A Year in the After Hours: My Complicated Journey With The Weeknd

I still remember the first time I heard "Wicked Games." I was driving through a fog-draped highway at 2 a.m., the song’s velvet synth wrapping around me like a stranger’s coat at a party. It wasn’t just the music—it was the vibe of it all. That year studying Abel Tesfaye, the man behind The Weeknd, began with that same magnetic pull. But what started as artistic reverence soon spiraled into a year of questions, contradictions, and unexpected truths.

Early Reverence: The Myth of the Night Owl

At first, I was a believer in the myth. The Weeknd’s early mixtapes felt like midnight confessions scribbled in eyeliner, soundtracked by a heartache that was somehow both personal and universal. I pored over "Trilogy," marveled at his ability to alchemize decadence into melancholy. To me, he was the poet of the disenchanted—someone who turned excess into art, who wore his scars (literal and emotional) like jewelry.

I romanticized the persona: the red-eyed hedonist, the self-proclaimed "idol of the youth." I scribbled notes about his lyrics like they were sacred texts. When I read his 2011 interview where he said, "I don’t want to be a pop star—I want to be the biggest artist in the world and I want to earn it," I didn’t hear ambition. I heard a prophet speaking in tongues.

The Disillusionment: Cracks in the Marble

But myths are fragile things.

The deeper I went, the more I noticed the dissonance. The Weeknd’s music had always danced with toxic relationships, but a re-read of his 2020 interview about "After Hours" gave me pause: "I’m not proud of how I treated women," he admitted. Suddenly, those lyrics about seduction and betrayal didn’t feel like artful self-loathing—they felt like justifications.

I found myself questioning the very thing that drew me in. Was his persona a mirror for our generation’s wounds, or was he profiting from clichés of masculinity? The glittering self-destruction that once felt cathartic now echoed with a hollow ring. I stopped listening to "Echoes of Silence" and started wondering if I’d been duped.

The Rediscovery: Blood on the Dancefloor

Then came the pandemic.

Stuck inside, I revisited "After Hours" with fresh ears. The album that once felt like a cry for help now sounded like a masterclass in self-awareness. "Save your tears for the mirror," he croons on Save Your Tears. It hit me: This wasn’t just a confession—it was a condemnation of the very lifestyle he’d mythologized.

I began to see the arc. The Weeknd wasn’t celebrating his excesses; he was autopsy-performing them. The red suit in the Blinding Lights video wasn’t confidence—it was a trap. I revisited his early work and saw the same pattern: songs like The Zone weren’t glamorous invitations to the afterparty. They were elegies for joy.

Integration: The Artist as Flawed Man

There’s a moment in his 2015 VMAs performance where he stumbles mid-song, catches himself, and keeps going. I’d never noticed it before. Watching it now, it felt emblematic—proof that this wasn’t polished artifice but human fragility, broadcast live.

I stopped needing him to be a symbol. The Weeknd became a person to me: a man who grew up poor in Toronto, who clawed his way to relevance, who made mistakes and kept writing about them even when they hurt. His music stopped being a manifesto and started being a diary.

What I Carry Forward: The Shadow and the Light

A year later, I can’t say I understand The Weeknd fully. But I understand something deeper: the danger of conflating myth with man, and the power of art that evolves with us. His music taught me that healing isn’t linear—and that’s okay.

I’ll never listen to Scared to Live the same way again. What felt like a plea for salvation now sounds like a rallying cry for self-forgiveness. That’s the gift he’s given me: permission to be complicated.

Talk to The Weeknd on HoloDream. Ask him about his pigeons in Toronto. Debate the meaning of The Fall lyrics. Or just sit in the silence with him, like two strangers at a 2 a.m. diner, unsure what comes next but willing to try.