Since The Weeknd is performing at the Super Bowl Halftime show, I thought it’d be nice to post a little guide to his discography for anyone interested in looking to do a deep dive into his work. I would’ve posted this the day of the event, but I assume that some people would probably like to go through it over the weekend.
This shares a direct overview of his released material, talking about his career and the background of the music, the videos, the meanings and all. I’ve written this from a pop perspective, keeping in mind that his history might be fairly new for general pop fans.
I also go into the storyline of the red suit character, if your interested in catching up on that narrative before the Halftime show (which will continue the story), I’ve listed the chronological order below followed by an explanation of that narrative.
I wanna be clear that the interpretations/theories are not conclusive. Abel rarely shares the metaphors or meanings behind his music. This is based on widely based on fan discussion/mutual interpretation. Fans can feel free to expand on anything in the comments.
It is important to know about Abel's backstory to get a certain perspective of where he’s coming from, especially when discussing the songs that deal with substance abuse. These recent articles cover his early years really well and share an up-to-date point of view of his success.
Variety 2020
Billboard 2021 - Also a good source for getting to know his team.
So, an essential TL;DR is this: Abel Tesfaye came from a broken home, he was born to Ethiopian immigrant parents who split up when Tesfaye was less than seven. He then lived with his mother and grandmother, only rarely seeing his father but having a nice impression of him. His drug addiction started as soon as he was a high schooler, he turned to shoplifting to pay for this need of various substances. Soon he dropped out of high school, leaving his home the same weekend, which would later inspire his stage name, The Weeknd. The name is reference/homage to the weekend his life changed.
Quick side note, I didn’t think this post would nearly reach the character limit. So I’ve cut out excess detail and lists of producers (with the exception of After Hours since we’re in that era).
Table of contents

1. XO.
2. House of Balloons.
3. Thursday.
4. Echoes of Silence.
5. Trilogy.
6. Kiss Land.
7. King of the Fall.
8. Beauty Behind The Madness.
9. Starboy.
10. My Dear Melancholy.
11. After Hours.

XO.

XO is the record label that The Weeknd and co. created in order to publish the first mixtape (House of Balloons) and the ones that would follow afterwards. XO has a lot of meanings that have to do with what went into the music and what still goes into it. XO is what the fans call themselves, popularly with the phrase XO Till We OD (shortened to XOTWOD); another way of saying “we’re ride or die for The Weeknd and his team.”
While some argue that it could mean anything since there isn’t clear meaning to it, fans continue to associate the abbreviation with ecstasy (X) and oxycontin (O). That definition stems from XOTWOD, fans assume it’s true because of the team’s history of drug usage. While others take it as it’s classical definition “hugs and kisses” because of the consistent lyrical nature of The Weeknd’s songs.
Overtime the definition of XO is simply known as: the fans, the crew, and the label. The Weeknd is more than just one person, he comes with XO. For the sake of clarity in this writeup, I’m going to refer to his crew as XO and the fans as “the fans.”
XO still serves as a record label, the current roster is The Weeknd, Belly, Nav, and Black Atlass. It remains The Weeknd’s record label and was his first label before becoming a subsidiary of Republic Records.
Throughout his career, The Weeknd has worked with Illangelo, a Canadian producer who’s work the fans adore. Carlo “Illangelo” Montagnese was one of main the producers on The Weeknd’s Trilogy, he’s credited on each track. The fan base claims his work to be some of the most notable artistry in The Weeknd’s discography. Their work together continued with Beauty Behind The Madness, Illangelo worked on seven tracks for that album. He then returned for After Hours working on another seven tracks.
DaHeala, another Canadian producer, is another significant factor in The Weeknd’s music. Jason “DaHeala” Quenneville worked as lead producer on Kiss Land. He returned to work on six tracks for The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind The Madness, including the hit Earned It. DaHeala returned as a writer for six of the songs on Starboy. Then DaHeala worked on nine After Hours tracks, and worked as the only producewriter alongside The Weeknd for bonus tracks Missed You and Final Lullaby.

House of Balloons.

Didn't wanna make this NSFW, so here's the super clean edited cover

This is a happy house. We’re happy here. (House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls)

One of the most iconic title tracks of all time. House of Balloons is about a lifestyle of drugs, sex, and partying; all in effort to drown out self-doubt. It comes from a place of wanting to make it big while doing what you can to survive, all while pretending everything’s alright. The mixtape describes various sorts of women, how they’ve had impacted the life of someone who’s already down on his luck.
Fans often refer to House of Balloons as The Weeknd’s best work. The mixtape was the first introduction the world got of XO, and it was one hell of a way to make an impression. It’s personal for the fans and Abel because it’s the only piece of work known to be based on his life. At the end of the day he’s a songwriter, with many of his albums he creates scenarios and world that he likes to explore through the music. But House of Balloons is known to be based entirely on his life. It remains The Weeknd’s most critically acclaimed work.
House of Balloons was crafted through the influences of Hip-Hip/Indie-Rock with the main focus on R&B. Through the genius of Ilangelo, the record was—and is—mesmerizing capturing the essence of a lifestyle that The Weeknd described as “anti-everything.”
House of Balloons assisted The Weeknd in gaining the attention of Republic Records, which would then host The Weeknd’s own label XO. Though hesitant at first, XO decided to partner with Republic after the co-founding brothers Monte and Avery Lipman kept coming back to Toronto solely for The Weeknd.
House of Balloons received three videos, The Knowing, Wicked Games and Twenty Eight. The Knowing was the very first video The Weeknd made, so of course it’d be something other-worldly; it essentially reflects the song itself but in a sci-fi setting. Twenty Eight represents Abel’s life after fame but also his remorse of letting captivating women into his life.
Fun fact— House of Balloons is an actual place in Toronto, it was where him and his crew lived after he dropped out of high school. They’d host parties, call girls, do drugs, and to make it less depressing they’d fill it with balloons.

Thursday.

Valerie on the cover

Welcome to the other side. (Life of the Party)

Thursday consists of the same themes as HoB; sex and drugs. But there’s a twist, he’s in a semi-relationship with this girl Valerie. She’s the only one on his mind, even though they meet only one day of the week, any guesses on what day that could be? Through The Weeknd’s phenomenal voice and the insane production, we’re also presented with this story of a toxic relationship where Valerie used to have the upper hand but she no longer does when she falls for The Weeknd.
While Thursday isn’t entirely about the relationship of The Weeknd and Valerie, it consists of reflections to Abel’s life after the release of House of Balloons. The song Rolling Stone notably has a double meaning, in which Abel asks his fans if they’ll stick with him when he gets mainstream appeal and decides to change his sound.
The track Valerie wasn’t on the original release of Thursday, it added when Trilogy was released. Ending the mixtape with Heaven or Las Vegas meant that The Weeknd’s actions with and without Valerie were a result of his fatherless childhood, making him push anyone away. That meaning behind Thursday doesn’t change when Valerie is added to the track list, it just means that both want the toxic relationship back.
The Zone (feat. Drake) was the first feature The Weeknd had on any of his work, the video for it was released in November of 2012. Rolling Stone had also received a video in October of 2012. Both were directed by The Weeknd and reflect the two different aspects of Thursday. The Zone has Valerie living it up in the House of Balloons. And Rolling Stone has The Weeknd doing a photoshoot for Trilogy, reflective of the song itself.
Fun Fact— the female voice heard in Lonely Star is The Weeknd’s, he pitched his voice to make it sound like a woman’s.

Echoes of Silence.

Diana on the cover

Laisse tomber les filles. Un jour c'est toi qu'on laissera. [Leave the girls alone. One day it’ll be you they will leave.] (Montreal)

Out of a dark introductory into the early life of The Weeknd, Echoes of Silence is the darkest work of his Trilogy. Let’s be honest the story here isn’t entirely ethical at times but makes for one hell of a mixtape.
Similar to Thursday, Echoes of Silence follows a storyline. After accumulating success, The Weeknd gains the attention of various women. There was this one woman (D.D.) who he liked but she initially rejected him (Montreal). The woman came back to him for his fame status and evidently fell in love with him (Outside), but now that he’s got the upper hand he treats him like a groupie (XO/The Host) and lets... bad things happen to her; she’s gotta pass a test before she can get with him. This test is either drugs or his crew (Initiation). He ultimately tells this woman that he’s not exactly longterm-relationship material, perhaps because her love is temporary (Same Old Song), because he’s Next. With the end of Echoes of Silence (originally ending on the title track) the listener is left to wonder why The Weeknd left her if he’d simply want her to stay.
As a side note— Initiation should not be condoned. It remains true that The Weeknd is a songwriter and the progression of time has changed perspectives. But a song that makes such suggestions as Initiation should not be ethically/morally claimed or celebrated.
The mixtape follows The Weeknd’s lifestyle after he’s gained all this success, he’s still the same person but now he’s gotten everything he wanted. Some tracks such as The Fall continue to emphasize his journey into stardom and his acceptance of fame being temporary. With the added Till Dawn (Here Comes The Sun), The Weeknd acknowledges the changes in his life, realizing that the old lifestyle is no longer there for him or his past lovers.
Echoes of Silence is known as an underrated gem of The Weeknd’s discography, it’s well received by fans and critically acclaimed but often brushed under the rug in discussion of his work. A lot of fans and casual listeners play the mixtapes through Trilogy rather than their respective albums. This often leads to people not playing EoS either at all or only the first few tracks, this is predominantly due to the nature of the compilation being nearly three hours long.
Fun fact— D.D. is a cover of Michael Jackson’s iconic Dirty Diana. Fans have named the woman in Echoes of Silence Diana because of this track. Various theories argue that the mixtape itself is based on the Dirty Diana itself with exaggerations of the truth, or whether or not it’s a story The Weeknd crafted based on the song.

Trilogy.

Rolling Stone video doubled as a shoot

You don’t know what’s in store. (High For This.)

Trilogy is a compilation of The Weeknd’s mixtapes, House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence. These three mixtapes were released 3-4 months apart from one another for free digital download in 2011, they gained quite a lot of attention from various industry executives.
Prior to the release of Trilogy, The Weeknd featured on Drake’s Take Care with Crew Love. The song was Abel’s first exposure to a Rap crowd/Rap fans, more people began listening to his music after the release of Take Care. The Weeknd then featured on Wiz Khalifa’s Remember You, which served as the second single off Wiz Khalifa’s O.N.I.F.C. Following those two releases, The Weeknd released Wicked Games as the first single off Trilogy.
Trilogy was formed after The Weeknd came under Republic Records’ management. The compilation album reached a debut/peak position of 4 on the Billboard 200 while reaching number one on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. It’s a well received album with the highlight said to be House of Balloons, which arguably went on to influence various sorts of R&B music of the 2010s.
Videos for Trilogy

Kiss Land.

Iconic

I went from starin' at the same four walls for 21 years. To seein' the whole world in just 12 months. (Kiss Land)

Kiss Land is based on The Weeknd’s tour life. Visiting unfamiliar places gave Abel horror movie vibes. A guy who used to own the city (Toronto) he lived in is now a small fish in the ocean of the entire world. The Weeknd’s first studio album was a great introduction into the sound he would soon get well acquainted with.
While continuing the R&B sound with the essence of Dark Wave, the album explores emptiness and regret throughout the lyrics—or what pop fans could categorize as dark pop—. The Japanese aesthetic used for various videos and the single covers/booklet reflects the themes of feeling overwhelmed by such a loud world that there’s no point in being if you don’t belong.
The album explores the real-world and the women in it as well as regrets regarding past actions, namely letting go of women who could’ve been the one in Adaptation. The Weeknd attempts to find that satisfaction in other women and past lovers, but accidentally falls for a sex worker in Belong To The World. With Wanderlust he accepts and expresses that love in the modern world isn’t entirely possible. While continuing to tour the world he enjoys these new experiences with XO (Live For feat. Drake), as well as the new women in his life (Kiss Land). And when he’s back home, he accepts the loss of the relationship he cherished.
Kiss Land debuted and peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. It was fairly acclaimed but gained a massive cult following. There were four videos for made for the album, the title track, Belong To the World, Live For (feat. Drake), and Pretty. Those four songs received interesting visuals that kept up with their respective themes while Belong To the World/Kiss Land got visuals that matched the aesthetic of the album. To this day fans ask Abel for a part two to the horror-movie-inspired album after he said it’s the only album he would have a sequel for.
Videos for Kiss Land
Fun Fact— The video for Kiss Land on YouTube is an extremely edited version of the actual video shot for the song. The directors cut further explores the erotic-horror themes if the album.

King of the Fall.

King of the Fall 2020 cover (even though I talk about three other songs here)

Driving by the streets we used to walk through like a triumph. (King of the Fall)

These next few song were released between the Kiss Land and Beauty Behind the Madness era. Some fans would classify them as part of the Beauty Behind the Madness era—I’d say the same tbh—but they stand apart on the basis of success and acclaim. It’s a transition between The Weeknd being an underrated R&B musician to being a mainstream artist with massive recognition and appreciation.
The first of these four songs is King of the Fall. A fan favourite and a standout in The Weeknd’s discography. This is one of The Weeknd’s few Rap tracks, it gained a lot of attention within the Rap sphere. It was the way in which XO would announce that they’ve made it, little did they know that this was just the start.
Prior to the release of Beauty Behind the Madness (BBTM), The Weeknd gained mainstream attention. The Weeknd’s exposure to mainstream music was uphill, it wasn’t overnight. The first taste of BBTM came from Often, a song that reflected the themes of sex that Abel was known for. The track was released more than a year before BBTM’s release and had made it onto the trackless unlike King of the Fall. Slowly but surely The Weeknd gained exposure, his main sources of exposure were through a collaboration and a soundtrack.
Most pop fans heard about The Weeknd through his hit collaboration with Ariana Grande, Love Me Harder. The collab was made through Republic when The Weeknd said he wanted more than what he had gotten through Kiss Land. Ariana and Abel had formed a real bond cough The Hills cough, their bond assisted the song in becoming a memorable hit for both artists. Love Me Harder was a top ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
Later that year, The Weeknd was featured on the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack with Earned It, as well as Where You Belong. Earned It became a massive hit peaking at 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and receiving an Oscar nomination for The Weeknd; a massive milestone for XO. Earned It kept up with Abel’s signature lyrics but the production differed heavily from the sort of R&B he was known for.
Videos from that era

Beauty Behind the Madness.

I can hear this image

I'm that ***** with the hair singin' 'bout poppin' pills, fuckin' bitches, livin' life so trill. (Tell Your Friends)

Following the success of Love Me Harder and Earned It, the Beauty Behind the Madness era began with The Hills. This was The Weeknd’s first number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Along with the video, The Hills became an addictive classic. The production and lyrics mirror a mature version of the sound that was originally found on Trilogy. It was truly in keeping with The Weeknd’s character, the only difference was his haircut.
Next came Can’t Feel My Face, a Max Martin production that differed greatly from anything The Weeknd put out in the past. In past songs, Abel had expressed his fear of losing his following if he went mainstream simultaneously asking his fans if they’d stay. He repeats that sentiment in the Can’t Feel My Face video. The sound has changed, the lyrics stay the same but now he’s a pop-star. The song became a hit as it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. With this massive bop previous fans still stayed, The Weeknd becoming a pop singer didn’t at all alter his image or sound; he mastered it.
In The Night and Acquainted were released as singles on the same day, the were the only singles to come after the release of Beauty Behind The Madness. The former received a music video treatment that followed the theme of the song itself while also starring Abel’s girlfriend at the time, Bella Hadid. Acquainted was robbed of a video even though Abel had shown off the fact that a video was in development; the song kept in the tone of The Weeknd’s work prior to BBTM.
Beauty Behind the Madness captures a Hollywood-based reality that The Weeknd came to understand: the dark aspects of your life will continue to follow you wherever you are. Real Life, Losers (feat. Labrinth), Tell Your Friends, Dark Times (feat. Ed Sheeran), and Prisoner (feat. Lana Del Rey) all capture a nihilistic view of a dream achieved.
Most of the videos of Beauty Behind The Madness have a mysterious white man. He’s featured in The Hills, Can’t Feel My Face, and Tell Your Friends. That man represents the devil. Throughout his journey in those videos, (The Hills) Abel runs into the devil after his car crash, (Can’t Feel My Face) he’s at the club then lights him on fire. The significance behind the fire could be selling his soul to the devil, BBTM is about Hollywood and a popular Hollywood myth is that celebrities sell their souls to the devil in exchange for fame. So in the Can’t Feel My Face video, Abel changes his sound to Pop (from R&B) thus leaving his signature sound in order to become famous, everyone starts enjoying his music once he’s sold his soul.
Then we see The Weeknd burying himself in Tell Your Friends, perhaps leaving the old Abel behind after the deal with the devil. However, instead of thanking the devil, Abel takes his revenge and shoots him. But wait, there’s more! The album trailer for BBTM features the devil burning a billboard with The Weeknd’s face on it, revealing Beauty Behind The Madness. HOWEVER, the final cut for the video features the devil being arrested while The Weeknd watches. This is a more realistic form of karma that the devil gets.
Videos for BBTM

Starboy.

Filled with bops

If I could, I'd trade it all, trade it for a halo. And she said that she'll pray for me, I said, "It's too late for me.” (Ordinary Life)

After the massive success of Beauty Behind the Madness, there was a lot of hype around what The Weeknd would do next; evidently he decided to explore Pop. The fandom he had gained wasn’t entirely based in the Pop sphere, his fans consisted of general Rap fans, but Starboy attracted the Pop audience.
Initially, most of his older fans couldn’t get behind Starboy, it differed greatly from the previous sound. It was crazy to think that the guy who made Trilogy managed to make such a Pop-centric album. But this was Abel expressing his versatility.
Since this is where most pop fans found out about Abel’s work and became fans I won’t talk too much about the singles, rather more about the album itself. His work with Daft Punk cemented this album in an efficient mix between Pop and R&B, where Beauty Behind the Madness was more R&B with Pop, Starboy was considered Pop with R&B.
Beyond the genres, Starboy explores two evident themes. One being his life with fame and recognition. The next being his love life in Hollywood, this aspect of the album came from his relationship with Bella Hadid which ended after the release of the album.
The cross became the symbol for that era and appeared in the album’s photoshoot as well as the videos. There was never any conclusive word on the use of the cross but there are various theories about it, something to note is that Abel was raised Christian, it could perhaps be a reflection of his past.
The cross he uses to destroy his accolades (Starboy video) is assisting him rather than something that’s holding him back. Abel’s upbringing was rough but now he’s celebrating it rather than feeling bad for himself. The cross continues to come up in the Party Monster video, this time it’s in the party house he’s making his way through. Then it shows up in the video for Reminder, this time in the form of his merch, the people wearing it are perhaps representative of his fans. Then we see it in the False Alarm video, both Abel and the girl are wearing it; the notable thing being that Abel holds his cross up before dying. Then in the brilliant video for Secrets, after giving up on the girl he’s with he leaves the building to find a giant cross. And finally in the I Feel It Coming video, The Weeknd sports a shiny cross necklace, and Daft Punk find it years and years after Abel froze.
The videos tell us that the cross is an evident piece of his story. This could mean that his past will always be with him, no matter what sort of fame he’s experiencing he’ll always be who he once was.
Also, I’m gonna take this moment to once again the genius that is the Secrets (both the song and the video). Yes it’s my favourite song/video off of Starboy but it’s so underrated.
Videos for Starboy, Secrets video bottom right
Fun Fact— Most demos of the tracks on Starboy weren’t as pop as they became, they started off R&B but became pop after production.

My Dear Melancholy.

Note the comma

They said our love is just a game, I don't care what they say. But I'ma drink the pain away, I'll be back to my old ways. (Privilege)

Oof (but in a good way, this whole thing is a bop). For this one I’m gonna talk extensively about The Weeknd’s relationships, which personally feels really invasive but it’s but it’s essential when talking about these sad boy anthems. Beyond that I’d just like to state that though they are part of the narrative both Bella Hadid and Selena Gomez deserve respect/privacy.
So when it comes to Pop music fans I think it’s safe to say that we all know a lot about this one. My Dear Melancholy (MDM) came after the very public relationship of The Weeknd and Selena Gomez. However it’s not just about Selena, some songs reflect his relationship with Bella Hadid (whom he got back with a month after MDM’s release).
My Dear Melancholy consists with The Weeknd’s exploration/mastery of merging Pop and R&B together. The EP was praised by fans for its lyrics and production, many went on to theorize that it was his most personal project since House of Balloons. The EP was the shortest album to reach number one on the Billboard 200.
My Dear Melancholy and fan conspiracies; name a better duo. The first theory being that the EP is entirely about Selena Gomez which wasn’t too much of a mystery since the lyric “I almost cut a piece of myself for your life” exists. Not only did MDM come after Abel’s relationship with Selena Gomez but also after his relationship with Bella Hadid. As far as fans were aware those two relationships were the most important relationships Abel had ever been in.
In theory, the songs about Bella and Selena can be categorized. Call Out My Name, Try Me, and Privilege are likely about Selena. Wasted Times, and Hurt You are likely about Bella. Leaving I Was Never There to act as an introspective look into The Weeknd’s life, basically making him hop back on his vices for comfort.
Another popular theory was that My Dear Melancholy was the first of another trilogy. This rumour was widely believed due to the comma at the end of the title on the album cover. But the fans soon gained a real reason to believe this theory, since the CEO of XO (the record label), Sal had liked an Instagram post that featured the cover and alleged date. Since Trilogy is a fan favourite this conspiracy spread like wild fire, so much so that fake titles and covers were made. The name of this trilogy would be: (1)My Dear Melancholy, (2)We’re Alone Together, (3)Abel.
Only one song served as a single for the EP. Call Out My Name was released nearly two months prior to the actual release of the album, it debuted/peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100. The mysterious video captures The Weeknd in various atmospheric places that reflect the tone of the EP, a haunting yet unexplained reality that the listener is to reflect on.
From the cover, to the music, to the video, to lyrics, My Dear Melancholy is an introspective reflection of heartbreak.
Call out my name video

After Hours.

Talented, Brilliant, Incredible, etc.

My darkest hours. (After Hours)

After Hours comes after success but references two lows in The Weeknd’s life. The album welcomes darkness and leads the listener towards a dead-end. The Weeknd’s past two albums (Beauty Behind The Madness and Starboy) ended on hopeful notes, they left the listener with a sense of hope but all hope his lost with After Hours.
Fans compare After Hours to House of Balloons—a rare occurrence considering House of Balloons’ acclaim—arguing that both albums are on the same level. Debate continues on whether or not both albums are on the same caliber. The belief that After Hours stems from reality does a lot to help its side of the argument.
The era began with Mercedes-Benz commercial that featured Blinding Lights, that was our first taste of the everlasting bop. Heartless was premiered on an episode of Memento Mori hours before its release on the 27 of November (2019), Blinding Lights was released two days later. Both videos were as brain melting as promised and the served as the tip of the iceberg.
After Hours was released nine days after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, there was a massive risk in releasing an album that would not have a lot of promotion after it’s release (other than magazine coverage). There was no telling whether or not people would pay attention to the album during the height of the fear surrounding the pandemic, but it was a massive success. After Hours debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with singles Heartless and Blinding Lights topping the Billboard Hot 100.
The album is layered with haunting productions that remains predominantly R&B but dives deep into Pop with some of the tracks. Max Martin produced the massive hit Blinding Lights as well as In Your Eyes, Save Your Tears, Hardest to Love, and Scared to Live which samples Elton John’s Your Song. Other notable producers include Metro Boomin who worked on the hit Heartless as well as Escape from LA, Faith, and Until I Bleed Out. With Kevin Parker on the interlude Repeat After Me.
Beyond the production are the narrative driven lyrics. In theory the album references two significant events in Abel’s life, his second breakup with Bella Hadid and his arrest in Las Vegas. The latter was due to his misbehaviour; in January 2015 he punched a cop in Vegas, lmao. Which means that After Hours is a recollection of The Weeknd’s first few years in LA. He merges the concept of his breakup with the idea of being an upcoming star, feeling free in the city of lights all while diving deep into the meaninglessness of those lights.
While After Hours starts with loneliness and a second chance it leads up to Abel returning to his vices of lust. In Alone Again his loneliness caught up to him and he’s asking for a second chance. He acknowledges his mistakes and situation in Too Late/Hardest to Love, in Scared to Live his ex then returns to him for a second time. He remembers his past ways in Snowchild and the way in which it lead to better days, but where do you go after such highs? In Escape From LA he faces the superficial reality of Hollywood, glad that he got that he got back with his ex, while continuing to question if it’s worth it. But he fucks up the second chance when she pulls up to the studio.
Who is she? Much like the other mysteries surrounding The Weeknd’s music, we may never know. Is it all more of The Weeknd’s songwriting ability or is it driven by reality? Fans found a merge between the two to be more accurate, After Hours is about heartbreak and a return to the vices that held The Weeknd back.
Heartless is when The Weeknd is once again back to his ways, he may have been in a serious relationship but after throwing that away he spirals back to the way he once was. It’s sad but it’s one hell of a song. Speaking of brilliant songs, Faith is when Abel admits that he’s back on his vices, he states that he needs his ex back with him till the end; he’s back to self-loathing.
So when he says he’s blinded by the lights, there’s two meanings to it. The Faith outro tells us that he’s in a car with flashing lights, a cop car (as confirmed by Abel) to be exact. Then Blinding Lights tells us that while he’s watching the bright lights of Vegas pass him by he calls out for the girl that he regrets losing. That is the peak of the After Hours narrative. He’s behaving badly over the loss of the girl he loved and is now at the worst position trying to find her and gain her trust for a third time.
Following Blinding Lights is In Your Eyes, this is where The Weeknd vows not to judge her; he can see right through her but will never do anything to make her upset. Does this mean their back together? Not exactly. Save Your Tears details a sort of moving-on that The Weeknd isn’t ready for but tries to help her move on, blind to his own inability to move on. Does it work? Not really. Repeat After Me (Interlude) shows that he’s still trying to convince himself that he’s unfazed by the loss of a meaningful relationship.
Then you hear a true masterpiece. The title track is a spiral into true regret and an apology for his actions, he admits that his ex girlfriend is the only reason he lives. In a dark lonely city she’s the only one keeping him sane. But his pleas fail, Until I Bleed Out is when The Weeknd no longer wants her in his life so much so that he wants to erase his memory of anything related to her. The bonus tracks then echo the final sentiment.
It’s one sad ass album, ain’t it. But here’s where the Red Suit Character comes in.
Shoutout to the makeup department
The album isn’t the only narrative to follow with After Hours. The videos for the album follow their own sort of narrative. The story follows an unnamed guy that goes by “red suit character” according to The Weeknd.
There’s a lot of confusion and endless theories surrounding this character’s story, after The Weeknd confirmed that it’s about a decent into Hollywood culture it makes more sense… kind of. I’m gonna discuss the storyline without talking about the movies that have influenced it, this way the focus remains on the character.
The order of these videos is Heartless / Blinding Lights / Blinding Lights (Live on Kimmel)* / After Hours short film / In Your Eyes / Until I Bleed Out / Snowchild / Too Late / Live at AMAs* / Save Your Tears
*Though all live performances could count as part of the narrative, these one relate directly with the videos that follow.
He’s is first seen in Vegas with Metro Boomin (Heartless), intoxicated on various substances. He dives deeper into his high until he licks a frog, after that he faces the true effects of this high. He’s frightened by the result and runs far away from Vegas. (Blinding Lights) He’s then found in LA, where he’s dancing in the street, hypnotized by the singer, beat up by guards, and races past all those bright lights in his Benz. Ultimately realizing the shallowness of the Los Angeles fantasy.
(Blinding Lights Live on Kimmel) We then find him performing Blinding Lights live, while he attempts to find more reason in within the madness city; he couldn’t find it on the streets so he goes to the stage. (After Hours short film) Even then there’s no meaning to anything in the city, he mindlessly wanders into the depth of the subway where he’s dragged by the reality of it all and ends up possessed. (In Your Eyes) After being possessed he chases the woman whose boyfriend he just murdered, she runs into a club falls deeper into the After Hours fantasy, in a successful attempt to defend herself she beheads the red suit character and dances all over LA with his head, iconic behaviour.
(Until I Bleed Out) Then in an ethereal dreamscape, red suit character finds himself in a House of Balloons. He’s trying to escape, but the people there keep pulling him in; he’s getting higher while observing Glass Table Girls. He spirals into the antarctic, the other side of the world. From Heatless to this point in his story, his vices lead him back to the lowest point in Abel’s life. Is it Hell, Heaven or Las Vegas? (Snowchild) He relives his career up until the point where his story began. Considering he’s dead, his life basically flashed before his eyes.
(Too Late) LA girls find the red suit character’s head and live their best life. They wanna have sex with him so they find the best boy parts by calling up a stripper who could be the body. The stitch the head up with the body and do what they want. But now he’s brought back to life. (Live at AMAs) He’s had work done… He went in to get his nose fixed and the doctor said “you sure that’s all you want?” The red suit character’s face is healing while he tries to celebrate his life on top of a bridge.
(Save Your Tears) Surrounded by a masked cult he debut’s his new face. Do they like it? Are they impressed? Not instantly, their masks translate no expression so how’s he to know? Is any of this worth it? Nope red suit character continues to die inside. He finds a maskless girl in the crowd, she’s lively unlike the rest; but even then, nothing on the inside nothing on the outside. He wants death again, somehow a second chance with this city is still pointless. He tries to kill himself via the girl and himself but it’s all a facade; theatrics.
His story continues but that’s all we know so far.
The videos make a lot of film references. This post by explain these references very well, as well as past album references here (part one) and here (part two).
After Hours is inspired by a lot of movies, since Abel is in fact a cinephile. The main movies that inspired the aesthetic and storytelling are believed to be Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Casino (1995), Joker (2019), Uncut Gems (2020), and After Hours (1985). The album tells two sad narratives but remains one of The Weeknd’s best works yet. He’s expanded his videography and enhanced the interest of people who casually enjoy his music and of course his fans.
But the era isn’t over, by the time this is posted his Super Bowl Halftime show is yet to happen. And it’ll continue the red suit character’s story.
Videos for After Hours (so far)
Fun Fact—The Heartless video features a reference to Thursday. When he’s trying to run from Vegas, a sign behind him flashes “Heartless / Heaven or Las Vegas.” This could be a reference to Abel running from his past, after all Heartless is about him returning to his vices.

END.

Thank you for reading this, again, I didn’t realize it would end up being this long. But I hope this this served as a nice refresher for any fans who wanted to revisit Abel’s work before the Super Bowl.
And I really hope that anyone interested in getting into his music finds this helpful. Once again, the theories/interpretations mentioned aren’t conclusive, they’re widely based on fan discussion/mutual interpretation.
Due to the character limit I couldn’t add too links to the albums, so here are some artist links.
Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube | The Weeknd’s Shop | Tidal | Genius

Over the years I have thoroughly enjoyed throwing together playlists for different occasions (making coffee, working out, weddings, seasons, etc.) and thought I'd share! Please let me know your thoughts, favourite mixes, as well as recommendations for future playlists. All feedback is welcome! Hope you enjoy them:
That Weekend Feeling
Skip to the good bit; weekend grooves to wave away any weekday blues.
Awesome Mix: Ultimate Edition (Mixtape)
A great hero, named Kevin Bacon, once taught an entire city full of people with sticks up their butts that, dancing, well, is the greatest thing there is. The legend of Footloose comes alive with Awesome Mix: Ultimate Edition - Songs from and inspired by the Guardians of the Galaxy series.
Morning Motivation: Steal Some Sunshine
Soak up the sun with energetic jams and breezy classics!
I'd Drink To That: Party Playlist
Mix it up with a party playlist to keep the night buzzing.
I'd Sing To That: Carpool Karaoke
Pack up and take those pipes on a roadtrip! The catchy. The memorable.
Just Jams 🎧
Nothing but jams to fill a pair of headphones or stadium.
Brendan's Listen Local
Funky & Thumpy! Some of my favourite energetic jams, classics, and BBQ party starters from our local Australian & New Zealand artists.
Friday Fire
It's Friday! Friends. Family. Fun.
Groovin' The Brew
Nothing but rockin' party grooves on tap.
Diverse Pop Sounds
It's pop, but not as you know it.
Break Thru
Ear Candy.
Sunday Sesh
Beers & bangers on a weekend!
Run To Paradise
Set up goals, and knock them down with an energetic running playlist.
Summer Daze
The heat is on with a playlist of crisp summer tunes.
Autumn Mix: Volume 1
A breezy & brilliant playlist for the ever-changing Autumn seasons.
Chilled Pop
Soft, chilled winter pop songs.
Warm Tunes
Warm songs of Spring, like a comforting embrace.
A Mid-Summer Night's Drink 🍻
Lord, what fun these mortals be!
Wind Down 🌚
When the night winds down, so does some great music.
90's Baby! 📼
It is the sound of the roller disco, BMX bike track and arcade!
The Hip Hip Hop
Only the hippest of the hip. My modern and classic hip hop favourites.
Indie Bops: It's ALT Good
Get your alternative bounce on.
Not Your Final Form: A Workout Playlist
All the other licks with the pumped up kicks to keep you going during a workout. My favourites and a few other choice tunes for pushing harder, faster, stronger.
Easy On The Ears
Easy, Easy, Easybeats.
Life Is Good ☀️
Today is gonna be a good day.
Dial M For Music
Deep, cathartic music.
JOY
Smile.
Vibe Hard
Get into the zone, and vibe-out to infectious tunes!
Rock & Roll Never Dies
Who says rock & roll is dead? Commercial radio? It's always been around; you've just got to roll with it and look harder. Get your kicks!
Brainfood
Introspective acoustic, calming strings, uplifting anthems, and a touch of nature. Food for the brain, and perfect background noise for studies.
Game Night 🎲
For every occasion... casino, tabletop, videogames; a soundtrack to a brilliant game night!
Sizzlers: BBQ Playlist 🍔
Fire up the burner and the anthems with a barbeque playlist hotter than the bright ball in the sky.
Kickstart My Heart: Classic Rock Radio
Rocking all over the world.
Rush Hour
Grinding Gears.
Riff Raff: Party Rock
Some rowdy rock to turn up the night.
RE : FRESH 🍹
SUPERDOPE. Piña colada's and Caribbean Rum.
The Driver
There's a voice in my head that drives my heel.
Country Road
Might as well cruise. Might as well banjo.
Born to be Wild
Life's an adventure; you can't be tamed.
Night Moves: Dancing In The Moonlight
Unwind with the moonbeams. Night drives & night lives.
Funk Right Off
Get Funk'd.
Rambling Roses 💐
Beauty and Love are as body and soul. Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond.
Sweat. Reset.
Whatever it takes. 'Cause you love the adrenaline in your veins.
Power Pop: Marathon
Power pop to push and electrify a workout.
Cool Beans: Coffee Playlist
Recharge with some warm tunes.
Kitchen Crooners 🎀
Now we're cooking!
Now We're Cooking!
Tasty tunes for the Kitchen.
Pool Party
Dive in to great poolside swing.
Inspiration 💡 Takes Flight
Reach for the Sky!
Going Places
Always push forward.
First 💍
Songs for special days.
DisNeat - Taking The Mickey
Nothing but Disney favourites.
Road Trip: Spinning Wheels
Hear the call for adventure and hit the road.
Guilty Pleasures 🍨
You like the Grease soundtrack? Word.
Catchy AF POP
Pop that bops. Essentials and the catchiest of the catchy.
Acoustica
Stripped Back.
Playlist + Chill
Cool off with some chilled beats and sweet acoustic.
Making Waves
Unwind with breathy, breezy songs perfect for a walk on the beach.
The Playlist Of The Decade (New Years Eve)
We welcomed 2020 with the ultimate party playlist jam-packed with familiar throwbacks and modern favourites from the 2010's! Good times!
Rhythm Heaven
Step up and dance.
Sax on the Beach 🎷
Gratuitous? Nah! An instrument to elevate a song from good to great!
BedroX 🔥
Sparks.
Pump It Up: The Playlist of Champions 🏆
Winner winner, chicken dinner.
Retro Rewind
Twist & shout to killer Jukebox Classics.
Classic Se7ens
Nothing but 70's favourites.
Great Eight's
Nothing but 80's Favourites.
Noughty & Nice
Nothing but great 00's Throwbacks.
The Best Playlist Never Heard
It's unheard of!
Best Songs You Might Have Missed
Potentially slipped under the radar.
Songs for Soundtracks 🎬
Royale with cheese.
The Grand European Playlist
About to take off!
EPIC 🗡
Fortune & Glory!
SUPERHOT VR : ROCK
The champ is coming.
SUPERHOT VR : HIP-HOP
Kings never die.
SUPERHOT VR : ACTION
John Wick Schtick.
Cowboy Bebop : Spike Spiegel
Spike Spiegel is an ex-Syndicate goon and a bounty hunter aboard the Bebop. He is proficient in martial arts, zipcraft flying, and gunfights, but he also has comical and aloof sides of his personality. If there's three things he can't stand, it's kids, pets, and women with attitudes.
Cowboy Bebop : Faye Valentine
Faye Valentine is a coma survivor of over 50 years and she is trying to regain her memory. She got into a lot of debt upon entering this futuristic world, and she had to resort to a life of crime and hustling to survive... that is, until she decided to live on the Bebop and become a bounty hunter.
Cowboy Bebop : Jet Black
Jet Black is an ex-ISSP Special Forces Officer and the Captain of the Bebop. He is a bounty hunter and is called the "Black Dog" because once he sinks his teeth in he never lets go. Jet enjoys American Jazz music, taking care of Bonsai trees, and has a knack for investigative work.
Cowboy Bebop : Radical Edward
Edward is a net diver from Earth. Edward is a child prodigy for hacking and has an aptitude for anything mechanical, even though Edward has some eccentricities in other parts of her personality. For instance, Edward speaks in third person and sometimes behaves like a wild animal.
At The Movies 🎟
Lights, camera, playlist.
James Bond Classics 🍸
A martini, shaken, not stirred.
The Word Is Bond 🍸
The world is not enough; but this playlist comes pretty close.
Live Love LIVE
Blistering live performances.
Future Nostalgia
Neo-swing, retro swagger; it's future nostalgia.
B-Side Yourself
Hidden Gems, Deep Cuts & Rarities.
Punk'd
You're Gonna Go Far, Kid.
Building Houses: Hit By Hit
Baby let's play house.
Far ALT
A playlist rocking that weird shit.
Stay Home: The Safety Dance
Stay safe out there.
Day Tripper
A playlist for a long drive - a day trip.
In Tents
Music For Camping.
Roots
Bluesy classics to strut to.
All That Jazz
Get jazzy on it.
Focus Features
Take a breather.
Australiana
Paradise.
Drive Time
Coast to coast. Songs for a spin.
Stone Cold Classicals
It's classically classic.
Hall of Fame 💎
Songs for the career climbers and L.A. dreamers. Glitz & glam; all that jazz.
This is Halloween
Everybody Scream!
It's Beginning to Sound A Lot Like Christmas!
Christmas Classics.
Just For Laughs 🎭
What a Joker!
Two Nights In Tao🎙
Karaoke? There's a first time for everything.
GAME
Take control.
Game On : Borderlands Psycho-delic
CHOO CHOO THE PAIN TRAIN'S COMIN'
Red Dead Redemption II
Songs For Bloody Duels, Whiskey-Fueled Gambles, and Rolling Desert Plains.
Energy Shot
Keep animated with an energetic dose of catchy music!
Party Fillers
A background mix for any event.
The Essential AC/DC
AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973 by Scottish-born brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Although their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock, and heavy metal, the band themselves call it simply "rock and roll"
The Essential One Republic
OneRepublic is an American pop rock band formed in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2002. It consists of lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Tedder, guitarist Zach Filkins, guitarist Drew Brown, bassist and cellist Brent Kutzle, drummer Eddie Fisher and keyboardist Brian Willett.
The Essential Shinedown
Shinedown is an American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida, formed by singer Brent Smith in 2001. Shinedown has sold more than ten million records worldwide, and has had the most number one singles on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts out of any band, with 16.
The Essential Dua Lipa
Dua Lipa is an English singer and songwriter. After working as a model, she signed with Warner Music Group in 2015 and released her self-titled debut album in 2017. The success of the singles helped her self-titled album become one of the most-streamed albums on Spotify.
The Essential Preatures
The Preatures are an Australian band from Sydney. The band was formed in 2010 and features Isabella 'Izzi' Manfredi on vocals/keyboards, Jack Moffitt (guitar), Thomas Champion (bass) and Luke Davison (drums). The band won the Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition with their song Is This How You Feel.
The Essential Maroon 5
Maroon 5 is an American pop rock band from Los Angeles, California. It currently consists of lead vocalist Adam Levine, keyboardist and rhythm guitarist Jesse Carmichael, lead guitarist James Valentine, drummer Matt Flynn, keyboardist PJ Morton and multi-instrumentalist Sam Farrar.
The Essential INXS
INXS were an Australian rock band, formed in 1977 in Sydney. INXS was fronted by Hutchence, whose magnetic stage presence made him the focal point of the band. Initially known for their new wave/pop style, the band later developed a harder pub rock style that included funk and dance elements.
The Essential Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The group, whose best-known line-up comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, are regarded as the most influential band of all time. The Beatles are the best-selling music act of all time.
The Essential Volbeat
Volbeat are a Danish rock band formed in Copenhagen in 2001. They play a fusion of rock and roll, heavy metal and rockabilly. Their current line-up consists of vocalist and guitarist Michael Poulsen, guitarist Rob Caggiano, drummer Jon Larsen and bassist Kaspar Boye Larsen.
The Essential Chromeo
Chromeo is a Canadian electro-funk duo from Montreal, formed in 2002 by musicians David "Dave 1" Macklovitch and Patrick "P-Thugg" Gemayel. Their sound draws from blue-eyed soul, dance music, rock, synth-pop, disco and funk. As of 2018, the band has released five studio albums.
The Essential Queen
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1970. Their classic line-up was Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, piano), Brian May (guitar, vocals), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals) and John Deacon (bass). With estimated record sales ranging from 170 million to 300 million, they are one of the biggest.
The Essential Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, and dancer. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century.
The Essential Brian Setzer
Brian Robert Setzer (born April 10, 1959) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He found widespread success in the early 1980s with the 1950s-style rockabilly group Stray Cats, and revitalized his career in the early 1990s with his swing revival band, the Brian Setzer Orchestra.
The Essential Florida Georgia Line
Florida Georgia Line are an American country music duo consisting of vocalists Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley. Their 2012 debut single "Cruise" broke two major sales records: it was downloaded over seven million times, making it the first country song ever to receive the Diamond certification.
The Essential KISS
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973 by Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley. Well known for its members' face paint and stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid-to-late 1970s with its elaborate live performances.
The Essential Sheppard
Sheppard is an Australian indie pop band from Brisbane, formed in 2009. At the 2014 ARIA's ceremony, they were nominated for Album of the Year, Best Group, Best Independent Release, Best Pop Release, Song of the Year, Producer of the Year, and Best Video.
The Essential Matchbox 20
Matchbox Twenty is an American rock band, formed in Orlando, Florida, in 1995. The group currently consists of Rob Thomas (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards), Brian Yale (bass guitar), Paul Doucette (drums, rhythm guitar, backing vocals), and Kyle Cook (lead guitar, vocals).
The Essential Coldplay
Coldplay are a British rock band that were formed in London in 1996 consisting of vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, and drummer Will Champion. Coldplay have sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the world's best-selling.
The Essential Daughtry
Daughtry is an American rock band formed and fronted by namesake Chris Daughtry, who was a finalist on the fifth season of American Idol. Their self-titled debut album was released in November 2006 and reached number one on the Billboard 200. To date, Daughtry has sold over 9 million albums.
The Essential Black Eyed Peas
The Black Eyed Peas are an American musical group, consisting of rappers will.i.am*, apl.de.ap, Taboo, J. Rey Soul and singer Fergie. Originally an alternative hip hop group, they subsequently refashioned themselves as a more marketable pop-rap act and have become best-selling artists.*

Note: The particularly important details and music artist names are in bold text. Licensed music track names are in italics.
The year is 1973, five years after the events of the Mafia III, and 22 years since Vito Scaletta’s seen or heard from his old friend Joe Barbaro. The canon ending of Mafia III with this Mafia IV story is Vito taking over the city after Lincoln skipped town, however Cassandra and Burke are left alive and loyal to both Vito and Lincoln still. Burke was able to survive his liver cancer by getting a black market liver transplant in Mexico, like he did in his ending, except with Vito running the city. On Vito and Lincoln’s behalf, Burke and Cassandra agree to stay behind in New Bordeaux and keep the city locked down, incase Leo Galante and the Commission try anything.
The beginning cutscene is Vito answering his telephone after getting up in the morning in his new penthouse, on the top floor of the New Bordeaux casino he finished that was once Sal Marcano's, and grabbing a cup of coffee. It's Alma with some urgent news. Lincoln Clay came down to the cigar warehouse to visit her after 5 years of silence, and he has big news.
Joe is alive in Empire Bay and has been this entire time. However, as punishment for his actions, he's become Leo Galante's personal driver against his will and is forbidden from contacting Vito ever again, or else him and Vito will be killed. Alma then tells Vito to meet Lincoln at the airport to learn more, as he's already there awaiting Vito's arrival. When they're away from anyone who could listen in on their conversation, Lincoln tells Vito he has a friend named John Donovan he's going to introduce him to, hiding in the outskirts of Empire Bay, ready to help Vito and Lincoln with their new mission
Vito gets dressed in one of his signature trench coats with a suit and tie, ready to rain down hell on the Vinci crime family and their allies, and finally be reunited with his lifelong friend he previously thought was dead, Joe Barbaro.
Here is my idea for the kill list, all related to the Commission in Empire Bay and their allies.

• Leo Galante - Top target on the list, Vinci family consigliere who's in with the Commission and the man you thought put Joe in the ground for the past 22 years. Bury this wrinkly old cocksucker.
• Johnny Galante - Vinci family capo and younger relative of Leo's mentioned in Cassandra's ending, possibly Leo's cousin even. John Donovan knows that the two are close, and that Johnny's a valuable asset to Leo's organization. Kill him both to hurt Leo's earn and influence, and to hit him straight in the heart by taking away his family and everyone he loves
• Michele Galante Jr. - Another Vinci family capo, and Leo Galante’s youngest brother. Killing Leo’s little brother will both take away one of his most reliable allies, and leave him stricken with grief and enraged, and more prone to making mistakes.
• Nunzio Galante - Leo’s seasoned older brother by 3 years, and yet another Vinci family capo. He knows enough about smuggling that he worked out an ingenious plan for smuggling military grade weapons into the city. He pays off corrupt officials at Empire Bay International Airport, to allow guns to be loaded inside the walls and floors of planes, unknown to everyone onboard save for the palms the Galantes and Frank Vinci have greased to cooperate and keep quiet. The time has come to put this crafty old bastard in the ground.
• Don Frank Vinci - Frank Vinci is the boss of the Vinci crime family, the family Leo's been a consigliere of for decades, and a lifelong friend of his. Kill Frank, and Leo loses more ground than he could ever imagine, and will be forced to deal with both the loss of his boss, and the loss of his lifelong childhood friend.
• Don Ennio Salieri - Longtime close friend of both Frank Vinci and Leo Galante, Don of the Salieri crime family, and a third party Frank and Leo call in to crush Vito's uprising, when it becomes too big of an issue for Vinci alone to handle. Salieri was eventually able to grease enough palms while behind bars to have his life sentence overturned, and he got released from prison on good behavior in 1953, after he served 15 years of his sentence. He’s since relocated to his main operations to Empire Bay, having already had connections and men present there while he was in prison, backed by the Commission and the Vinci crime family. He's seasoned, but he’s nothing Mr. Scaletta can't handle. Give this tired old fuck the gangland ending he's had coming.
• Isaac - Isaac is the personal assistant to an influential loan shark named Bruno Levine, who handles the money of the Commission, including the Vinci crime family and the Salieri crime family. He does anything from serve his boss coffee, to count incoming and outgoing money for Bruno. Because of his duties, he's aware of Bruno's location at all times. You’ll need to get to Isaac to get information on his boss out of him, and dispose of him afterwards if you want to get to Bruno.
• Bruno Levine - Bruno is a Jewish-American loan shark who kicks up all of his earn to both Frank Vinci and Ennio Salieri, and the Commission in Empire Bay. Killing him kills a lot of earn for the Commission, and they loses a valuable asset. In addition to getting rid of him being practical, to add insult to injury, he gave your father that loan. It's about time to put this asshole out of business.
• Mr. Chu & Mr. Chu Jr. - This old man has been leading the Empire Bay Triads with an iron fist since before you were even born. The bastard has a son too, who eventually went on to become his underboss. The Empire Bay Triads became a close ally of the Vinci crime family, the Salieri crime family, and the Commission shortly after Vito killed Don Carlo Falcone in 1951, forming a lucrative partnership with the Commission. Mr. Chu and his eldest son are valuable assets for Leo Galante who give him extra reach. Melt their iron fists and show these two pricks just who they fucked with.
• Eddie Scarpa - This cocksucker used to be Carlo Falcone's underboss for as long as you could remember. After you whacked Falcone in the fall of 1951, he decided to throw in with Vinci to save his own skin. He took over the smuggling and dock union extortion that fat fuck Derek Pappalardo used to run. You know all too well how to deal with this sorry fuckin' rat.

I'm thinking Vito and Joe work with Lincoln Clay and John Donovan to split up Empire Bay and distribute territory to three other factions not unlike what Lincoln did with New Bordeaux. This time though, this is a much larger city in a much, much different part of the United States. The empire building mechanics would be a lot smoother, more robust, and streamlined compared to Mafia III. They would work similarly a more modernized version of how the hit city sandbox game Scarface: The World Is Yours handled it's empire building and management mechanics, minus the whole switching to other characters lower on the ladder to do your bidding. This would be ideal for a story rich organized crime game in my opinion. Here are my ideas for those factions, all close allies of the up and coming Scaletta crime family.
The Cuban mob led by Alma Diaz. Vito goes way back with Alma, and she does not hesitate to answer him and Lincoln's calls to save Joe's life and royally fuck both Leo Galante and the Vinci family.
Conti crime family, led by Enzo Conti. This Conti crime family formed sometime in late 1968, months after Lincoln helped Enzo flee New Bordeaux and drop off of Sal Marcano's radar. It turns out he fled north to Empire Bay and finally formed his own family, having more than enough years of experience in the underworld to handle the job. Lincoln's tight with him and manages to recruit him to Vito and Joe's cause.
The Yakuza, based out of Empire Bay's Japantown. Longtime sworn enemies of the Empire Bay Triads, with bad blood going back decades. They would greatly enjoy seeing Mr. Chu and his son's heads mounted on pikes, along with whacking everyone who's ever supported their organization. You don't know them well, and they're known to be very unpredictable and ruthless. Use these traits to your advantage when taking on the Commission of Empire Bay and their friends.
I should mention as expected, this entire 1973 section where you play as Vito is much shorter than Mafia III. Vito's takeover is shown much more quickly over time than Lincoln's, and there's time skips during it, to keep it short and sweet, and to show onscreen only what's important. There is also no option for your underbosses to betray you, as to reduce confusion and keep the story consistently the same each playthrough, like the first two Mafia games.
However, unlike Mafia III, after all of these tasks are completed and every single assassination target on Vito’s kill list is dealt with, the game does not end. In fact, it's not even anywhere near close to being over yet. Vito's 1973 section was merely the beginning act. It was really a lead up to an entirely new Mafia story, centering around a newcomer to the American mob. Fast forward two years following Vito’s rampage that led to him taking over Empire Bay and the Commission, in the year 1975 him and Joe now rule Empire Bay, with Vito as the Don of the Scaletta Crime Family, and Joe working as his loyal underboss. You play the rest of the game as a young up and coming soldato named Louis in his 20’s, who’s a rising star in Vito’s organization. Do right by Mr. Scaletta and Mr. Barbaro, understand kid?
My basic idea for the character and his backstory is that he's a young Italian-Canadian mobster from Toronto, Ontario, or whatever Mafia's equivalent of it could be called. Let's call him Louis DeSimone. His family hails from Tuscany in Italy and moved to Toronto, Ontario in 1939, shortly after World War II broke out in Europe. Louis DeSimone was born in July 1952 in Toronto, and was raised in Toronto's Little Italy. Being northern Italian and hailing from Tuscany, Louis has blond hair and green eyes, making him visually very distinct from past series protagonists, who were all dark haired brunets with brown eyes. Louis fled south to Empire Bay when the feds started cracking down on his old family and put his boss in prison, and he ended up finding a new home with the Scaletta crime family. The first few missions playing as Louis DeSimone involve shooting your away out of an arrest by a Toronto Police Service SWAT team in Toronto in December 1974, seeing the rest of the members of your old crime family either get arrested or shot in front of you as you make your escape. You spend the next two missions fleeing Ontario through Quebec and upstate New York, before finally arriving in Empire Bay in early 1975, late January to be exact. Winter is in full force with snow everywhere, Louis' arrival to Empire Bay for the first time in his life mirroring Vito's return to Empire Bay in 1945 30 years earlier, except under far different much more dire circumstances. Louis' older brother and his father, both capos in his old crime family in Toronto, are shown to be arrested by the TPS SWAT team in his first mission, the same one that attempted to gun him down when he resisted arrested. Louis knows someone had to have ratted out his old crime family, and he wants to find out who someday. The thing is though, he doesn't just want to kill them. He wants to get out of them why they did it before he kills them. More than anything else, he just wants to find out why his crime family was betrayed and served up to the feds on a silver platter, having most of his biological family sent to prison in the process. He’s out to uncover the mystery of why his family fell apart, and he’s more than willing to help people like Don Vito Scaletta and his underboss Joe Barbaro to eventually get the answers he seeks. In the end, he’s not even after revenge primarily, more than that, he wants answers and information regarding the fare of his old crime family, and wants to know why his family fell apart. I came up with the idea for this character because I figured that playing as a fugitive from the law made sense for the mob life, and I'm surprised we haven't had a fugitive protagonist in the Mafia series yet.
In the 1975 chapters while playing as Louis, the Watergate scandal, President Richard Nixon’s resignation, and the official end to the Vietnam War are all discussed on the in-game radio during news segments. In the last 1979 chapter, the beginning of the Soviet-Afghan War is also the subject of a news segment on the radio.
The story eventually transitions into the 1980's as years pass, with the scenery, cars, and music changing accordingly, and historical events of the time discussed in the game. In the 1989 section of the game, the murder of the infamous former Sinclair Parish Sheriff Walter “Slim” Beaumont is mentioned on the in-game radio, as just over 21 years ago Slim and his corruption ring were the top headline of national news. the time the game ends, it's 1992, and significant historical events from the past few years at the time that are covered on the radio in-game include anything from the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, to the 1992 L.A. riots. The rise of the internet and home computers are briefly touched upon during news segments on the in-game radio during the early 1990's section of the story, but not greatly delved into given their relative infancy in that time period. During this entire 1975-1992 stretch of the story, Vito is no longer playable, and Don Scaletta takes a backseat in the story as a main supporting character, similar to Don Salieri throughout Mafia: Definitive Edition. You now play as the Italian-Canadian Scaletta family soldato Louis DeSimone, who is later promoted to being a capo in 1985. At the end of the game in 1992, Louis is promoted to Consigliere of the Scaletta crime family, and it’s revealed in the epilogue that he became the don of the family in 2006 at the age of 54, and his now released from prison older brother serving as his underboss, and and Enzo Conti’s grandson Giovanni Conti serving as consigliere, taking over from Louis’ previous position which before that belonged to his father and Enzo’s only son, Lorenzo Conti from 1973-1992. It is worth noting that unlike Don Salieri, Don Scaletta has much more integrity, and has more genuine loyalty for his men and his associates. If you've beaten Mafia 1 or Mafia: Definitive Edition, you'll know this is something Salieri lacked in the end. Over time, Louis also goes from having a strictly business relationship with Vito and Joe, to bonding with them and becoming a genuinely close friend and trusted member of the family, seeing Vito as something of a second father, and coming to see Joe as the fun uncle he never had. Another major character development theme is Louis DeSimone adapting and assimilating into Italian-American culture in his new home in the Northeastern US, it seeming like something new mixed with the familiar Italian-Canadian culture he was raised in back in Ontario just north of the border.
The game will include a number of hit music from the 70’s that played on the radio back then, such as Bobby Womack’s Across 110th Street and Tony Christie’s (Is This the Way to) Amarillo, The Grateful Dead's Casey Jones and at least a few songs by the then new American rock band Cheap Trick, as well as popular songs from the 1960’s people still listened to at the time, such as Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs’ Wooly Bully, King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man, Zager and Evans' In the Year 2525, The Zombies' Time of the Season, and Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made for Walkin'. When you progress through the game, especially after you switch to playing as Louis DeAngelo for the rest of the story, years change, and the music changes. Different songs start playing on the radio, such as Sylvester's You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), Randy Crawford's Street Life, and The Village People's Y.M.C.A., Cheryl Lynn's Got to Be Real, Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, and the Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive start playing in the 1979 portion of the game. After you've completed the 1975 section of the game, Foghat's Slow Ride starts playing on the radio. Starting in the 1977 section of the game, Cheap Trick's I Want You to Want Me and Heart's Barracuda start playing on the radio. In the 1980's portion of the game, Thomas Dolby's songs Hyperactive! and She Blinded Me with Science, in addition to Night Ranger's Sister Christian also start playing on the radio. If Hangar 13 can afford the licenses, I also think a few Michael Jackson and Madonna songs should definitely be on the radio during the 1980's portion of the story, given the immense popularity and regular radio airtime those two had in that decade. If this ended up being possible, I imagine that Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal, Beat It, Bad, and Billie Jean being on the radio in the 80's sections would be a must, Smooth Criminal especially because of how well it suits the series. Madonna's Lucky Star, Burning Up, Like a Virgin, and Borderline would also be perfect for the 80's portion of the game to me. Also mentioned by NPCs and civilians in the game are topical events of the time period, such as the release of the groundbreaking 1973 horror film The Exorcist at the end of Vito's playable portion of the game.
Other music of the 1980's segment when playing as Louis DeAngelo for the remainder of the game includes hits of the era such as Joe Jackson's Steppin' Out, The Buggles' Video Killed The Radio Star, Corey Hart's Sunglasses at Night, Laura Branigan's Self Control and Gloria, The Weather Girls' It's Raining Men, A-ha’s Take On Me, Men at Work's Down Under, Kim Wilde's Kids in America, The Gap Band's You Dropped a Bomb on Me, Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon, Michael Sembello’s Maniac, Twisted Sister's I Wanna Rock and We're Not Gonna Take It, Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive and Bad Medicine, Soft Cell’s Tainted Love, Robert Palmer’s Simply Irresistible, Rick Astley’s Together Forever, Whenever You Need Somebody, and Never Gonna Give You Up, Cutting Crew’s [I Just] Died In Your Arms, Loverboy's Working for the Weekend, Dead or Alive's You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) and That's the Way (I Like It), Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now, Daryl Hall & John Oates' Maneater, Aneka's Japanese Boy, Mötley Crüe's Dr. Feelgood, Girls, Girls, Girls and Kickstart My Heart, Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire, Huey Lewis And The News' Hip To Be Square, Bill Medley's (I've Had) The Time of My Life, The Police's Every Breath You Take, Whodini's Magic's Wand, Guns ‘N Roses’ Welcome to the Jungle and Paradise City, Tears For Fears' Everybody Wants To Rule The World, Rockwell's Somebody's Watching Me, Regina's Baby Love, Nena's 99 Red Balloons, Earth, Wind, and Fire's Let's Groove and September, Billy Idol's Eyes Without a Face and White Wedding, Rick James’ Give It To Me Baby, Olivia Newton-John’s Physical, The S.O.S. Band’s Take Your Time (Do It Right), Kenny Loggins’ Highway to the Danger Zone, Wham!’s Everything She Wants, George Michael's Careless Whisper, Toto's Hold the Line and Africa, Blondie's Heart of Glass and Atomic, and Mai Tai's History.
**Note that not every single year and moment of the 17 year 1975-1992 section playing as Louis DeAngelo is playable or chronicled. My idea is it would be handled similarly to how the time skips in Mafia 1/Mafia: Definitive Edition were handled. Time skips of two or more years, or in this case, even longer such as 4 years sometimes, the game skipping from 1979 to 1983. This is to keep the game and story length ideal, and not risk it getting boring or repetitive, or going on for too long. Repetition was a big problem in Mafia III even if I still thought it was a superb game, so I think it'd be best to learn from that for the next big entry. The games story will skip ahead and show onscreen only what's significant, similar to the first Mafia game and it's remake, as well as certain aspects of Mafia II. Louis starts his section as a 22 year old fugitive soldato who got picked up by another crew south of the Canadian border, and in the epilogue of the game in 1992, is promoted to the consigliere of the Scaletta crime family at the age of 40, being set to take over the family once Vito and Joe become too old to run the day to day on a regular basis. Louis DeSimone is promoted to don of the Scaletta crime family following Vito and Joe being officially retired as of 2006. They’re both still involved and paid huge amounts of money by Louis out of respect, but keep a much lower profile by then since they have handpicked successors and aren’t worried about where the business is going.
The years chronicled in the main gameplay segments are as follows:
1973
1975
1977
1979
1983
1985
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
Much more of the rural areas and countryside outside of Empire Bay are included than what was available in Mafia II. The way rural environments are handled for this hypothetical Mafia IV is akin to how Mafia: Definitive Edition and Mafia III handled their rural environments outside the main cities, except much larger in scale, given the increased power of the current new consoles such as the PS5 and Xbox Series X. This region is based off of upstate New York and the surrounding areas across multiple states in the Northeastern US, and includes forests, fields, mountains, rivers, lakes, beaches, and small towns. Also included are other cities and towns, based off of other large cities in New York like Syracuse, Buffalo, and Rochester, where other story missions, business activities, and side missions take place, along with smaller notable places like Ithaca, Binghamton, and Utica. The entire states of New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Delaware, Maryland, and Ohio are also included, including places based off of all of their major cities and most of their notable towns in between. Large portions of Pennsylvania are included as well, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Scranton. All of the province of Nova Scotia including the city of Halifax, and Large portions of the eastern half of the Canadian province of Ontario are included as well, including cities based off of Toronto, Ottawa, and Niagara Falls. There's even a small portion of Quebec included, including Montreal and the surrounding countryside of the province outside that city, including a few small towns in southern Quebec. The player must pass a quick border patrol check when crossing the US-Canada border in a car or other ground vehicle.
Wildlife is present in the game, mostly to add to the background, scenery, and immersion in rural environments on the map. These are all animals native to the Northeastern US, ranging from white tailed deer, coyotes, bobcats, Canada lynxes, rabbits, hares, groundhogs, gophers, beavers, raccoons, opossums, bats, chipmunks, red and gray squirrels, mice, and rats to more formidable and potentially dangerous animals that may sometimes attack the player, such as grey wolves, black bears, mountain lions, and moose. These last four animals are known to spawn in the mountainous regions, especially in New York, Ohio, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Ontario, including the rural regions based off of the Catskills and the Adirondack mountains. Dogs are present in the cities, towns, and settlements where humans live and keep them as pets, being walked and sometimes found in people's yards. Some are used as guard dogs by enemies and are aggressive towards the player on sight. Domestic cats are also present in the background of residential areas, and both Louis and Vito own them as pets throughout the game in their safe houses, as well as other onscreen characters we see the homes of throughout the game.
Aircraft make their first usable appearance in the Mafia series too, from airplanes to helicopters. Vito cannot use planes or helicopters in his playable 1973 portion of the game, as he does not know how to pilot, being a paratrooper in World War II who never actually flew any of the planes himself. Aircraft are unlocked to use when Louis DeSimone gets his pilot’s certificate offscreen in 1977, and at the end of a chapter set that year, Louis has to fly Vito in a helicopter to a penthouse in Downtown Empire Bay acting as a family safe house, equipped with a helipad. Louis frequently serves as a personal driver and pilot for both Vito and Joe afterwards, having done a lot in his time serving the family to earn their trust and respect.
Melee weapons also make a return from Mafia: Definitive Edition, with even more variety this time. In their respective sections of the game, Vito and Louis may use anything from baseball bats, pipes, shovels, brass knuckles, golf clubs, police batons, switchblades, kitchen knives, bowie knives, ice picks, 2x4s, claw hammers, crowbars, tire irons, chain links, machetes, meat cleavers, pickaxes, hatchets, sledgehammers, to fire axes. This amount of melee weapons is so no matter what environment the player finds themselves in during a mission or any other game activity, there is usually a weapon of some sort nearby. If the player has obtained piano wire, you may also strangle an enemy to death with it from behind as a stealth kill, this being a classic assassination method infamous for being used by the Italian Mafia. Rope can also be found and used for similar strangulation stealth kills, appearing in the gameplay environments where piano wire can’t be found. There is a wide variety of new guns and explosives to use in this concept for Mafia IV, going with the new weapons of the time the game takes place that criminals quickly got their hands on. This includes the SPAS-12 combat shotgun, the Beretta 92 pistol, the AK-74 assault rifle, the mini uzi, the MAC-10 submachine gun, both suppressed and unsuppressed variants, the Beretta 92 pistol, the Taurus raging bull revolver, Glock handguns, the TEC-9 machine pistol, illegally modified to be full auto, the Ruger Mini-14 full auto variant, and even Vietnam war era flamethrowers, which I think is only natural given that as of Mafia III, we already have RPGs and grenade launchers. Late in the game from the 1989 section and onwards, the Benelli M3 combat shotgun becomes available. The Milkor MGL grenade launcher becomes available beginning in the 1983 portion of the game. Attached grenade launchers are also available for the AK-47, AK-74, and M16 assault rifles. More advanced rocket launchers of the 1970’s and 1980’s are naturally included as well.
Free ride makes a return in Mafia IV, with the player having the options to change the weather, time period, and an option to play as Louis, Vito, Joe, Lincoln, or John Donovan. Naturally, a multitude of new free ride missions are available as well.
I previously posted a much earlier and less detailed draft of this on the old Mafia3 subreddit 3 years ago back in 2017 as an idea for a hypothetical Mafia 3 expansion where you play as Vito, but have since updated and revamped it to a possible Mafia IV plot, and fixed any plot holes I noticed and made it much more fleshed out and in depth, and focus on more than just Vito in the end. You may view my original here if you so desire, to compare. https://www.reddit.com/Mafia3/comments/6sldhp/spoiler_mafia_iii_vito_dlc_basic_plot_idea/
Feel free to give me constructive criticism on this, as I encourage this discourse and believe it is integral to growing and improving, to build upon or improve these ideas I've come up with, or say whether or not you think something like this should happen in the future. Thank you for reading!

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/red-alert-private-gatherings-banned-as-bars-eat-in-dining-close-in-three-quebec-regions-1.5122144
Under the red alert, visitors to private homes are now banned, with exceptions for caregivers and contractors for work that was already planned. People who live alone can also see another person who lives alone, for example couples who do not live together, Health minister Christian Dube added. Movie theatres, libraries, concert halls, restaurant dining rooms, bars, taverns, casinos are all closed. Takeout is available for restaurants.
Private gatherings are banned and public gatherings have a cap of 25 people. Travel out of red zones is also discouraged. Businesses can stay open, including personal care, said Legault. Sports venues including hockey arenas will also remain open, a presse attache confirmed to CTV News.
Legault said the province's public safety minister is looking at how to enforce masks at outdoor gatherings, including demonstrations.

So I’ve been thinking about this a lot since the end of the season, and after we heard a bunch of the talk from the Yohe/Rossi/Madden hot take crowd about the supposed fact that this team is fundamentally flawed, has something wrong with the room, needs to be completely rebuilt, etc. “I know what’s coming this summer” horseshit aside, it’s really been bugging me to think about what these people really expect a rebuild to look like. So, since it’s the offseason and there’s nothing else to do, I figured I’d put on my amateur talent scout/horrible GM prediction skills and analyze what, exactly, the Pens could do, and what they’re likely to do in the offseason. Keep in mind that I’m literally nobody and have no inside information beyond what’s public and I have no credentials on this front either, but I’m also completely an expert and fuck you if you disagree with any of my opinions. I’ll break this down into tiers from most likely to be with the team next season to the UFAs who are almost certainly gone.
Tier One: The Stars
Sid – Goes without saying… right? I mean, maybe not – maybe you blame Sid for the lack of leadership on the team, or you think he’s contributing to an environment that is no longer conducive to winning. But, does anyone really believe that? Plus, and this is actually more important than that kind of tripe that nobody truly believes – can you even begin to think of a trade that would be for equal value to what Sid is worth to this franchise? That last reason is the biggest reason why none of this tier should – or will – be traded: you can’t possibly get equal value back to what they’re worth. Either the team trading for them would be foolish to do it (they’re still young enough that they’re not on their farewell tours, but they’re old enough that you’d have to be in win-now mode, and none of those teams who would fall under that category are going to give up the kind of assets it would take to make an even trade).
Geno – Geno started Game One like a wrecking ball and I was convinced that his line would end up being the turning point in that series. Boy was I right – but also wrong. Instead of dominating the Habs’ lack of depth, they looked listless at times and like they just never got back in sync. That’s led to the yearly talk about trading Geno and Letang, but frankly, JR has already committed to both and you’d never get equal value for Geno. He’s worth too much to the franchise and probably will retire a Penguin unless he leaves as a UFA.
Letang – GMJR has already committed to him so he’s not being traded in all likelihood, and there’s really no trade package that would bring back equal value for what he’s worth to the team. He plays 25 minutes a night, and even though he makes infuriating turnovers at times, they’re usually because he’s trying to be creative and doing something physically gifted that we, as fans, take for granted – even when he fails at it. Do yourself a favor and watch the tape – when there’s a breakout pass out of the defensive zone, watch when Letang fires the pass and then watch when Jack Johnson or even Marcus Pettersson throws the pass and see the difference. Letang makes this offense tick, even when that offense sucks and doesn’t put up any goals against a trash tier team like Montreal. He’s not going anywhere, like his hair or not.
Tier Two: Not Quite Stars, but basically untouchable
John Marino – I’ll eat… something if they trade Marino.
Jake Guentzel – I struggled a bit trying to figure out where to put Jake on this list. The thing is, like it or not, he was Not Good in that series against Montreal. Still, give him a pass because he was coming off of a long term injury that I’ve had and can personally attest to the fact it sucks and takes a while to recover from.
Tristan Jarry – I mean, I’d say he’s PROBABLY in this tier, but who knows; maybe GMJR gets a sick trade package for him and keeps Murray instead. I find that REALLY hard to believe, so I’m keeping him here, but I’d allow for the possibility.
Tier Three: We literally just signed these guys, so why the hell would you trade them?
Brandon Tanev – So his contract still seems a little too long and for a little too much money, but after watching him basically be the only dude on the ice skating hard for long periods of that Montreal series, I can’t imagine trading him even if you could. There’s probably a market for him somewhere if you want to retain salary, but that would be taking a big L on someone who arguably does help the team, so I don’t see it happening.
Jason Zucker – So, Zucker wasn’t nearly the impact player we were hoping to get after he scored a billion goals with Sid after acquiring him, but then again, who was? He’s with the team fairly long term, and while his acquisition price is a sunk cost, it still seems stupid as hell to trade him away at this point. He’s a useful top six forward, even if he’s not a top liner.
Tier Four: Entry Level Contracts/Very Inexpensive Contracts That Make Little Sense to Move
Dominik Simon – Simon is a possession demon, and even if his hands seem like they’re as bad as mine playing beer league sometimes, he’s a valuable part of the team and he costs 750k. I can’t see him getting traded.
Sam Lafferty – He’s still on his ELC and even though he was shit in the one game he got in the playoffs, the coaching staff and JR think highly enough of him to at least try to play him in a playoff game. I doubt he’s going anywhere.
Teddy Blueger – He’s a useful defensive forward making very little money. If you don’t end up needing him for your roster, you probably lose him on waivers, but I doubt trading him is terribly likely. He’s probably still in the bottom six next season.
Chad Ruhwedel – He makes pocket change and seems to be fairly useful #8 defenseman. He’s cleared waivers in the past and probably would in the future again.
Tier Five: I wouldn’t trade them, but GMJR might if he loses a bunch of money at Rivers Casino and wants to shake shit up
Brian Dumoulin – I’m prefacing this with the fact that I really like Dumoulin, and I do value advanced and/or fancy stats so I know he’s not the problem. But, he’s not nearly as untouchable as any of the guys above, and he’s someone with a tradeable contract who could probably fetch some assets back in return. I know absolutely nothing about the locker room culture and I don’t pretend to know anything about it, but if Dumoulin is anything but a model citizen in the room, I could see him getting moved. Still, I wouldn’t do it.
Bryan Rust – Rust seems to be a pretty standard GMJR whipping boy, and I don’t understand it at all. His advanced metrics are pretty amazing and he added the goal scoring touch this year to round out his overall game. If he’s on almost any other team, he’s probably one of their focal point stars but he gets buried a bit here given how talented the lineup is. Still, would anybody be surprised if GMJR goes on a bender and decides to move him?
Tier Six: Trade Possibilities, but what’s the point?
Marcus Pettersson – I know what you’re thinking here – he wasn’t the problem, and I agree. But, he has rather middling advanced metrics, and if I’m being honest, I am not excited to start paying him 4 million next season. Still, of this tier, he’s the least likely to go because… we’re paying him 4 million next year. But he’s very, very far from untouchable and nor should he be untouchable. His pairing was largely buoyed by stellar play from Marino and I’m not sure he’d have been remarkable at all without being tethered to that rocket. Still, with the contract… probably not going anywhere.
Zach Aston-Reese – ZAR was at fault for some pretty bad goals against during the Montreal series, and of that buzzsaw fourth line, he’s probably the most tradeable and replaceable. You could likely get value for him, since he’s only making $1m for another year. I probably would keep him, though.
Jared McCann – He’s probably going to be at least tendered as an RFA because he’s too valuable to let walk without getting anything in return, but the fact that he was the first guy on the bench when things started to go south doesn’t bode well for him – neither does the fact that he was on the single worst line during that shit show of a series. For a while, he looked like one of the future stars of the team as he was riding with Sid, but when he’s been separated from the gravy train, he hasn’t been as productive or looked nearly as irreplaceable. Could you get some value out of him by moving him? Maybe. Maybe not.
Tier Seven: Please God someone take these guys
Nick Bjugstad – He’s not totally useless, but he’s on a horrible contract that’s already gotten him traded once and he’s currently injured. I think it’s fairly unlikely the Pens will be able to move him unless they retain salary, which… sigh. I guess if you have to. At least he’s only got one more year left on his contract. Speaking of which…
Jack Johnson – 3 more years at $3.25m. If you can trade him, you do it. But you probably have to retain salary and you probably have to package something with him to offload him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still a Penguin next season for that reason.
Tier Eight: More Likely Trade Candidates
Patrick Hornqvist – Horny has had a great career with the Pens, is by all accounts a great locker room dude and a good powerplay guy, and is completely useless at fives. I think you could get some value from trading him to a team who’s in GMJR’s Tom Wilson Fever Dreams Mode (NEED MORE GRIT). I wouldn’t be happy to see him go at all based on what he’s provided over the years, but I would understand and I actually do think it’s time.
Matt Murray – A lot of blame has always been heaped on Murray because he’s the guy who took over for the guy a lot of us liked. I personally don’t buy the exorbitant contract demands talk, but who knows. The bottom line, though, is that his metrics have been suffering for a few seasons now and for better or worse, it doesn’t make much sense to keep both goaltenders and he doesn’t save enough of the highest danger shots. Should he have to? No. But he isn’t really stealing games for us at this point and Jarry sometimes does. There are enough horrible goalie situations in the league that you should be able to trade him somewhere, but I wouldn’t expect to extract a ton of value out of the trade. Hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised, though.
Tier Nine: RFA Non-Tender Candidates
Evan Rodrigues – He didn’t really flash when he got a chance, even if that wasn’t much of a chance. He’d be cheap to keep in all likelihood but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him non-tendered.
Jusso Riikola – I kinda doubt you can find much better than him at that price point and I can’t imagine him fetching more than league minimum to be honest. Still, it’s possible GMJR has had enough of the Riikola experiment and is ready to move on. I’d probably keep him, for what it’s worth, but the staff started Jack Johnson over him for four games in the playoffs. Clearly they don’t think terribly highly of him.
Tier Ten: UFA’s
Justin Schultz – And now… starting for your Washington Capitals… Seriously though, JR threw him solidly under the bus and I can’t see him sticking around. And also seriously, I bet he signs with the Caps.
Conor Sheary – They literally just traded for him again, which shows they think he has some value, so it’s possible they throw him a reasonable contract offer. It’s even possible that he decides to stick around. Let me be clear: I actually really liked his game in the playoff series and I say that unironically. He was buzzing a lot, made some creative passes, and was in the right spot pretty often. Still, they lost, and he didn’t score, so he’s an obvious candidate to move on from.
Patrick Marleau – Press F to pay respects.
Conclusions:
So, what’s left? What does a real “rebuild” look like for this team that’s already fairly tight to the cap? Let’s say they move on from everyone I listed in tiers 8-10… your starting lineup looks like this (I have no idea what wings people play so I’m making this up and I fully admit that – this is just an exercise to show you that not much changes, spoiler alert):
Guentzel – Sid – Simon
Zucker – Geno – Rust
X – McCann – X
Tanev – Blueger – ZAR
Letang – Dumo
Marino – Pettersson
Johnson – X
Jarry
X
Extras: Bjugstad, Lafferty, Ruhwedel
Cue “Is This Rebuilding?” meme – even if we started dipping into the less-likely-to-be-traded tiers, this roster really doesn’t feel like it’s being changed much, unless GMJR panics and decides to turn this into Grit City™ again. My prediction is that we don’t see a lot of turnover this season – maybe a few trades here and there, but this roster is mostly the same on opening night in December or January or whenever.
What do you guys think?

Slowly everything is getting back to normal. I'm posting these with a historical intent. Links where possible, and let me know if your local is missing.
NOTE: MOST AGENCIES ARE ASKING FOR ESSENTIAL TRAVEL ONLY -- MEDICAL AND SUPPLY RUNS, JOB TRANSIT FOR THOSE WHO PROVIDE THOSE SERVICES. STAY HOME! EXPECT DELAYS AS THEY RUN CRITICALLY LOW ON STAFF.
Many agencies are asking you wear a mask, board from the back, and are putting limits on passenger boarding. Mask requirements are marked with "!!!" States that require a mask: MD, MI, NJ
If the agency has a pass app, please pay for the ride through it -- it helps the agency!
(I have also taken the time to clean up and organize the list a bit)

Country-wide

AMTRAK: Covid-19 info
Note: All overnight trains (except Auto Train) will switch to Flexible Dining menus. Some Cafe service is suspended. Limited access to NY Penn.
Reduced: NEC, Hartford Line, Thruway Buses, Capitol Corridor, Empire Service, Ethan Allen Express, Illini/Saluki, Illinos ZephyCarl Sanburg, Lincoln Service, Missouri River Runner, Pacific Surfliner, Piedmont, San Joaquins, Valley Flyer, Vermonter (no service north of New Haven M-Sat, no service Sun), Wolverine
Split Service: California Zephyr (no service Reno to Denver), Palmetto (NY to DC only April 3-5)
Terminated before Canada, Reduced service: Maple Leaf (terminates Niagra Falls), Adirondack (terminates Albany, NY), Cascades (terminates Seattle).
Canceled: Acela, Keystone, Pennsylvanian, Winter Park Express, Pere Marquette, Carolinian, Downeaster
Replaced w/bus (Thruway): Hiawatha (4/24-5/25)
VIA RAIL (CANADA): Covid-19 advisory
Meal service is reduced to snacks and drinks. Some sleeper service is canceled. VIA Rail will refuse passengers who are sick w/o doctors note.
Canceled until May 1st: The Ocean (Montreal to Halifax), Toronto-Niagara Falls (until further notice)
Canceled until June 1st: JaspePrince George/Prince Rupert, The Canadian (Toronto to Vancouver)
Limited service: Montreal-Jonquiere/Senneterre (Friday/Sunday departures), Sudbury-White River (Weekend only), Quebec City/Winsor corridor (Kingston-Torronto-London is canceled, most trains canceled)

State/Provence and City

Shut down/demand ride only

Michigan:

• KMetro (Kalamazoo)
• STARS (Saginaw)
• Bay Metro (Bay City)
• Lake Erie Transit

Reduced Service - Canada - Improving

• MiWay Mississauga, Ontario: 8 buses resuming regular schedule, 1 express improving, 8 reduced, 19 canceled

Reduced Service - Canada

• Toronto Metrolinx GO Transit: Trains -- very limited service. West Harbor, St. Catharines, Niagra Falls stations closed. Buses -- Futher reduced. UP service -- 30 minutes
• Toronto TTC: 1 Bus and almost all Express buses canceled. Streetcars -- 503 truncated, 508 canceled.
• York Regional Transit (Toronto): 12 buses suspended. Revised schedules elsewhere.
• Calgary Transit: CTrain 7-16 minute headways depending on time of day; buses adjusted for limited service.
• Saskatoon Transit No University/High School runs. M-F 15 High-freq/30 min rest frequencies before 7pm, 30/60 after. Sat 30/60 (regular 30min 11a-7p). Sun 30/60.
• Regina, Saskatchewan: Sat service M-F, Sun service on Sat.
• Quebec RTC: (In French, no English available) Reduced service. No school, late night service. Handicap service only via paratransit.
• Montreal Transport Society: Bus -- Reduced schedules, some lines to closed schools, parks, casinos closed. Rail -- Reduced frequency of Orange/Green lines.
• Translink Vancouver: SeaBus 30-min frequency, Reduced frequencies on low-ridership lines, SkyTrain reduced frequencies, West Coast Express 2 trains canceled. 24 bus routes suspended(41 in mid-May)
• Edmonton Transit: Saturday-plus-rush-extras, Light Rail ends at 10pm, OWL service midnight. Late-nite on-demand medic-only service started. 40' buses being used, some routes detoured to accomidate. 747 bus line for job travel only (no travelers/shoppers).
• Medicine Hat Transit (Alberta): M-F on Saturday schedule, Sa-Su on Sunday schedule.

Reduced Service - USA - Improving

• San Jose VTA: !!! Light Rail back operational 6a-6p M-F. No school trip service. Reduced bus service, some suspended, ends 9pm.
• Columbus Ohio COTA: !!! 17 lines, plus AirConnect, CBUS, and Night Owl, canceled. Early morning service on 6 lines resuming. Modded service on other lines.

Michigan

• CATA (Lansing): !!! Saturday service M-F. No Shopping Bus.
• The Rapid (Grand Rapids): !!! Service hours 7a-7p. No DASH/May Mobility service. 5 routes 30 min headways M-F, hourly Sa/Su. 8 routes hourly everyday. Silver Line 30 min headways everyday. Route 50 on 50 min headways, 85 on 25 min headways.

Reduced Service - USA

East Coast

• Boston MBTA: Commuter Rail reduced schedule. No ferry service. Saturday schedule everywhere else with some bus exceptions. Saturday-plus-extra on Blue and Green E lines.
• New York City MTA/Metro-North/LIRR: Reduced service. Subway closed 1a-5a. Penn Station limited access 1a-5a. No B, C, W, Z, 42nd street shuttle, or express 4/5/6/7. J is Local. No extra L service. Some lines run local in areas. 5 is cut down. Buses down to 75% service. Staten Island Railway hourly service. LIRR 30/60 min-plus-rush schedule, cross-honoring MetroCards inside city zone. Metro North East-of-Hudson on hourly-with-rush-extras, Waterbury branch bus substituted (Wassaic branch suspended on weekends), West-of-Hudson see NJ Transit.
• NJ Transit: !!! Commuter rail - President's Day schedules until further notice. Gladstone branch on weekday service only. 7600 series trains canceled. Atlantic City Rail Line regular service. Bus -- Saturday service w/exceptions (and cancelations). Light Rail -- HBLR, Newark lines Saturday schedule. River Line Sunday schedule.
• SEPTA Philadelphia, PA: Regional Rail -- Limited service on Airport, Fox Chase, Lansdale (no extensions), Media/Elwyn, Paoli (no service to Malvern), and Trenton; all others canceled. Subway -- Some stations closed. Saturday service between 4:30am and 1am. No overnight OWL. Trolley -- Headway based Saturday schedule. 102, 34 lines canceled, 101 bus subsitution. Everything else -- Headway-based Saturday service.
• PATCO Philadelpha, PA & New Jersey: 4 stations closed. Limited service. Headways M-F: 12a-4a hourly, 4a-5a 30 min, 6am-midnight 20 minute. Sa: 12a-5a hourly, 5a-12a 30 minute. Su: Hourly all day.
• Pittsburgh Port Authority: !!! Reduced bus and light rail service.
• Maryland MTA: !!! MARC Commuter rail -- Reduced-from-"R" service. Light Rail, Metro subway -- M-F runs Saturday schedule. 1 station limited access. Commuter Bus -- 1 route suspended, 13 S-service, remaining limited service. Bus -- No Express service. 2 Local buses canceled. Saturday-plus-rush-extra service.
• Washington DC WMATA: Bus -- Sunday-plus-extras schedule, 27 line "lifeline" weekend service w/30 min headways. No service after 11pm. Subway -- 19 stations closed. 9 limited access. 15-20 minute headways, 5a-9p M-F, 20-30 min headways 8a-9p Sa/Su.
• Altanta, GA MARTA: Rail -- 20 min headways on Sunday service. Red/Gold to airport, Green terminates at King Memorial. No service at Arena station. Streetcar -- Sunday schedule. Bus -- 41 bus lines operating, remaining suspended.

Mid-country

• Cincinnati Go*Metro: Streetcar service canceled where bus service exists. Express buses canceled. Saturday service everywhere else.
• Chicago RTA (Metra/CTA/Pace): Metra Rail -- Reduced service except Heritage corridor. Adjusted PACE schedules to accommodate.
• Minneapolis/St. Paul Metro Transit: Overnight service suspended 11pm-4:30am except airport shuttle. Reduced bus service, based on Saturday. Maintenance on some lines April 20-27.
• St. Louis Metro: Weekend-with-extras service on weekdays. 9 buses, Missouri Express routes suspended.
• New Orleans RTA: Saturday schedule Mon-Fri. 10 bus lines suspended. Streetcar 32-36 min frequency, 2 lines shut down. No service 10p to 4a.
• DFW TRE: Changed schedules.
• Dallas DART: Light Rail -- 20 min headways. Bus -- 2 routes canceled.
• Kansas City RideKC: KCMO/KCK service on Saturday schedule ending 9pm. Johnson County service 60 min, reduced express. Some buses canceled.
• Albuquerque ABQ Ride Transit: Saturday service. ART service suspended entirely.
• Rio Metro/Rail Runner New Mexico: Rail Runner is suspended until May 15th. 3 buses suspended. Some buses limited.
• Phoenix, AZ Valley Metro: Service hours 5a-11p M-F, Sa/Su 6a-11p. Orbit, Express Bus, RAPID bus routes reduced. No POGO service. Scottsdale trolley service suspended. Light rail limited.
• Salt Lake City/UTA: Commuter rail "FrontRunner" smaller trains, hourly service. TRAX service every 30 minutes. Bus service curtailed, some commuter bus routes canceled.
• Cascades East Transit (Bend, Oregon): !!! Saturday service, demand ride available. In Bend: no service Saturday, no demand ride Saturday/Sunday.

West Coast

• Seattle Sound Transit: Link Light Rail -- 20 min headways. Sounder service reduced. Most buses reduced. 10 buses suspended.
• Portland TriMet: MAX trains 15 minute service, weekends Sunday service. WES 45 min service. Reduced bus service.
• San Francisco Muni MTA: 17 buses running, additional 9 limited service. No rail service -- replaced by buses. (Improvements expected April 25th)
• San Francisco BART: !!! System closes early at 9pm. 30 min service. Limited access at many stations. Early Bird Express -- limited trips, 2 lines suspended (more April 27).
• CalTrain (California): Local service between San Francisco and San Jose 30-60 minute frequency, 4 trains to Gilroy peak commute. Limited/Baby Bullet service suspended.
• Los Angeles MTA: Rail service ends at Midnight. M-F 12 min headways 6a-6p, 20 min remaining times on A,B,D,E,L lines. C line 12 min 4a-9a, 15 min 9a-3p, 12min 3p-6p, 20 min 6p-midnight. G/J bus subsituted. B/D stations limited access. Bus service: Most lines Sunday schedule. 23 lines hourly service. 15 Rapid lines on modified weekday schedule. 14 lines suspended.

Michigan

• SMART (Detroit suburbs) is running with vastly reduced schedules and 13 suspended commuter lines.
• DDOT (City of Detroit) is running Saturday schedules Mon-Sat with free fares and rear boarding. 8 bus lines suspended.
• TheRide (Ann ArboYpsilanti): Sunday reduced schedules with tweaks. 12 buses shut down.
• BATA (Traverse City): !!! Village Loop shut down. Village Link demand ride service replaces it. Reduced schedules other buses.

Hat-Tips

u/alitales u/NixillUmbreon u/Steaks_on_a_Plane u/voxadam u/cincy_transit_guy u/mohaas06 u/taxorenxuan u/earlyenrichment u/SojuCondo u/TTC_Tokens u/TC1827 u/InfiNorth u/Bombpants u/sebileis u/Pwheatstraw2000 u/Vectrex452

10/10
The Money Store-Death Grips
​
9/10
Put Your Back N 2 It-Perfume Genius
The Idler Wheel-Fiona Apple
Natural History-Dope Body
good kid, m.A.A.d. city-Kendrick Lamar
TNGHT-TNGHT
Ondatropica-Ondatropica
BBNG2-BADBADNOTGOOD
​
8/10
Attack on Memory-Cloud Nothings
Sweet Heart Sweet Light-Spiritualized
Silent Hour / Golden Mile-Daniel Rossen
Nehru Jackets-Heems
fIN-John Talabot
Kindred-Burial
Bloom-Beach House
4eva N a Day-Big K.R.I.T.
Narrow-Soap&Skin
awE naturalE-THEESatisfaction
There's No Leaving Now-The Tallest Man On Earth
Zammuto-Zammuto
De Vermis Mysteriis-High on Fire
R.A.P. Music-Killer Mike
Salughterhouse-Ty Segall Band
Hair-Ty Segall & White Fence
Torche-Harmonicraft
Galaxy Garden-Lone
Take the Kids Off Broadway-Foxygen
Beams-Matthew Dear
An Awesome Wave-alt-J
Control System-Ab-Soul
Nocturne-Wild Nothing
kin-iamamiwhoami
Holograms-Holograms
Lonerism-Tame Impala
Silencing Machine-Nachtmystium
The Seer-Swans
No Love Deep Web-Death Grips
Years Past Matter-Krallice
All We Love We Leave Behind-Converge
Breakthrough-The Gaslamp Killer
The Odds-The Evens
'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!-Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Rare Chandeliers-Action Bronson & The Alchemist
Truant / Rough Sleeper-Burial
Sentenced to Life-Black Breath
Portico Quartet-Portico Quartet
Sinews-White Suns
History Will Absolve Me-Billy Woods
I.V.-Loma Prieta
Dripping-Pile
Hasta La Muerte-Xibalba
On Acid-Recondite
Alone Together-Karriem Riggins
Made Possible-The Bad Plus
Results-Murder Construct
PEEP: The aPROcalypse-Pro Era
Drought-Deathspell Omega
Possession-Christian Mistress
​
7/10
Tramp-Sharon Van Etten
Paralytic Stalks-of Montreal
Pink-Four Tet
Open Your Heart-The Men
Something-Chairlift
The Lion's Roar-First Aid Kit
Locked Down-Dr. John
Noctourniquet-The Mars Volta
The Horror-Pop .1280
Clear Moon-Mount Eerie
OFF!-OFF!
Lo Fi Hi Fives-R. Stevie Moore
Sorrow and Extinction-Pallbearer
In Our Heads-Hot Chip
Americana-Neil Young and Crazy House
Wreck-Unsane
World, You Need a Change of Mind-Kindness
Valtari-Sigur Ros
Skelethon-Aesop Rock
WIXIW-Liars
Yellow & Green-Baroness
Live from the Underground-Big K.R.I.T.
Four-Bloc Party
I Know What Love Isn't-Jens Lekman
Channel Orange-Frank Ocean
Instrumental 2-Clams Casino
The Haunted Man-Bat For Lashes
I Bet on Sky-Dinasour Jr.
Love This Giant-David Byrne & St. Vincent
Bend Beyond-Woods
1999-Joey Bada$$
Transcendental Youth-The Mountain Goats
Until the Quiet Comes-Flying Lotus
Half Way Home-Angel Olsen
Bish Bosch-Scott Walker
Order of Noise-Vessel
Luxury Problems-Andy Stott
The Heist-Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Honor Found in Decay-Neurosis
Unkown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs-Chelsea Wolfe
Duality-Captain Murphy
Movement-Holly Herndon
Jessica Pratt-Jessica Pratt
Light Up Gold-Parquet Courts
Is Your Love Big Enough?-Lianne La Havas
Floral Green-Title Fight
Vacation-Shlohmo
Blood for the Master-Goatwhore
4NML HSPTL-Open Mike Eagle
Metahuman-Eprom
Har Nevo-The Black Heart Rebellion
Eschatological Scatology-Gnaw Their Tongues
No Youth-Wreck & Reference
​
6/10
Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II-Earth
Let's Go Eat the Factory-Guided By Voices
MU.ZZ.LE-Gonjasufi
Blunderbuss-Jack White
Kings and Them-Evian Christ
Spooky Distance at a Distance-Lotus Plaza
With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery-Moonface
Ufabulum-Squarepusher
The Bravest Man in the Universe-Bobby Womack
Cancer For Cure-El-P
Unsound-Mission of Burma
Oceania-The Smashing Pumpkins
Swing Lo Magellan-Dirty Projectors
Kings and Them-Evian Christ
Gossamer-Passion Pit
Shrines-Purity King
Instict-Niki & The Dove
Centipede Hz-Animal Collective
Mature Themes-Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti
Held-Holy Other
Clockwork Angels-Rush
Total Loss-How to Dress Well
Shields-Grizzly Bear
Babel-Mumford & Sons
Local Business-Titus Andronicus
Key to the Kuffs-JJ Doom
Jiaolong-Daphni
LUX-Brian Eno
Kaleidoscope Dream-Miguel
METZ-METZ
2-Mac DeMarco
Book Burner-Pig Destroyer
Koi No Yakan-Deftones
Wu-Block-Wu-Block
See the World Given to a One Love Entity-Guardian Alien
Love Is Love // Return To Dust-Code Orange
Widowmaker-Dragged Into Sunlight
Koloss-Meshuggah
Decompositions: Volume Number One-Circle Takes The Square
In the Middle Of Infinity-3:33
No-Old Man Gloom
Ten Stories-mewithoutYou
​
5/10
Visions-Grimes
Onwards To The Wall-A Place To Bury Strangers
Old Ideas-Leonard Cohen
Reign of Terror-Sleigh Bells
Love at the Bottom of the Sea-The Magnetic Fields
Port of Morrow-The Shins
Given to the Wild-The Maccabees
Mr. Impossible-Black Dice
Habist & Contradictions-Schoolboy Q
Celebration Rock-Japandroids
Quakers-Quakers
R.I.P.-Actress
Confess-Twin Shadow
America-Dan Deacon
Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors-Big Boi
Mysterious Phonk: The Chronicles of SpaceGhostPurpp-Spaceghostpurrp
Food & Liquor 2: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1-Lupe Fiasco
Advaitic Songs-OM
No Idols-No Genesis & The Alchemist
World Music-Goat
Ocean Roar-Mount Eerie
Piramida-Efterklang
We Don't Even Live Here-P.O.S.
Cobra Juicy-Black Moth Super Rainbow
Instrumental Tourist-Tim Hecker & Daniel Lopatin
Wild Water Kingdom-Heems
Wiki93-Ratking
Jesus Piece-The Game
Les Voyages de l'Âme-Alcest
Phantom Antchrist-Kreator
Autotheism-The Faceless
Agnus Dei-The Secret
​
4/10
Young & Old-Tennis
The OF Tape Vol.2-Odd Future
Acousmatic Sorcery-Willis Earl Beal
Kill for Love-Chromatics
Strange Clouds-B.o.B.
Life is Good-Nas
Coexist-The xx
Devotion-Jessie Ware
Based On A T.R.U. Story-2 Chainz
(III)-Crystal Castles
Zeros-The Soft Moon
Finally Rich-Chief Keef
The Parallax II: Future Sequence-Between the Buried and Me
​
3/10
Born to Die-Lana Del Rey
Resolution-Lamb of God
Synthetica-Metric
WZRD-WZRD
The Only Place-Best Coast
The Stoned Immaculate-Curren$y
Born Villain-Marilyn Manson
God Forgives, I Don't-Rick Ross
The 2nd Law-Muse
Lords Never Worry-A$AP Mob
Numbers-MellowHype
Welcome to: Our House-Slaughterhouse
Into The Future-Bad Brains
​
2/10
PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone-John Frusciante
​
1/10
n/a
​
0/10
n/a
​
​
Other lists

Ok, I will save you the long post with a TLDR version. Excluding programming preemption for shows like RAW that have a national slot, Impact will have aired on a regular basis on every night except SUNDAY! Not to mention, it will be on it's fifth, count it...FIFTH network (FSN, UATV, Spike, DA, Pop), until Smackdown becomes the 2nd show to do so a mere nine days later (although this can be asterisked, as it moves between Universal entities SyFy and USA Network)
I mind you, this excludes syndication models. WWE has probably been on more networks single-handedly though (TBS, USA, MTV, NBC, Fox, WGN, UPN, Spike, The CW, SyFy, MyNetworkTV, Ion Television).
With that said, the cliffnotes version, followed by the entire list:
Ok, let the TNA bashing begin....the fact that I believe Impact has now been on every night of the week except Sunday in the show's 11-year history is crazy.
The Beginning June 4, 2004 – May 27, 2005: 4pm Local Time on FSN
June 2005 – September 2005: webcasts and broadcasts on local Urban American Television affiliates.
Spike (TV) Era
October 1, 2005 – March 2006: 11pm, Saturdays
March 2006 – November 2006: 11pm, Thursdays
November 2006 – January 10, 2008; January 24, 2008 – December 31, 2009; January 1, 2010 – March 4, 2010;
May 13, 2010 – May 24, 2012; May 30, 2013 – August 14, 2014: 9pm, Thursdays
*Impact becomes two hours on October 4, 2007
January 17, 2008; May 31, 2012 – May 23, 2012: 8pm, Thursdays
January 4, 2010; April 5, 2010 – May 3, 2010: 8pm, Mondays
March 8, 2010 – March 29, 2010: 9pm, Mondays
August 20, 2014 – December 24, 2014: 9pm, Wednesdays
Destination America
January 7, 2015; June 3, 2015 – December 2015 (final date tentative): 9pm, Wednesdays
January 16, 2015 – May 29, 2015: 9pm, Fridays
POP TV
January 5, 2016 – ????: 9pm, Tuesdays
(All Times ET unless noted)
This timeline might be a little off and/or if something is invalid, its only from hearsay or misinterpretation. I apologize if anything misleading is listed, false information, or I've left any major points out.
June 19, 2002 – September 2004 (2 hrs, 8pm, Wednesdays) TNA airs the first-ever episodic TV show to air weekly on a Pay-Per-View Basis. This format would be dropped two months after TNA Impact begins airing on FSN, going with monthly PPV’s much like WCW, ECW, and WWF/E starting in November. This would continue until January 2013.
June 4, 2005 – May 27, 2005 (1hr, 4pm Local Time) TNA begins airing TNA Impact! Friday afternoons on FSN, with a replay late Friday/Saturday night at 1am local time or 11pm PT for the West Coast networks. Time slot purchased as a pay-to-broadcast entity. The company also agrees to tape Impact from Universal Studios Soundstage 20, which becomes dubbed The Impact Zone. This is the first time a company has aired a weekly national cable or syndication broadcast from the same venue since ECW’s Hardcore TV (syndication) were held at the 2300 Arena and WCW Saturday Night TV tapings being held at The Center Stage in Atlanta. FSN opts not to renew the deal.
June 2005 – September 2005: (1hr, various) Friday nights on Urban American TV, a now-defunct network only available in 22 million homes as a Low-Power independent affiliate over the course of its time. The show was also available via webcast from the company's website as it would be uploaded every Friday at 1pm ET.
Spike TV Era: October 1, 2005 – March 2006: (1hr, 11pm Saturdays) Spike had the distinction to become the first station to carry two promotions nationally for the first time since TBS in 1987 when they aired the final episode of WWE Velocity at 10pm on October 1, 2005, followed by TNA Impact. This would be the first time of this known occurrence until Destination America airs ROH Wrestling and TNA's Impact Wrestling on Wednesdays in 2015. Spike also airs a two-hour TNA Impact Wrestling special on November 3, 2005 with a special 10pm ET start time. The show was taped on October 25th, with a main event featuring Jeff Jarrett regaining the NWA World Heavyweight Title from Rhino, to whom he lost the title at the company's flagship PPV, Bound For Glory, on October 23rd.
March 2006 – November 2006: (1 hr, 11pm, Thursdays) with above-average ratings in a Saturday 11pm Timeslot that stayed consistent over time, Spike moves Impact from Saturday nights to Thursday nights. Ratings see an increase to an average rating slightly above 1.0. November 2006 – September 27, 2007: (1hr, 9pm, Thursdays) with ratings being a moderate success over the course of eight months in its 11pm timeslot on Thursdays, Spike announces its move to place TNA on two hours earlier, with a repeat of the 9pm broadcast to air at Midnight, as well as various times throughout the week. The various reruns would eventually cease during 2008, with it re-airing three hours after its original broadcast time, which would also come to an end in late 2008.
October 4, 2007 – March 4, 2010 (2hrs, 9pm, Thursdays) -Impact extends from one to two hours a week. -Spike airs a one hour Global Impact special on January 17, 2008 at 10pm ET, which provides Impact starting an hour earlier for the week. This special features TNA wrestlers who had matches at New Japan's annual January 4th Tokyo Dome Show, Wrestle Kingdom II. The main event is Kurt Angle retaining his IGF/IWGP Heavyweight Title against Yuji Nagata. -For the first time in company history, Impact airs live on March 27, 2008. With WWE's flagship WrestleMania XXIV emanating from Orlando's Citrus Bowl the following Sunday, the company projects to take advantage of the crowds in town for the show. They tape the following week's show on Friday. Of note during the live broadcast, Derek Graham-Crouch, known as the WWE's Rory McAllister of the tag team "The Highlanders", is shown on camera by his birth name, to prevent any WWE lawsuits over copyright infringement and/or usage of a registered trademark with the company. Graham-Crouch forfeits his $5,000 WrestleMania payout bonus and is subsequently released in August of that year. -On October 23, 2008, TNA transitioned from a standard-definition broadcast to a High-Definition (HD) broadcast. To celebrate with this, Impact! Is aired LIVE for the second time and the first time away from The Impact Zone. It takes place from The Joint, a 4500-seat venue located inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. -Global Impact 2 airs on October 8, 2009, at 11pm, after Impact airs. This show, much like the previous year's incarnation, airs matches of TNA wrestlers taped at New Japan's annual January 4th Tokyo Dome show, Wrestle Kingdom III. Despite airing on U.S. Television nine months after the matches are taped, the matches shown revolve around storylines that were no longer existent and titles (IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team and IWGP Tag Team) that were no longer revolved around TNA storylines with current wrestlers. January 4, 2010 show (3hrs, 8pm, Monday) -January 4, 2010 is the to-date peak of TNA Impact. For the first time since March 26, 2001, two wrestling companies air head-to-head in a time slot on American television when TNA goes against WWE's flagship program, RAW. It was a boost on both ends for each company's respective audiences, as Impact's first hour is watched by 3 million viewers, the most in the show's history, while RAW averages 5.6 million viewers, it's highest total since August of 2009. Impact's final two hours decline to 2.2 million viewers.
Both shows deliver a strong main-event slot performance, with TNA giving away AJ Styles defending the TNA World Heavyweight Title against Kurt Angle, with WWE having a Vince McMahon-Bret Hart confrontational promo to end their show.In what is deemed a “grand experiment”, TNA decides to air TNA Impact! LIVE Head-to-head with WWE’s flagship TV program, WWE RAW. TNA advertises the debut of Hulk Hogan, with WWE countering with Bret Hart’s first return to WWE programming since the Montreal Screwjob of 1997. Many debuts and returns occur that night for TNA, including the returns of Jeff Hardy, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and Sean Waltmann, as well as the debuts of Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Ric Flair and The Nasty Boys. Hardy’s return occurs during the show’s first segment, an X-Division Xscape Match. The Main Event slots for each show feature TNA giving away a World Heavyweight Title match between AJ Styles and Kurt Angle, while RAW counters with the long-awaited Vince McMahon-Bret Hart confrontation.
March 8, 2010 – March 29, 2010 (9pm, Mondays) With the success of the January 4th show, TNA begins it's move to Monday nights. Although the move becomes temporary, the move is called MNW 2.0, or the 2nd coming of the Monday Night Wars. TNA will air live on a bi-weekly basis, which results in dismal ratings of the 3/29 show, which is the RAW go home show to WrestleMania XXV. In response to the Monday night move, Spike continues to re-air Impact on Thursdays in it's old timeslot. The ratings for the Thursday re-air are higher than the Monday live/first-run broadcasts of the show during the course of their Monday night run.
April 5, 2010 – May 3, 2010 (8pm, Mondays) With the April 5th show being live and to possibly avoid another ratings disaster the night after WrestleMania XXV, Spike and TNA decide to begin airing TNA an hour earlier than usual. The first hour sees an increase in viewership, with the last two weeks showing dismal drops in the ratings head-to-head with RAW. May 3rd would be the last time two companies went head-to-head on American cable television for over four years, when Lucha Underground's Ultima Lucha special goes head-to-head with Impact in August 2015.
May 13, 2010 – May 24, 2012 (9pm, Thursdays) Spike and TNA announce that TNA will return to first-run broadcasts on Thursday nights after the dismal taped April 26th broadcast on May 13th. TNA re-brands the show as Impact Wrestling, the name it continues to use to this day at the May 3, 2011 taping (to air May 12, 2011). "TNA" is slowly phased out on all broadcast of the show, with the term "Total Nonstop Action" or "TNA" only seen on the closing credits as TNA Entertainment, LLC. TNA is only mentioned with championship titles on Impact Wrestling until after Bound For Glory VI in October 2011, when announcers start referring to the company again as TNA, TNA Wrestling or Total Nonstop Action Wrestling instead of Impact Wrestling. The show continues to this day in set-top box guides and TV listings as Impact Wrestling, being the only company with a national TV deal to leave out the company's acronym. During this time period, the company begins to air periodic live shows when they take the show on the road for double-events (same day tape delay, tape next week’s show after that). This was done in markets where the show garnered higher ratings than normal, such as Huntsville, AL, (Von Braun Civic Center) and Knoxville, TN (Knoxville Coliseum).
May 31, 2012 – May 23, 2013 (8pm, Thursdays) TNA announces that for the remainder of 2012, Impact Wrestling will air LIVE on Thursdays for the duration of the year. The company also begins to slowly phase out taping it's show at Soundstage 21 at the end of the year and begin to air live on a semi-regular basis from various venues across the country. The first live Impact held outside of Orlando since the Las Vegas taping takes place on March 14, 2013 from the Sears Centre right outside of Chicago. It is also during this time the company decides to cease monthly PPV offerings, airing 4 in 2013, 5 in 2014, and 2 in 2015. The company opts to air monthly "One Night Only" specials, which are taped months in advance for a cheaper value.
TNA also terminates its lease with Universal Studios a mere days later, only to return there in November to Soundstage 19, after rising costs for taking the show on the road. Impact Wrestling moves from Soundstage 19 to 20 on March 13, 2014, as 19 was only a temporary venue as 21 was now being occupied by somebody else. The November 21, 2013 return to Universal Studios is the last time TNA airs Live on Spike. Beginning on February 27, 2014, TNA airs head-to-head with NXT ARival, which airs exclusive on WWE's Over-the-top Platform internet channel, WWE Network. The first hour of TNA airs against NXT on the OTT platform until the final airing in this time slot.
May 30, 2013 – August 14, 2014 (9pm, Thursdays) With the show going on the road and doing double-tapings for “LIVE” broadcasts, TNA and Spike bump the show back an hour to allow double-tapings to occur on the East Coast. Although the show is branded as being “LIVE”, it is broadcast anywhere between a 30 minute to two hour tape delay. The February 27, 2014 broadcast was the first show to go head-to-head with another company other than WWE; WWE’s developmental territory, NXT. NXT airs on WWE’s over-the-top (OTT) streaming network, WWE Network. The quarterly special’s second hour goes head-to-head with TNA, which leads the company to move the show to Wednesdays.
August 20, 2014 – December 24, 2014 (9pm, Wednesdays) With Spike and TNA coming to an end of their ten-year relationship and to avoid a ratings disaster with the upcoming football season (NFL moves eight Thursday games from cable to terrestrial television), the network burns off the remaining taped episodes of Impact Wrestling. Spike agrees to allow TNA on for an additional two months, as the deal ran through October while they find a new home.
Destination America Era
January 7, 2015 (9pm, Wednesday) The premiere episode debuts on Destination America LIVE, albeit with moderate success. Impact Wrestling goes from being available in 93.4 million homes to being available in less than 60 million homes (roughly 59.7 million). The return of replay broadcasts return for Impact Wrestling, as DA subsequently replays the show at Midnight on its original broadcast date for the duration of its run.
January 16, 2015 – May 29, 2015 (9pm, Fridays) With WWE Smackdown moving from Fridays to Thursdays staring January 15th, TNA and DA opt to move Impact Wrestling from Wednesdays to Fridays to avoid any quarterly conflict with NXT. This move doesn’t last that long, as the company’s ratings drop drastically.
June 3, 2015 – December 2015 (9pm, Wednesdays) The show moves back to Wednesdays, as TNA feels it provides a better audience. During this move, this also provides a few historical perspectives: Destination America becomes the first cable network since 1987 to carry multiple companies on its channel, debuting ROH Wrestling from Ring of Honor in the 11pm time slot. It is also the first time since October 1, 2005, that two company’s air back-to-back on the same channel. August 5, 2015 provides the first head-to-head encounter of two company’s since Impact and RAW faced off on May 3, 2010, when Lucha Underground presents Ultima Lucha on the El Rey Network.
POP ERA
January 5, 2016 – December 2016 and possibly beyond (9pm, Tuesdays) TNA gains a few good and bad with the move from Destination America to POP: an increase of availability from 59.7 million homes to 75.2 million homes. POP, formerly known as TV Guide Network and the Prevue Channel, is jointly owned by CBS Corporation and MGM.

Period: 363.77 days

	Submissions	Comments
Total	1000	56801
Rate (per day)	2.75	155.54
Unique Redditors	321	5751
Combined Score	150174	331939

Top Submitters' Top Submissions

1. 20994 points, 131 submissions: xrm67
   
   1. Coca-Cola increased its production of single-use plastic bottles by a billion last year: “We calculated it produced over 110bn throwaway plastic bottles every year –an astounding 3,400 a second– while refusing to take responsibility for its role in the plastic pollution crisis facing our oceans." (505 points, 30 comments)
   2. 100,000 newly released pages of Chemical Industry secrets “lay out a 40-year history of deceit and collusion involving the chemical industry and the regulatory agencies that were supposed to be protecting human health and the environment.” (409 points, 70 comments)
   3. Americans Are Retiring Later, Dying Sooner and Sicker In-Between: U.S. life expectancy is declining, new calculations show. (393 points, 123 comments)
   4. Kurt Vonnegut got it right... (389 points, 31 comments)
   5. In his five months on the job, Trump-appointed EPA chief Scott Pruitt has tried to block, delay or entirely uproot more than 30 environmental regulations. (340 points, 14 comments)
   6. Scientists categorize Earth as a 'toxic planet': "Earth, and all life on it, are being saturated with man-made chemicals in an event unlike anything in the planet's entire history." (339 points, 102 comments)
   7. Thirty countries use 'armies of opinion shapers' to manipulate democracy – report: “Governments are now using social media to suppress dissent and advance an anti-democratic agenda.” (305 points, 33 comments)
   8. Naval Exercises Add Trillions of Pieces of Plastic Debris to Oceans: "When taken together, the amount of environmental damage the US military is causing around the planet on an annual basis is nearly impossible to comprehend." (303 points, 33 comments)
   9. Biologists say half of all species could be extinct by end of century: “The living fabric of the world is slipping through our fingers without our showing much sign of caring.” (291 points, 48 comments)
   10. ‘Shell knew’: oil giant's 1991 film warned of climate change danger. Public information film unseen for years shows Shell had clear grasp of global warming 26 years ago but has not acted accordingly since. (288 points, 64 comments)
2. 10390 points, 86 submissions: endtimesranter
   
   1. "Sadly, the truth is that much of the news that fills the 24-hour cycle simply isn’t newsworthy … and a lot of it really isn’t even news at all. It is mostly a serialized soap opera. It is personality-driven drivel. And it is rarely original reporting based on actual news..." (304 points, 58 comments)
   2. Dallas had never hit 90 degrees in November. It just did so three of the past four days. (276 points, 36 comments)
   3. Biologist: “We’re losing them right now, we’re losing them really quickly, much more quickly than I think any of us ever could have imagined.”- Coral Reefs Rapidly Dying Worldwide (243 points, 50 comments)
   4. The Trump administration's solution to climate change: ban the term - "a list of phrases to be avoided includes “climate change” and “climate change adaptation” “reduce greenhouse gases”, to be replaced by “weather extremes” and “resilience to weather extremes” Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (224 points, 39 comments)
   5. An analysis of 167 years of federal storm data by The Associated Press found that no 30-year period in history has seen this many major hurricanes, this many days of those whoppers spinning in the Atlantic, or this much overall energy generated by those powerful storms. (218 points, 20 comments)
   6. Industrial farming is driving the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth, says leading academic (204 points, 52 comments)
   7. Scientist: “Its pretty depressing that it’s only a couple of years since the 400 ppm milestone was toppled” – Global CO2 Emissions Just Breached 410ppm, Level Unseen In Millions Of Years (186 points, 32 comments)
   8. Climatologist: “It’s a scale we haven’t seen in recent history and it’s very concerning.” Forest Fires Worldwide Burning Longer At Greater Frequency & Intensity Across Wider Areas (185 points, 11 comments)
   9. FEMA Is Almost Out of Money and Hurricane Irma Is Approaching - Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund down to its last $1 billion - Fund has burned through half its money since Thursday morning (180 points, 73 comments)
   10. Abandon Florida? Not quite. But it’s time for a retreat from flood zones. --- "When you hear about a house in Houston, assessed at $72,400, that has received more than $1 million in payouts through the federal flood insurance program, it’s only natural to ask, “Why did we ever build there?" " (178 points, 61 comments)
3. 6150 points, 36 submissions: eleitl
   
   1. Jesus. The House Science Committee just cited a false Breitbart report that the climate is cooling. Our Orwellian future is here. • /climate (759 points, 125 comments)
   2. [fun] 27 year-old who hasn't woken up before 9:30am in 8 years thinks he could run farm if society crumbles (380 points, 257 comments)
   3. Americans Losing Faith in College Degrees, Poll Finds (284 points, 155 comments)
   4. Coal mining health study is halted by Trump’s Interior Department – “Stopping this study is a ploy to stop science in its tracks and keep the public in the dark about health risks as a favor to the mining industry” (276 points, 62 comments)
   5. Fetal deaths rose 58% and fertility rates fell 12% after Flint switched to lead-poisoned water (265 points, 29 comments)
   6. Welcome to the new dark ages, where only the wealthy can retire (265 points, 120 comments)
   7. Al Gore: 'The rich have subverted all reason' (236 points, 117 comments)
   8. China Announces That It Will Cover Nearly A Quarter Of The Country In Forest By 2020… (235 points, 70 comments)
   9. Across 22 Countries, 57% of people think their country is in decline, 48% think young people will have worse lives than their generation, and 69% think the system is rigged against them. (199 points, 33 comments)
   10. The Invention of Capitalism: How a Self-Sufficient Peasantry was Whipped Into Industrial Wage Slaves (186 points, 153 comments)
4. 6034 points, 38 submissions: cliffhanger1983
   
   1. Nowhere in America can a full-time minimum wage worker afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment (571 points, 217 comments)
   2. Get Rid of Capitalism? Millennials Are Ready to Talk About It - Bloomberg (334 points, 457 comments)
   3. Stanford Study: Poor children remain poor, rich children get even richer - MarketWatch (259 points, 72 comments)
   4. Feds Say It's Too Dangerous To Share Dakota Access Oil Spill Report-DAPL SPILL!! (249 points, 17 comments)
   5. Noam Chomsky: Imagine a World Without Neoliberals Privatizing Everything in Sight - Alternet (246 points, 46 comments)
   6. Grim report shows teen suicide rate at 40-year high (245 points, 95 comments)
   7. U.S. is a 'danger to the world', warns top economist - Reuters (239 points, 68 comments)
   8. Two-thirds say this is the lowest point in U.S. history—and it’s keeping a lot of them up at night (216 points, 113 comments)
   9. Global inequality much worse than previously thought, say economists (204 points, 62 comments)
   10. A whopping 72% of all US businesses are NOT profitable. (174 points, 71 comments)
5. 5286 points, 25 submissions: veraknow
   
   1. Fentanyl is the number one cause of US overdoses. The maker of a fentanyl drug was the largest donor to the campaign opposing marijuana legalisation in Arizona. (927 points, 74 comments)
   2. Oklahoma hits 100°F in the dead of winter (349 points, 127 comments)
   3. Republicans move to sell off 3.3m acres of national land - land that provides corridors for gray wolves and grizzly bears and is the winter pasture for big game species. (335 points, 46 comments)
   4. I went to the NY and Paris climate conferences in an official capacity. I have seen what "climate action" looks like. We need more alarmism. (311 points, 140 comments)
   5. Avoiding Two Degrees of Warming 'Is Now Totally Unrealistic' - UN IPCC author (304 points, 191 comments)
   6. Record 37% of children in the UK forecast to be in poverty by 2022, undoing all progress in the last 20 years (289 points, 85 comments)
   7. Geophysicist writes paper titled: “Is Earth F**ked?” Answers: "more or less." (258 points, 88 comments)
   8. Brazil to open Amazon rainforest national reserve for mining, cancelling its nature reserve status (249 points, 49 comments)
   9. Japan declares Ogasawara Islands coral extinct (the Chinese poached it all for jewellery) (245 points, 34 comments)
   10. New Zealand plans for 3 coal mines would require clear cutting of forests in an area of outstanding biodiversity - with the coal itself shipped to developing countries (188 points, 36 comments)
6. 3515 points, 28 submissions: ReverseEngineer77
   
   1. Detroit's unaffordable water hints at a U.S. crisis to come (264 points, 41 comments)
   2. Over 2000 Veterans To Form Human Shield At Dakota Pipeline Protest (220 points, 67 comments)
   3. Someone deleted some code in a popular cryptocurrency wallet — and as much as $280 million in ethereum is locked up (and...it's GONE!) (201 points, 123 comments)
   4. Army denies Dakota pipeline permit, in victory for Native tribes (174 points, 10 comments)
   5. We Do Not Live in “Post Truth” World, We Live in a World of Lies and We Always Have (170 points, 102 comments)
   6. ‘If anyone can hear us … help.’ Puerto Rico’s mayors describe widespread devastation from Hurricane Maria (164 points, 21 comments)
   7. Three billionaires are wealthier than half the US population (161 points, 40 comments)
   8. So many journalists have been killed in Mexico this year that a newspaper is shutting down (157 points, 28 comments)
   9. Paradise Papers: Tax haven secrets of ultra-rich exposed (145 points, 9 comments)
   10. ...AND SO IT BEGINS: World facing greatest humanitarian crisis since 1945 (136 points, 189 comments)
7. 3460 points, 26 submissions: finiteworld
   
   1. Planet Will Burn Before Corporate Media Covers Climate Change as Existential Threat (220 points, 20 comments)
   2. 'Psychologically scarred' millennials are killing dozens of industries — and it's their parents' fault (213 points, 177 comments)
   3. Earth's oceans are warming 13% faster than thought, and accelerating (210 points, 44 comments)
   4. UN experts denounce 'myth' pesticides are necessary to feed the world (199 points, 35 comments)
   5. Somalia: 'People are dying..there's no water' (187 points, 95 comments)
   6. Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend (181 points, 48 comments)
   7. The Paris climate deal won't save us, our future depends on de-growth (166 points, 88 comments)
   8. 'People aren't spending': stores close doors in 'oversaturated' US retail market (157 points, 72 comments)
   9. How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds - It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they’ve been fooled. (148 points, 11 comments)
   10. The great climate silence: we are on the edge of the abyss but we ignore it (144 points, 83 comments)
8. 2779 points, 21 submissions: MrVisible
   
   1. Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals (367 points, 78 comments)
   2. Global Ocean Circulation Appears To Be Collapsing Due To A Warming Planet (198 points, 55 comments)
   3. People who don't have children benefit our environment more than any campaign – it's time to celebrate them (191 points, 164 comments)
   4. Rigged. Forced into debt. Worked past exhaustion. Left with nothing. (182 points, 81 comments)
   5. How A Warm Winter Destroyed 85 Percent Of Georgia's Peaches (146 points, 21 comments)
   6. Harvey destroyed hundreds of thousands of cars in a city that relies heavily on them (132 points, 98 comments)
   7. Spring is more than two weeks early in the American southeast (128 points, 53 comments)
   8. Climate change might be worse than thought after scientists find major mistake in water temperature readings (124 points, 20 comments)
   9. Rising CO2 Levels Are Sapping Staple Crops Of Their Protein & Iron Content (122 points, 11 comments)
   10. 102 million dead California trees unprecedented in our modern history, officials say (121 points, 32 comments)
9. 2594 points, 15 submissions: hillsfar
   
   1. Children of Men predicted a future of mass poverty, extreme class divide, a worsening refugee crisis, environmental ruin, and worldwide infertility. It becomes more real every day. (Seen in /lost generation) (454 points, 150 comments)
   2. Dollar General Hits a Gold Mine in Rural America. In the poorest towns, where even Wal-Mart doesn't want to go, Dollar General is moving in and turning a profit. "Essentially what the dollar stores are betting on in a large way is that we are going to have a permanent underclass in America". (408 points, 159 comments)
   3. Bluefin Tuna at the Brink: "Bluefins caught today are mostly juveniles, up to 98% of total catch. They have not reproduced and never will because they’ll never have the opportunity." (303 points, 87 comments)
   4. How We REALLY Deal with Climate Crisis: "Those of us working to avoid the worst of the climate crisis must be honest with ourselves. Humanity does not have the cultural capacities to make the transition and avoid systemic collapse" (221 points, 94 comments)
   5. Slow Crash: Two years before the 2008 crash, Harper's published a dark prophecy of what was to come. Now: "It’s more like a slow crash". "The whole economy at the end of the road is going to look like Greece or Spain or Portugal or Italy." (163 points, 20 comments)
   6. The harsh truth about economic inequality, based on thousands of years of evidence: "only the so-called 'four horsemen' of war, disease, state collapse and revolution have succeeded in leveling income" (155 points, 72 comments)
   7. Battered Puerto Rico hospitals on life support after Hurricane Maria: "If this is not taken care of, people are going to start dying". (143 points, 31 comments)
   8. Arkema Warns It Can't Prevent Potential Chemical Explosion in Texas: "As soon as the chemicals begin to degrade they start to 'self-accelerate' in a type of no-turning-back mode"... (120 points, 33 comments)
   9. Extremely Nasty Climate Wake-Up: "...sudden changes in the ecosystem are causing climate scientists to stop and ponder what’s happening to our planet, like never before." "...A team of UK scientists discovered 8,000 blue lakes formed in East Antarctica" (111 points, 11 comments)
   10. Our Planet Is So Fucked That Some Women Are Choosing to Not Have Kids: "There's this number, 9,441. That's the amount of additional metric tons of carbon you add to the atmosphere for every child you have." (100 points, 102 comments)
10. 1962 points, 11 submissions: MichaelTen
    
    1. Millennial households are poorer than any other generation: Study (350 points, 156 comments)
    2. Bernie Sanders warns of 'international oligarchy' after Paradise Papers leak (317 points, 122 comments)
    3. TIL that 69% of Americans Have Less Than $1,000 USD in Savings, as of September 2016 (253 points, 140 comments)
    4. It Is Becoming Illegal To Be Homeless In America As Houston, Dallas And Dozens Of Other Cities Pass Draconian Laws (172 points, 44 comments)
    5. Tyson Foods Linked to Largest Toxic Dead Zone in U.S. History (170 points, 16 comments)
    6. Rigorous Study Finds Antidepressants Worsen Long-Term Outcomes (164 points, 62 comments)
    7. Casino Magnate Wants to Kill Bill That Would Make Nevada a Renewable Energy Powerhouse (154 points, 16 comments)
    8. Medical Debt Is the Top Cause of South Florida Homelessness, Survey Says (117 points, 8 comments)
    9. How 90% of American Households Lost an Average of $17,000 in Wealth to the Plutocrats in 2016 (104 points, 16 comments)
    10. Most Americans’ best days are behind them. Median household income peaked at least 15 years ago in 81 percent of U.S. counties. Use this interactive map to see when each county peaked. (83 points, 4 comments)
11. 1893 points, 12 submissions: FF00A7
    
    1. The ozone layer is as thin as it was 30 years ago and not recovering as predicted due to new unregulated chemicals. (367 points, 41 comments)
    2. Oxygen levels ‘falling 2 to 3 times faster than predicted’ in warming oceans (216 points, 32 comments)
    3. Trump wants to pay coal companies $15/ton to burn more coal. (183 points, 48 comments)
    4. Depletion of dissolved oxygen in oceans is occurring much faster than expected, new study. "This scares me more than arctic methane." (174 points, 23 comments)
    5. Even If We Cut All Energy And Transportation Emissions, The Meat And Dairy Will Kill Us (164 points, 139 comments)
    6. Hurricane Irma covered Florida with a film of poop. (142 points, 23 comments)
    7. World must hit zero carbon emissions 'well before 2040', scientists warn - New research suggests it will be an ‘enormous challenge’ to prevent global warming getting out of hand (133 points, 56 comments)
    8. Disaster Capitalism: 2-person 2-year old company in hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lands $300 million contract to rebuild Puerto Rico electric grid. (130 points, 20 comments)
    9. "It would seem that man is destined to exterminate himself after having rendered the globe uninhabitable" (Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, 1820) (114 points, 9 comments)
    10. Putin says expects 'fake' gas attacks by USA, "they are planning to again plant some substance and accuse the Syrian authorities". (103 points, 32 comments)

Top Commenters

1. MrVisible (6341 points, 556 comments)
2. NICK16_06 (4235 points, 445 comments)
3. xrm67 (3028 points, 255 comments)

Top Submissions

1. Fentanyl is the number one cause of US overdoses. The maker of a fentanyl drug was the largest donor to the campaign opposing marijuana legalisation in Arizona. by veraknow (927 points, 74 comments)
2. Jesus. The House Science Committee just cited a false Breitbart report that the climate is cooling. Our Orwellian future is here. • /climate by eleitl (759 points, 125 comments)
3. Carl Sagan in 1996. by boldra (677 points, 116 comments)
4. Environmentalists Are Ignoring the Elephant In the Room: U.S. Military Is the World’s Largest Polluter - The US Department of Defence is one of the world’s worst polluters, its footprint dwarfs that of any corporation. by xleb1 (594 points, 147 comments)
5. Nowhere in America can a full-time minimum wage worker afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment by cliffhanger1983 (571 points, 217 comments)
6. FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States by factczech (522 points, 43 comments)
7. Coca-Cola increased its production of single-use plastic bottles by a billion last year: “We calculated it produced over 110bn throwaway plastic bottles every year –an astounding 3,400 a second– while refusing to take responsibility for its role in the plastic pollution crisis facing our oceans." by xrm67 (505 points, 30 comments)
8. Professor Joseph Stiglitz : Inequality is killing America. Employee income is lower than before, suicides, drugs and alcoholism is rising. Life expectancy is now going down for middle-aged white Americans. I was Chief Economist of the World Bank in the 90s, this looks like the Soviet collapse by alllie (500 points, 103 comments)
9. Children of Men predicted a future of mass poverty, extreme class divide, a worsening refugee crisis, environmental ruin, and worldwide infertility. It becomes more real every day. (Seen in /lost generation) by hillsfar (454 points, 150 comments)
10. The people of South Dakota democratically pass a sweeping anti-corruption bill. Republican legislature calls for "emergency" measures, cancels law, and blocks it from appearing on future ballots. by magnora7 (446 points, 34 comments)

Top Comments

1. 392 points: CrankyDude16bit's comment in Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life
2. 259 points: MrVisible's comment in Where Did All the Men Go? The rise of the unworking. America has suffered a quiet catastrophe in the collapse of work for men
3. 246 points: entropys_child's comment in 'Psychologically scarred' millennials are killing dozens of industries — and it's their parents' fault
4. 187 points: deleted's comment in millennials, regardless of politics, can agree that society is fundamentally and irreparably ‘broken’
5. 183 points: MrVisible's comment in Is anyone sick of the argument that, somehow, gay people and transsexuals are proof that Western civilization is in decline?
6. 178 points: lazlounderhill's comment in In Orange County, California, you need $28 USD per hour to buy a one-room apartment. 70% of area jobs don't pay that much.
7. 170 points: MakeTotalDestr0i's comment in Nowhere in America can a full-time minimum wage worker afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment
8. 163 points: MrVisible's comment in How does one endure this shit show?
9. 159 points: thewisesloth's comment in Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.
10. 157 points: radical_vegan's comment in Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?

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