Features | Awards

The #Winning Award for Worst Musician Twitter Account of the Year

By Dom Sinacola | 16 December 2011

The Weeknd (@theweekndxo)

Recently, Abel Tesfaye wrote:

If you nodded when you read that, or thought it was an insightful thing for him to tweet, or even understood what he was implying without inserting way too much of your own context, then you’re an idiot.

At this point I should mention how House of Balloons was and is easily my favorite album of 2011, that its excess and naivete (seriously) became, amidst all the young depravity, exceptionally endearing. But this Twitter account, which so clearly illustrates just how popular the Weeknd have become over the course of 2011, is so simple, dull, pointless, and condescending, it single-handedly validates all other terrible Twitter accounts: at least Tyler has some sense of style; at least 50 Cent is mercilessly abhorrent; at least Drake shows a modicum of restraint.

Here’s another which attempts, yet again, some words of wisdom:


It’s like he doesn’t even know what “handicap” means.

A typical quote from the Weeknd follows similar lines (heh), where Tesfaye splices hyper-self-awareness with shit that doesn’t jive with hyper-self-awareness. It’s like an atonal version of his lyrics, wherein his knowledge and regrets surrounding his self-destructive lifestyle don’t actually prevent him from self-destructing, but only give him the means to continue, which he does with aplomb, repeatedly, obsessively, and boringly. There’s no wonderful music attached, which makes a tweet like the following unbearable:


Oh yeah? Fuck you.


Because you promised a third mixtape in 2011 and knew you wouldn’t deliver in time?

Sometimes Tesfaye is so melodramatic he should be smacked:


It reminds me of Kevin Barnes writing music: “Synths… flutes… tiger costume… comically huge penis… face paint, overwrought harmony, more fucking face paint…”


What did you discover there? That you hate women as much as you hate yourself?

Often Tesfaye just regurgitates lyrics or even, simply, song names:


Yes, that song exists.

Oh, hey, here’s a song he wrote.


Which then gets retweeted over 100 times. Because people are fucking stupid.

This got retweeted 88 times:


Yes, I am confused. God I’m confused.

I sincerely look forward to the day when dude gets a dog and picks out throw pillows with a steady girlfriend:


Whoa! No really? Were there DRUGS involved??



Ohhhhh…so that’s where your name comes from!

There’s also an impressive amount of Drake-jock-riding, from just tweeting “Take Care” a lot, to tweeting Drake lyrics, to less overt comments like this, which I’ve interpreted as an excited exegesis of Drake’s Sprite commercial:


No homo, of course.

In most cases I get the impression this guy is just tweeting shit to show women he wants to sleep with how “sensitive” he is. Either that, or he’s a 10 year-old girl at heart:


He tends to, folks. Not all the time, but it’s his natural inclination to do so. He’s got one up on me though: I usually forget them right after I take my first piss of the day.


Ha: nutrients. Maybe you should tend to keep a granola bar beside your bed.

And perhaps what best makes my point is Tesfaye’s first ever tweet:


If that doesn’t automatically strike you as dumbfounding, see how stupid it is when I do it:


Now let’s continue making up Fake Weeknd Lyrics and stop retweeting this guy’s every inane word.