If you’re a fan of cannabis, then there’s no doubt you’ll love PLUGPLAY.
What Is PLUGPLAY?
One of the top-selling vape brands in California, PLUGPLAY was started in 2017 by three lifelong friends, all who had a dollar and a dream. With an unwavering love and passion for cannabis at the forefront, PLUGPLAY was a vision to create something unique and special that benefited the community.
Their mission statement is simple: Love for all. Hatred for none. The company itself upholds certain values such as quality and experience, delivering unmatched excellence each and every time.
Previously under the name PLUG & PLAY, the concept was reminiscent of an auxiliary chord situation where you plug in your phone and the music automatically plays. This is the convenience they instilled within their products, giving consumers the leisure of puffing and activating at any point in their day.
Fast forward to 2024, PLUGPLAY is inside over 650 retailers, expanding into four territories across the country. They’re also expanded far beyond their initial vape devices, now offering joints and even clothing.
PLUGPLAY Co-founder Peter Tang On The Brand's Origins, Joints, Collaborations, And More
Honeysuckle had the pleasure of chatting with co-founder Peter “The Plug” Tang from PLUGPLAY about how they got their start, their new joints, and exciting collaborations on the horizon.
SHIRLEY JU: What's your background and how'd you get into cannabis?
PETER TANG: I'm just one of the guys over here, of the team that started this thing. It started with a group of our friends, we all went to high school together. We've known each other since we were 14 years old. We're all the same age. We're all born in 1987, so all rabbits according to our horoscopes. We all came together to build a dream. Literally started this out of the garage and [figured it] out… it was funny, we didn't know what we were doing. [laughs] We’re figuring it out little by little, literally out the garage. From trying to figure out how to work with extracts and fill it into our device, it's been a crazy journey.
What's your relationship with cannabis?
The first time I smoked weed was 12 years old, somewhere in eighth grade. Been around the plant, I've always enjoyed it. It always put me in the right state of mind and put me at peace, at ease. It's been a big big part of my life growing up. There's been times I've taken breaks from it, but it's always been there. I've always been an advocate for what the plant does
Why the name PLUGPLAY?
This was a Mandela effect argument that we were having the other day. When we first started, it was PLUG & PLAY. This is the play [shows battery], this is the plug [shows cartridge pod]. But we switched the name literally a year after for trademark purposes. But the original concept is literally plug and play. When you plug and play something, the perception is convenience of use. This is the plug, this is the play. Hence PlugPlay.
What a lot of people don't know is our colorway, right? Why the aqua blue? If you take blue and green, and you mix it together, you get aqua. Blue is the color of technology. Green is for cannabis plants. When you fuse the two, you get aqua. That's the background on our color.
You guys recently released joints as well; can you touch on that?
Man, the joints. We used to have flower for a little while; it was very difficult at that time. Because our lane hasn't been in cultivation, it's been with extraction and providing a quality extraction product. We've been fortunate enough to continue to grow . Within our family and network of people that we do business with, we've been able to grow our family to have some very, very, very talented cultivators and connoisseurs [so] that now we're able to say: hey, let's work on a product together that we can give the masses. That's of high quality, to our standard of quality.
That's the lane that we're trying to hit a little harder right now, because it's a little bit more environmentally friendly. We’re not creating too much waste with plastic products and whatnot. We're trying to be a little bit more environmentally conscious right now and the joints lane for us is definitely something that can help us do that. We got our single joints, our infused joints. Then we have our new six-pack, which is a full eighth of some really, really high quality indoor connoisseur premium level flower with some kief. Smokes nice, burns right. You could definitely taste the quality of this flower, the moment that you open it. You put your nose to it, spark it, smoke it, you'll know the difference.
How is it being an Asian in the cannabis industry?
Definitely gotta hold it down, right? Luckily, this industry is very, very diverse. You got all these different groups from all these different ethnic backgrounds that share a common goal, that share a common passion for this plant. We're all going about spreading this love and growing this community, representing how we can for our community. Whether it's the Asian community or any community.
Being Asian in this industry, we definitely make a very small portion of the majority of the players in this industry. But it's not too hard to navigate, it's all love. We've never felt any hate or anything like that. Yeah, hate here and there, but it's not for the most part as far as us working in the industry and doing business and being able to maneuver, it's always been love.
Tish Cyrus-Purcell, film producer and mother of Miley and Noah Cyrus, is a fan. What do you think about that and celebrities loving your product?
That was really cool. Personally, I didn't even know about that until one of my friends on Instagram sent a clip over. They were like, “Yo, this is crazy. You got a shout out!” It was unpaid.
I was going to ask if you sponsored that podcast?
Oh no, not at all. That was straight love, it was all organic love. We tried reaching out to say hi; I don’t think we got a response. [laughs] It's really cool. It's very cool to see how this community has grown and where our products are starting to end up in certain hands. Seeing certain celebrities, athletes, musicians that we’re fans of, use our product? It's a very awesome, fulfilling feeling. We want to keep it going.
What are you most excited for?
Man, what I'm most excited about this year is our collaboration calendar. We have some really fun, cool collaborations coming up. Just to name a few, we've got Carrots coming up real soon with Anwar Carrots. That's going to be a really cool thing. We've done something with Desto Dubb already with That's A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup. We did That's A Awful Lot Of PlugPlays, that was really successful. We did [the Foolato line with] These Foos, they're starting to really blow up right now. They've been a big part of our success. It was a very, very amazing partnership to work with them as well.
The next big one, I can't say too much about it. It's going to be with Insomniac RNBW, so expect a big summer in the festival game. We've been big Insomniac fans for a long time growing up, with EDC and other festivals. This is a full circle moment for us to be able to work with them, just because we've been big fans of their brand pretty much almost our entire lives since they've been out.
For more about PLUGPLAY, visit plugplay.com.
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Written By:
Shirley Ju is a journalist, media host, and seasoned music industry professional. She is the founder of Shirley's Temple, a podcast series with a focus on mental health, where her guests include Trippie Redd, Chanel West Coast, Ricky Williams, Blac Chyna, and more. Shirley's work has been featured in publications such as Variety, Complex, Nylon, Flaunt, and REVOLT; she can also be seen doing exclusive interviews for leading urban news source VLADTV, featuring a platform with 5 million subscribers. Find out more about Shirley at @shirju on Instagram and Twitter, and on LinkedIn.
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Featured image: PLUGPLAY co-founder Peter Tang (C) PLUGPLAY
