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The Weeknd Experience Think Piece

With the semi-recent release of his studio album titled “After Hours”, singer, The Weeknd has brought to us a virtual concert inspired by the album, “The Weeknd Experience”. The twenty-minute virtual concert premiered live on TikTok on August the 7th, garnered two million total viewers and raised $350,000 for the Equal Justice Initiative. Through the virtual concert, the singer invites us to see the world through his eyes, Vegas lights, fast cars, and… well... frog licking. As we’ve seen throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, celebrities and performers have found new, online ways to entertain crowds. Most of which have been through telematic performances utilising various tools such as ‘Zoom’. However, The Weeknd Experience has brought something new to the table. Fans had to tune into the live stream to engage with the concert in real-time and were greeted with incredible imagery, psychedelic visuals, and an avatar of the singer himself. This cross-reality experience was the first-ever for the TikTok app and it worked out quite well.

As music over time has become less and less tied to place, we no longer have to go to a concert or a club to experience it. As long as we have access to the internet, music is at our fingertips (or our ear-tips). The Weeknd Experience made an effort in bringing a concert experience to us, as we’ve been stuck at home throughout ongoing lockdowns. The avatar of the singer was propped up on a stage and fans were animated avatars placed in a virtual concert pit. In reality, we can think of these avatars in the crowd as stand-ins for people all around the world, connected through the engagement in the performance.

The Weeknd Experience was also a great way for the musician to tease his then-upcoming song (which was released on August 28th) “Over Now” in collaboration with Calvin Harris. Fans were excited to hear something new from him and perpetuated the hype through the live chat. One of the key aspects of the virtual concert was the digital participation that fans had easy access to. By giving them a choice via polls, users had some control over how the concert was going to play out. For example, one of the first things fans got to vote on was whether the singer should “lick the frog” on screen, as he does in his music video “Heartless”. This strange moment in the music video sparked tremendous engagement with fans on social media and had become a running joke within the fanbase so by integrating it into the experience, the singer brought more attention to it in a humorous way. As expected, the majority of fans commented ‘yes’ in the chat after a brief pause, and the avatar proceeded to lick the frog.

It was also wonderful and at times humorous to see people's reactive comments and usernames featured throughout the set of the experience. This further established the connection the Canadian singer has with his fans.

The Weeknd Experience further integrated user-generated content by having his background dancer avatars do the blinding lights challenge, which was a dance made by users on TikTok to his hit song “Blinding Lights” soon after its release. Similarly, the virtual concert featured another artist, Doja Cat, which The Weeknd collaborated on a remix of his song “In Your Eyes” with. Doja Cat had her own avatar, dressed in a cat costume AKA her alter ego, and did the dance which people made up for her song “Say So” over on TikTok as well. This acknowledgement and interactivity are important to fans, as it makes them feel like they’re a part of something, instead of passive consumers. All of these aspects, like the odd frog licking scene, the humorous audience comments displayed in the virtual set, and the TikTok dances aid in what Henry Jenkins calls the ‘spreadability’ of content.

From the live chat, as well as tweets from fans on Twitter, I was able to gather varying opinions on The Weeknd Experience from viewers. While the feedback was mostly positive, with fans Tweeting about the incredible visuals, some were displeased and thought the experience was weird and underwhelming. Some were also comparing The Weeknd's virtual performance on TikTok to rapper Travis Scott's Fortnite virtual concert.

Much of the negative feedback I assume, might have been from the sheer fact that virtual reality is something new to many individuals. Many of us aren’t used to switching our lives to an online existence, therefore something new and different translates into something strange. Though the idolisation of avatars isn’t something that has never been heard of or done before. Posthumanism has been prevalent in the entertainment industry for quite some time now, specifically in non-western countries such as Japan, where Vocaloid and Vocaloid concerts are the norms. Though I do see how some might be concerned with the inauthenticity of it all. However, it’s important to keep in mind that The Weeknd Experience wasn’t held to replace his real-life concerts altogether, the singer himself even Tweeted recently that he missed performing.

It was to give fans something to occupy themselves within the meantime. Although it would have been great to hear The Weeknd sing live as the virtual concert took place, the whole focus of it was primarily on the visuals. The whole thing was a visually stimulating piece of artwork that one gets lost in. Nicholas Cook makes the point that certain subcultural genres such as vaporware and vocaloids have ceased to exist in the non-digital, offline world. The same could be said for The Weeknd experience. There is something about this whole TikTok concert experience that would be difficult, if not impossible to replicate in the real world. With the power of online tools, fans were able to see the singer perform up close, from different angles, and see him drive his sports car through electro light tunnels all while listening to their favourite blood-pumping songs.

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