from time to time); however, as we say in the article, “you guys don't even know this guy’s last name.” We wanted to make clear the realities of it whilst not passing on too much judgment because we, ourselves, have been through it too. 

Regarding the article “The Year of the Situationship,” what do you want your readers to take away from it? 

Hannah: It’s supposed to act as both a consolation and a call-out in one piece. We want our readers to know that they’re not alone but that we also don’t think they should be doing “situationships” anymore. Or at the very least, have a roster, but be sure that the men or people who are in there are emotionally intelligent, make you feel valued and have been tested! Sexual health is no joke and I don't think we discuss it enough! 

It is not meant to say that you cannot have a complicated situation, because that would just be unrealistic, but we want them to be aware that maybe these men or people don't really care if you live or die.  

Lucía: We are great supporters of casual sex, if it is beneficial to you in totality. 

How can we navigate casual sex in this day and age? 

Lucía: You can't have a casual relationship with someone who mildly dislikes you, and unfortunately, I do think that most men do mildly dislike the women they're sleeping with. Which I believe is a way for them to emotionally distance themselves. I think it is fundamental to find a friend in somebody that you’re casually seeing. You must value who the other person is and get to know them, wish them happiness and be extremely communicative. As we describe in the article, it's a process of constant communication and regular check-ins of “how do you feel now?” and “how has this evolved?” 

Hannah: I do think there is also something to be said in the nuance around being able to cut off a female friend for not texting you back all day, but accepting that same behaviour from a man who constantly disappoints you. In conversations around casual sex and friendship, you want to make sure that your standards for friendship are uniform; otherwise, you risk hypocrisy. 

There is also something to be said about the fine line in being able to critique the power imbalances that do exist in some casual relationships, from people who use that as an excuse to demonise sex as a whole. And to clarify, we are very sex positive and casual sex positive; we just want to bring awareness to how they should exist for maximum pleasure. 

There is, however, an increase in tension about this topic within our generation, which weaponises politics and reduces women to these emotional, vulnerable beings in order to critique casual sex, and that is so harmful. 

But with tangtang, we venture within the nuances of these topics, which allows us to discuss things like casual sex with confidence, as nuance cannot be short-form.    

Lucía: I am, however, of the belief that men always benefit more from casual relationships.

Discussions about “situationships” tend to place the burden on women. So, I wondered what you both thought about the idea that the “situationship” is an exclusively female trope, something that happens to women?

Lucía: Hannah and I were discussing this, and my answer was no, absolutely not. I think a lot of men like putting themselves in situations where they can prompt strong emotions through someone else, but then see themselves in a position in which they suffer. But, I do think it is inherently female to, as we cover in the article, romanticise pining, yearning, and the subsequent suffering which follows the “situationship.” And we idealise that. 

However, in situations like that, there will be two sides, and we don’t just cover heternormative situationships. But if we are talking about heterosexual situationships, then where there is a woman doing that, there is also a man doing the exact same thing. And I think it is unrealistic to think that men don't also enjoy self-denial, almost in a religious way.  

Hannah: I think we should note that I have never heard a straight man refer to this type of relationship as a “situationship,” and if they do, they have probably picked it up from a woman. I have only heard women, non-binary and queer spaces use that term in reference to someone they're involved with. I do think it’s a female term, but not an exclusively female situation. 

We talked about the chasing of grief and how we have to name the issue to be able to be okay with it. Do you think that relates to this idea? 

Lucía: I do believe that we do put names to things we feel we cannot express and that we do use widely understood terms for very complex relationships. And there is already such a broad scope in what a situationship even is. 

Hannah: I also believe there to be such a wide chasm in the way we view situationships because it can be as little as eye contact to you’ve met their whole family, but still there is no defined relationship. 

Do you think that then blurs the boundaries of what a “situationship” can entail?

Hannah: I’ll be the first to admit that I have used this term to describe things that so clearly weren't what we know to be a “situationship.” It implies a presence of reciprocation that perhaps you’re trying to will into existence. I also think that “situationship” acts as a placeholder for the lack of a better word, and it also adds a proximity to what they actually want with that person, a relationship. 

Lucía: I find that I don't use this term in my own life. If I’m referring to someone in that way, I say that they’re someone I'm sleeping with. I think you really have to dislike someone to refer to them as your “situationship.” I think it's a mild disrespect to what you have together. There’s an almost sanctity in the union of casual sex because we have chosen to have sex with each other, share that together; so if I use the term “situationship” it implies I have no care for them. 

Both: It is both proximity and distance.

Here is a link to “The Year of the Situationship.”

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Edited by Hania Ahmed, Creative Editor