For the past 6 days I have stared at a black and white live stream of an empty workshop that a man occasionally steps in and out of. Why am I doing this? I honestly don’t know anymore. I thought it was to view a performance art project, I thought it was to decode some message the man was trying to convey to me, and then I thought it was to anticipate the release of an album. Now, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m filled with anger, and I feel foolish for that, but I can’t help it. I feel deceived.

I first heard of Frank Ocean when Watch the Throne by Kanye West and Jay-Z was released in the summer of 2011. He was featured on the track “No Church in the Wild”. I thought he was a really good singer and I checked iTunes to see if he had any other material. I didn’t immediately find anything, so I left it at that. Then, during the next summer in 2012, I heard “Thinkin Bout You”. If you haven’t heard this song, you obviously don’t know who Frank Ocean is so I’m going to need you to open up a new tab, go to YouTube, search his name, and just listen for the next day or so. “Thinkin Bout You” is probably the most popular song Frank has put out. I remember having it on repeat all summer. This was back when Spotify was first starting and I decided to click Frank’s name and see what came up. A whole album! It took me at least a month to realize that channel ORANGE even existed. That album has gone on to mean so much to me and many other people. It has been an underlying soundtrack to the past few years. I’ve of course listened to many other records since then, but ORANGE never really went away. For me, it has never gotten old, it’s gotten better. I have come to appreciate every single track on that record. I can remember nodding my head to “Super Rich Kids” my first year at IU, singing “Pyramids” in the shower, laying by the pool listening to “Sweet Life”, and driving while blasting “Forrest Gump”. It’s been 4 years since ORANGE was released. I’ve gone on to discover Frank’s “mixtape” nostalgia, ULTRA and just recently downloaded the unreleased stuff from Tumblr. “Nature Feels” will make you imagine a music video in your head and “summer remains” will give you goosebumps.

So that’s my history with Frank. I love his shit, but his actions piss me off so much sometimes. Since channel ORANGE released, people have obviously been waiting for a follow-up. In April of 2015 he posted to his website a picture of him with two stacks of magazines with differing covers. The caption was: “I got two versions. I got twoooo versions. #ISSUE1 #ALBUM3 #JULY2015 #BOYSDONTCRY”. Now, based off of this post we were led to conclude 2 things. 1. Frank was launching a magazine and 2. Album 3 was titled Boys Don’t Cry and was coming in July of that year.

July 31, 2015 at 11:59PM was when I took my first “L” from Frank. As I’m sure you already know, the album did not come. I was a little mad, I’ll admit it. Frank had posted to his own website with hashtags that had lead us on. And he did not deliver. So yeah, I was a little butthurt, but I got over it; I understood. “Frank is an artist, if he isn’t ready I’m sure he has his reasons”, I told myself.

A year goes by. On July 1st of this year, Frank came out of the woodwork to again post to his website. This time it was a library card stamped with various dates in the past and in the future. The date near the bottom that made your heart race was “July ??, 2016”. This month???? I stupidly boarded the Hype Train. I patiently waited. It’s been 4 years, I can wait just a little longer. Every single Friday in July I checked iTunes for Boys Don’t Cry, and I took L’s every…single…time. Then Sunday July 31st came. Last Sunday. L. Nothing. I go to bed thoroughly pissed off at Frank. A childish feeling, but a feeling I have grown accustomed to. Yes I was mad at another grown man I don’t even know. I’ll tell you why in a bit, first I have to tell you what I woke up to on August 1st. I check Reddit on my phone, as I always do when I’m laying in bed trying to work up the energy to go to work, and the front page shows a shitpost from the Frank Ocean subreddit about the L taken the previous night. I had no idea there even was a Frank Ocean subreddit. I click the link and see some big news. A live stream has popped up in Frank’s website. OHSHIT.jpg. I pull it up and see the dreaded workshop for the first time, and I’m intrigued. At some point during the morning, I can’t remember when, Frank walks into the frame, and he starts cutting wood. He’s a musician, but has now decided to take up woodworking apparently. Later in the day, we learn from the New York Times that the live stream is a lead up to Frank’s new album, an Apple Music exclusive. It is due out for release on Friday, August 5th. I eagerly take those steps onto the Hype Train that I have taken so many times before.

I have spent the last 5 days refreshing the “New” section on the Frank subreddit, looking at website code that I have no fucking clue how to read, replaying ORANGE for the 500th time, and most of all, staring at that god damn workshop. I have seen Frank go from cutting wood, to sanding wood, to gluing wood, to nailing wood, to painting wood, to stacking said wood. He comes and goes at random times throughout the day. The wood in question has now taken on the form of what appears to be boxes. Myself, and many other people from the internet, believe these boxes are steps to be assembled into a staircase. There are 14 boxes. I believe these to symbolize 14 songs on the new album. Oh the album, will it ever come? I don’t know because Frank still chooses to remain silent. I stayed up until 12am Thursday night and 1am Friday night anticipating a drop. Since Thursday, the boxes have been stacked in what appears to be a circle. Frank has not returned to the workshop. And so his fans have been staring at an image of this workshop and these boxes for what feels like an eternity.

So why do I hate Frank Ocean? It’s simple. He has lead us on for far too long. He comes and goes from the live stream with no indication or pattern to his movements. Snippets of instrumentals and beats play in the background periodically that Shazam cannot identify. He is quite purposefully driving us mad. You can say “No one is forcing you to watch the stream, just go do something else and be patient”. You think I haven’t tried? I have gone to work, to the gym, on walks, and yet my mind still wanders back to that workshop. I need to know some damn information. When is this supposed to go down Frank? Now you’re gonna say, “But he doesn’t owe us anything, it’s his album he can release whenever he wants”. Fuck that. He has lead us on, he has teased us. He has posted pretty specific time frames and dates for the album to be released and yet nothing has come. It would be different if he just posted nothing related to his music and led us to believe he was done, but he’s done the opposite of that. We are all frustrated, anxious, and tired. Now of course, I am still and always will be a huge fan of Frank. I don’t actually hate him, I just hate what he’s doing to us. I’m still going to listen to this album on replay for god knows how long and buy multiple copies. I’m just pissed off because there has been no communication. I can’t take any more L’s…

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