Meet: Haaniyah Angus

UK-based essayist, culture journalist, and writer.

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Join us as we chat about Haaniyah’s writing process, cultivating an online community, Matty Healy, and more.

Before we start, for those who don’t know you, share with us what you do and where you’re based!  
I’m Haaniyah Angus, an essayist, culture journalist, and a writer of screenplays that sit in my hard drive, and I’m based in Buckinghamshire. 

How did you get your start as a writer? Was there a defining moment that made you realize: I need to do this?

Between the ages of 13-18, I was hyper-online, like the most hyper-online teen you could imagine. Mostly I hung out in stan circles, but the day I discovered WordPress, I realized that I could take all this angst about my life, my feelings, and whatever else and channel it into actual writing, though I didn’t think anyone would read it. However, when I was 16-17, I wrote an article about Saudi guardianship laws for the now-defunct Gum Magazine, and it made me realize that my writing could have an impact on people's lives and bring about awareness and community support, even if it's small.

Thinking about your writing process, what does this look like for you? Are there any rituals or routines you swear by, that help you work through or navigate a piece (especially when you’re in a brain funk)?

My writing process is somewhat overwhelming. I have a tv show playing in the background and music blasting on my speakers because I need the stimulation to think. When I have writer's block, I usually read or watch something I find inspiring; over the past year, that’s been The Worst Person in The World, Bojack Horseman, and Girls (I know, but it’s so good).

As a writer, how important is it to cultivate an online identity and community that you actively engage with? Does or has this affected your work in any way?

I think it’s definitely important to do that, BUT I would also say that it also feels incredibly constricting because your online identity can often become a barrier to branching out or changing your style of creating. I think I’m quite lucky in that the community I’ve cultivated seems more understanding than most, especially on Twitter. They get if I’m going through a depressive episode which leads to a lack of content, or if I want to change my approaches (moving from film/tv writing to essays).

What’s one thing you wish more people were covering right now?

Serious: The measures the UK is currently taking to ban striking and protesting as well as our creeping fascism. When you’re a working-class person here in this country, it can feel defeating because it’s like, where do we turn to combat this? 

Unserious:  I want someone to do a deep dive into The Button, that dating show on youtube because it truly is a microcosm of the issue with dating right now. 

What’s a piece of media you wish more people were consuming right now?

Veep! Over the last two months, I’ve finished a watch of Curb Your Enthusiasm / Seinfeld (on S9 now), so I wanted something in a similar vein which led me to finally check out Veep, and it is phenomenal. It’s so witty and so quick, as well as a really great look into political systems and political hypocrisy, not to mention Julia Louis Dreyfus is great in it.

Your pieces scratch an itch that we can’t totally put our finger on—but we’re hooked. As you dig your heels in deeper, have you found that there’s a subject matter or niche you find yourself gravitating towards more to write about?
Aw, thank you! I think I’m currently gravitating towards writing about food. I wrote something years back about Binge Eating Disorders, but as I get older, I really want to examine our relationships with food in not only popular culture but also within health circles. As a kid, I’ve been on every diet you can think of, and so I realise now as an adult that this is all sort of peddled to us as a cure to something that only bothers people due to their dislike of looking at fat people/fat people existing rather than our genuine health concerns.

There’s this great line at the end of your piece for Dazed, Why more and more young people feel trapped in jobs they hate that we resonate with: “I feared that due to my foolish choice to give up on work my life would implode – but it never did. The world continued to rotate, and I was finally off autopilot.”

Can you speak a little further to the decision-making process of leaving your job at a media company and what eventually helped you to take that unknown but needed leap?

I graduated in late 2021, and my first job ended up being with a notable broadcasting company in the UK. Unfortunately, the company culture turned out to be less accommodating than I expected (lack of diversity, TERF rhetoric, racism). In addition, due to the nature of my job, I wasn't allowed to have any opinions or speak my mind, which I understood but felt debilitating.

I wanted to quit a few months in, but when you're stuck in the cycle of paying rent, you stay even if you hate it. Not to mention I felt like this was my one shot to work for a historic media company; otherwise, I'd be a failure. However, after a year had passed, I realised my mental and physical health was coming at a cost, and I couldn't afford to live in London due to how little I was being paid. I also wasn’t writing because I felt so drained that creating became the last thing I wanted to do. 

I think it came down to the fact that I could remain at my job at the cost of my sanity and creativity or leave, live at home for a bit, and re-configure who I am. The latter sounded much better.

If you had the opportunity to profile anyone (alive) right now, who would it be and why?

This might be surprising since he annoys me, and I’ve said it publicly, but I really want to profile Matty Healy, I want to see what’s under the hood, so to speak. He’s fascinating to me, and I think we’d disagree on a lot which would make for a really good profile.

Before we let you *almost* go, where can we find more of you?!  

Substack! My substack is In A Panoramic, but you can also find me on Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok @_haaniyah_

Let’s Get Deep 

What’s your theme song?

Anything off of Norman Fucking Rockwell by Lana Del Rey.

Night In or Night Out

A night out, but I’m home by midnight.

When do you feel most you?

When I’m writing, which is a cop-out, but it’s true!

What’s something you’re obsessed with right now?
The Quarry, it’s a videogame made by the company that created Until Dawn.

Call or Text?
 Call, I’m a notoriously bad replier.

When was the last time you cried?

The last time I watched The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I don’t cry often, but that film always makes me sob.

When was the last time you laughed?

A few days ago, when I finished Veep!

Current favorite follow on social media?
It’s definitely @writtenbyHanna, literally the best person to follow on Twitter.

Lastly, what’s one thing you would tell your 16-year-old self?

You’ll be okay, take risks, and your first heartbreak will not kill you.

Find more of Haaniyah here:

Substack: In A Panoramic

TikTok: @_haaniyah_

Insta: @_haaniyah_

Twitter: @_haaniyah_

Listen to Haaniyah’s Playlist: Here