Yang-Yi Goh: You need to be writing all the time
A conversation with GQ's Senior Style Editor
Welcome to Human Pursuits, the column that features need-to-know names and stories in media and other creative spaces. Today, GQ Senior Style Editor Yang-Yi Goh on how he prepares for interviews, Canada’s most fashionable men, and more.
As a teenager in northern Alberta, I rarely saw myself reflected in the pages of GQ magazine.
It was the early 2000s, and while the publication was certainly more progressive than high-octane competitors like Maxim and Spike TV, its views on manhood still felt relegated to lower Manhattan. Thumbing through its glossy pages, I remember seeing a lot of skinny suits, collared shirts, and unmarked skin. There was less attention paid to my adolescent uniform — DVS skate shoes, oversized Volcom hoodies, Urban Outfitters t-shirts, etc.
In this sense, I suppose, the magazine was aspirational. I wasn’t a GQ man yet, but with the right clothes and grooming, it suggested I could be.
Twenty years later, however, I think the definition of a GQ man has changed. The tent is bigger, bolder. It’s expanded to include a cast of characters who are more comfortable, more curious, and, in the case of Yang-Yi Goh, more Canadian.
Born and raised just outside Toronto, Yang has carved a remarkable niche for himself in the seven-ish years that he’s been writing for Condé Nast, progressing from listicles on the commerce team to full-blown features. He’s interviewed the likes of Ke Huy Quan, Deryck Whibley, and Dave Bautista, and shared sharp sartorial takes like “You Should Dress Like Weezer on Letterman in 1995”. He also happens to be one of the most stylish hosers the country has ever produced (complimentary).
And so, we had much to discuss.
Our edited and condensed conversation touched on Yang’s early days working in the U.S., the importance of repetition, adult angst, his undying love for blink-182, how the magazine business is changing, and more.
ES: You’re from Toronto, but is that Toronto proper? Greater Toronto Area?
YY: Yeah, just outside Toronto. I grew up in Oakville.
ES: No shit. Throw your O’s up!
YY: Yeah. Laughs. It was a very quaint and calm place to grow up. From there, I went to university here in New York. After graduation, I worked for ESPN in Connecticut for about a year before I was forced to move back to Toronto because of work visa reasons. I lived downtown in Parkdale for about 8 years.
ES: And you’ve been back in NYC for a minute.
YY: It’s been almost 6 years now, which feels crazy… I moved here in July of 2019, and then the pandemic hit. I was working out of my one-bedroom apartment for a year and a half. It all feels very new. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been gone that long, but I’ve lived here almost as long as I lived in Toronto in my twenties.
ES: For a lot of Canadians, there’s a bit of mystery when you see someone manage to break through and find work in the U.S. You mentioned your visa. Did GQ agree to sponsor you so you could move there, or how did that play out?
YY: They did. I got lucky. Around the start of 2018, I started freelancing for the magazine regularly. That turned into a contract. I was still in Canada then, working a full-time job in Toronto. I’d helped start a men’s magazine at St. Joseph Communications called Title with my buddies Greg and Evan. It was short-lived, but it remains one of the proudest accomplishments of my career. My output with GQ was really high, though. I was writing 4 or 5 stories a week. I’d do my day job, go home, eat dinner, and work on a story until midnight, and then do it all again.
Eventually, there was a job opening and I applied for it. The GQ team told me pretty quickly that they wanted me, but then it was a matter of convincing HR that I was the right person for the job. It took about a year for HR to commit to sponsoring me... They emailed me that they wanted to move forward with me, and that I needed to start in New York in two and a half weeks… I was basically at Pearson airport applying for my visa, unsure whether I would get it or not. I moved to New York City with two suitcases on a Friday, not knowing where I was gonna live. I started my job on a Monday.
ES: That’s a real showbiz moment.
YY: It’s nuts. It’s very hard. I feel lucky that I’m here and that I was able to get work.
ES: It’s like winning the lottery. You’ve really made the most of this opportunity.
YY: Thank you for saying that. Everyone’s their own worst critic, so it’s nice to hear. When I first got to GQ, I was really nervous. I had a bit of impostor syndrome, and so I made this checklist of things I wanted to do. I had forgotten about it until a couple of months ago when I found it, and realized I had accomplished pretty much everything I had wanted to do at that point.
If you want to write, you need to be writing all the time.
ES: What was on the top of your list?
YY: I was hired as a staff writer for the commerce team, so I was writing a lot of shopping stuff. “Best white T-shirts” or "12 pairs of linen shorts you need this summer”, that kind of stuff… It was fun, but I was determined to get past it. I wanted to write one blog post, about anything, for the culture section. I wanted to try to land a feature, try to get something in print, and build some sort of momentum. Thankfully, GQ is a good place for that sort of thing. They help nurture talent from within the company.
ES: I spoke with Jay Onrait recently, and he was talking about the importance of repetition and how that makes everything easier. It sounds like you might’ve experienced that, especially early on in your career.
YY: Absolutely. I think I even knew it at the time. I love Toronto with my whole heart, but I think I was starting to feel like I’d done a lot in Canadian media. I was a bit anxious about it. I was thinking, “Am I ever going to get a shot to try something bigger?” I wanted to see what I could make of myself, and I wanted to make the most of writing for an American publication. I was pushing myself hard; my whole life was work in that moment. I wanted to give it my all.
Working on a print magazine during the day and then coming home and churning out stories made me a better writer and editor; it put me on the right path. The advice I give people when they ask is to start writing as much as possible. Start a Substack. Pitch to a blog that you love. If you want to write, you need to be writing all the time.
ES: What’s your process like when prepping for an interview? I’m thinking of your 2023 feature on Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley.
YY: I try to be as overprepared as possible. With Deryck, I had a lot of knowledge because I’ve loved Sum 41 since I was 10 years old. But I still tried to listen to every podcast interview I could, and read everything there was to read about him online.
Condé has a great library team. You can give them a subject, and they will come back to you in 24 hours with every story ever written about that person. I don’t think I knew about that team when I interviewed Deryck, but it’s a great resource.
ES: Wow.
YY: Then you go about the tricky business of finding questions your subject hasn’t been asked before. In this case, there was a big peg because the band had announced they were breaking up, but hadn’t said why. I was the first person to get into that with him, which was cool.
ES: Is it weird for you to see pop-punk’s trajectory in recent years? For so long, it was sneered at and not taken seriously, and now it seems completely ubiquitous. It’s like dad rock or something. I find the whole thing a bit surreal.
YY: I’m definitely of two minds about the whole thing. It’s nice to see bands that I loved growing up still together and making a living touring. My wife and I joke that our lives now revolve around going to 20th and 25th anniversary tours for the albums we loved growing up, which is sick. At the same time, there’s a corniness to festivals like When We Were Young. The corporatization of things, though a lot of these bands were on major labels and being sold at Hot Topic.
ES: I don’t know you super well, but from where I’m sitting, you seem like a pretty stoic guy. Pop punk is famously angsty. What is it about these chunes that keeps you interested? Clearly, you’re a fan.
YY: I don’t know how stoic I am, so it’s funny you say that. Maybe it’s because we’re talking on Monday morning and I’m just easing into my day. I think the angst is exactly why I still listen to that music. I feel angsty, especially right now. There’s so much awful stuff happening at the moment. It feels good to throw on some Jeff Rosenstock and scream in the shower a little bit.
There’s so much awful stuff happening at the moment. It feels good to throw on some Jeff Rosenstock and scream in the shower…
ES: The casual observer may also be surprised to learn you’re a big tattoo guy. I love a secret tat. I have a couple myself.
YY: Laughs. I have quite a few tattoos, much to my mom’s chagrin.
ES: My mom hates mine as well.
YY: Mine will accuse me of getting new tattoos, even though I haven’t gotten one in years. Every time I come home, if I’m wearing a pair of shorts, and she sees one on my thigh, she freaks out. Like, you’ve yelled at me about this like a dozen times!
ES: What was your first tattoo?
YY: I was dating a girl, and one night she convinced me we should go and get one the following morning. She had a ton of tattoos, and I had none. We got each other’s first initial tattooed on our ring fingers. We broke up a year or so later.
At one point, I tried to laser it off, but then I realized I had spent nearly a thousand dollars to get rid of a hundred-dollar tattoo, which seemed insane. So I stopped. It was fading weirdly, so I eventually covered it up.
ES: Laughs.
YY: It used to be an ‘A’ on my ring figure. I changed it to an ‘8’, and made it ‘182’ since I figure I’ll never stop loving blink-182.
ES: That’s too good. What’s your favorite blink-182 non-single?
YY: I really love “Asthenia”.
ES: Funny story, that used to be my username on AbsolutePunk.
YY: Nice.
ES: Did you ever use that website?
YY: I did. It was the homepage on my laptop for all of my teens. I remember they had this contest section on the sidebar, and I feel like no one ever entered, because I won twice. There’s a signed MxPx promotional poster at my parents’ house.
ES: I have to imagine you were there when Brazil crashed the site trying to listen to Paramore?
YY: So crazy. They used to do that all the time. I remember the staff used to surprise debut songs by hiding links in the periods of news posts.
ES: I tried to do that with this newsletter early on, but nobody ever caught it, so I stopped. Laughs. It’s a cool idea.
YY: The internet used to be more fun. He’s persona non grata now, but I remember staying up late for Drake’s latest mixtape to drop on OVO’s blog.
ES: The idea of having fun online seems almost antiquated now. Everything is so serious. At that point, it felt fresh and new. People were sort of daring.
YY: Yeah, it used to be more than just toxic sludge.
ES: How has the magazine business changed since you joined GQ?
YY: I would say from the moment I started in the industry, not even specifically GQ, it’s been a constant state of upheaval. I had journalism professors who warned the class not to pursue it. And so things have definitely changed a lot.
From my perspective, I feel like it’s my job to give good writers as many shots as possible, and I’m proud that, in my time here, I’ve helped introduce a bunch of new voices, and some of them have gone on to be regular writers here. They’ve had a few hits.
It’s a hard time for everybody publishing words right now, but it’s heartening to know there’s still an audience out there. Our website has been on a bit of an upswing. We’ve got some momentum at the moment, which feels great. The internet’s never gonna be like what it was in 2005 again, but if you’re doing good, or funny, or interesting work, people will turn out for it.
ES: Canada has a lot of fashionable residents. But who are some of your favourites in the menswear space right now?
YY: [Oklahoma City Thunder basketball player] Shai Gilgeous-Alexander seems like an obvious answer. It’s been cool to see a kid from Hamilton, ON, be the NBA’s MVP. He’s got a hot new signature shoe coming out.
Matty Matheson is an absolute style icon. He looks great in everything.
His bandmate Wade MacNeil, too. I’ve been pushing to get him in GQ. I love the way he dresses. I think he looks fucking awesome.
Yang-Yi Goh is GQ's Senior Style Editor. He lives in New York City.