The Enemy Has a Name

I’ll say it openly: I have never been able to stand The Weeknd. The world celebrates him as some kind of Michael Jackson reincarnation, and I’ve just never understood why. His actual name is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, which is a perfectly good name, and yet he chose "The Weeknd"—with the missing E—which is the kind of affectation that tells you everything. His music is experimentally poppy in a way that seems to have evacuated all content in favor of vibes, and the vibes are mostly "I am very deep and also unavailable." At least Kanye’s tracks have the decency to be interesting while they’re being insufferable.

But now The Weeknd has graduated from mere irritant to genuine enemy. TMZ—the spiritual landfill of celebrity journalism—published photos of him kissing Selena Gomez outside a restaurant in Santa Monica. She looks half-asleep or possibly high. He looks like someone who knows he’s being photographed and enjoys it. Neither of these things improves the situation.

So here I am. Tearing down posters. Staring at the ceiling. Constructing a multi-year revenge plan that involves losing thirty kilos, getting a DJ certification, layering some old track over techno beats until it becomes a hit in Los Angeles, booking a show there, and being at exactly the right party at exactly the right moment. The math works out. It has to.

Why, Selena. Why.