Why Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard Dominated the Internet

Marc Musso has a behavior of writing a foolish tune about no matter he is doing. Typically it is about feeding his cat Malmo, different occasions it is about taking part in board video games.

So it is in all probability no shock that because the 27-year-old Texan was watching a stay feed of the defamation trial between the blockbuster actor Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, Depp’s film star ex-wife, he discovered himself writing a tune.

Sung from the attitude of Heard’s attorneys, Musso’s tune pokes enjoyable at how usually they raised objections to Depp’s feedback whereas on the stand.

“I was revered. Individuals took me at my phrase,” he begins singing with pop-music beats within the background. “Then I grew to become a lawyer representing Amber Heard.”

Certainly, the weeks-long drama that was the trial between two of Hollywood’s greatest stars ended up changing into one of the crucial fashionable matters on the web. In between pictures of the continued Russian assault on Ukraine, the mass taking pictures in Buffalo, New York, the nationwide abortion debate sparking protests across the US, and rising inflation, it is video snippets coming from the identical static, darkish wood-paneled courtroom which can be going viral. 

The case started as a response to an opinion story Heard revealed in 2018 in The Washington Publish amid the #MeToo motion towards sexual harassment, discrimination and assault. Her piece, which mentioned home abuse she’d skilled, didn’t identify Depp by identify. Depp sued her in 2019, alleging Heard defamed him and that she had been the abuser. The following yr, Heard countersued Depp.

Then they had been in court docket, with a digital camera stay feed streaming free to the web from their proceedings in Fairfax County, Virginia, and tens of millions tuned in. Some individuals watched as a result of it was entertaining. Others cheered on their most popular facet. Earlier than the trial’s concluding week, Saturday Night time Reside lampooned the case as a spectacle being placed on “for enjoyable.” In response, critics have stated they’re disgusted by how callously audiences handled the case. 

However that did not cease individuals sharing hyperlinks, watching movies by the tens of millions and tumbling additional down the rabbit gap, remixing trial footage into their very own model of parody. 

That included Musso, who did not initially plan to put up his 87-second tune to the web, till his girlfriend satisfied him to place it on YouTube. After which on TikTok. Lower than two weeks later, his tune has racked up greater than 15 million views.

Musso thought the trial “was ridiculous, and most of the people appear to agree,” he stated. In spite of everything, to him it is only one wealthy individual suing one other wealthy individual whereas airing out their drama to the general public.

@thetruegadfly#johnnydepp#johnny#johnnydepptrial#amberheard#objectionhearsay♬ authentic sound – Gadfly

Social media jury

Seek for Depp or Heard on YouTube or TikTok, and most of what you may discover are brief clips from the trial with tabloid-worthy headlines like Johnny Depp Destroys Amber Heard’s Lawyer (13 million views) or one drawn from a now well-known quote from Heard’s testimony, “I didn’t punch you, I used to be hitting you” (29 million views). The individuals who run these accounts say they uploaded the clips, which run to a number of minutes in size, to attract consideration to a element they believed was essential that may in any other case get neglected. 

Critics, in the meantime, fear it is turned from mocking celebrities to encouraging harassment of abuse victims. That significantly grew to become clear after Saturday Night time Reside lampooned the trial in a Might 14 skit, decreasing Depp’s and Heard’s arguments over home abuse to, as SNL stated, “a information story we will all collectively watch and say, ‘Glad it ain’t me?'”

“Home violence will not be a joke,” intercourse and tradition critic Ella Dawson tweeted in a viral thread just a few hours after the skit was aired. “In twenty years persons are going to look again at this trial and all the media protection and be disgusted. A few of us are already disgusted.”

Regardless of the criticism, SNL’s video pulled in additional than 4 million views within the first day after it was posted, greater than another video the present’s posted previously month. By noon Monday, SNL’s put up was the highest trending video on YouTube. Different accounts throughout YouTube and TikTok have seen comparable success, racking up views together with torrents of latest followers. And a few have made cash off it too.

The creators appear to share the identical story of rising curiosity within the trial over time. Finally, they resolve to put up movies both as a result of they’re longtime Depp followers from his days as Jack Sparrow within the multibillion greenback Pirates of the Caribbean films, or maybe his more moderen run because the villain Gellert Grindelwald within the Harry Potter prequel collection, Improbable Beasts (a job he misplaced amid the controversy surrounding the couple’s cut up).

Haider Ali stated he noticed himself in Depp and Heard’s explosive marriage, which started in 2015 and ended after simply over a yr. Heard filed for divorce and obtained a brief restraining order. Ali, a 27-year-old digital artist and internet developer, stated he’d been a sufferer of home violence and believed sharing clips from the trial on YouTube would possibly assist different individuals who’ve additionally been in that scenario.

“I posted just a few movies they usually did not achieve this effectively, and I sat down and questioned, Why am I posting these movies?” Then his third video hit greater than 2 million views. And a day later, one other hit 2.6 million views. Throughout the week, his channel had shifted from his self-styled singer-songwriter roots, which noticed him taking part in rock performances on his electrical guitar, to several-minute-long movies from the trial.

One among his hottest thus far, with greater than 2.6 million views, exhibits Depp and Heard on display screen, overlaid with laughing emoji, and the title Witness Dr. Daybreak Hughes Would not Bear in mind Something.

Ali stated he incorporates emoji with dramatic titles like Johnny Depp’s Lawyer Ben Chew Blasts Amber Heard as a result of that is the tradition of the websites he grew up with, like Twitter, Tumblr and MySpace. “I am making an attempt to masks the negativity with enjoyable stuff,” he stated.

Alice Parkes took it a step additional. She created animations to play over audio from the precise trial, lampooning everybody concerned. Her hottest video thus far portrays Heard doodling whereas Depp’s on the stand, till he accuses Heard or one in all her pals of defecating within the couple’s mattress, at which level she’s sweating and visibly uncomfortable.

“I used to be pondering, ‘the absurdity of the entire trial would simply look so humorous animated,'” Parkes stated. The 28-year-old skilled illustrator primarily based in Wales had about 50 followers on her TikTok account, @pettyparrot, earlier than her first video went viral with greater than 12.7 million views. Three extra hit movies later, she’s bought about 108,000 followers and joined the TikTok Creator Fund that pays her for video views.

“I may do that and, you understand, presumably make cash off it, which might be good,” she stated.

@pettyparrot I shouldn’t have entry to animation software program. 💩 #johnnydepp#amberheard#justiceforjohnnydepp#amberturd#fypシ♬ authentic sound – Alice

Well beyond O.J.

Courtroom dramas have lengthy been a pillar of American popular culture. TV exhibits like NBC’s Legislation & Order have been on the air longer than many fashionable TikTokers have been alive. Key moments in US historical past, just like the Salem witch trials, are taught in class. The Watergate hearings on Capitol Hill forward of President Richard Nixon’s resignation from workplace in 1974 modified American politics a lot that just about any main controversy winds up with a nickname that features a “-gate” affixed to the tip.

Over the previous 30 years although, cable TV and, finally, web streaming have provided individuals an opportunity to observe each second of a high-profile case. All the eye modifications the way in which we take a look at these court docket proceedings as effectively. Typically, the most-watched ones are referred to as “trials of the century.”

“With large trials like this, you get these uncommon alternatives the place virtually everyone does not less than have a little bit little bit of a passing information of what is going on on,” stated Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Heart for Tv and In style Tradition at Syracuse College.

Thousands and thousands of individuals throughout the nation had been glued to their TVs watching soccer star O.J. Simpson’s homicide trial in 1995, pop star Michael Jackson‘s molestation trial in 2005 and even the heartbreaking case surrounding the loss of life of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony in 2011. And in every of the key instances usually cited as popular culture phenomena, the drama from the courtroom grew to become as a lot a subject of fascination because the circumstances of the case.

Although Depp v. Heard does not have the identical stakes as a prison trial, or the political significance of a presidential impeachment, it does have a dramatic storyline full of weird characters and salacious particulars.

And it has social media.

“With the O.J. trial, you could possibly flip it off,” stated Paul Sales space, a professor of media at DePaul College in Chicago. “You could possibly not watch it. You could possibly not learn the newspaper.” 

However pc applications operating our social feeds on Twitter, YouTube, Fb and TikTok preserve feeding Depp v. Heard to us as a result of even when we’re not , our pals in all probability are.

And the rabbit holes social media creates can change our views as effectively. The social feeds could begin exhibiting you solely pro-Depp movies and posts, as a result of that is what the apps assume you may need. And, Sales space added, TikTok’s short-video format makes it even tougher to seek out nuance past the great man or villain narratives individuals usually slot into.

“The place it turns into unhealthy or the place it turns into problematic,” he stated, “is while you lose that sort of important concentrate on it and also you begin pondering that the rabbit gap you’ve got gone down is the entire world, and also you lose perspective on all the pieces else.”

The political-type on-line mudslinging between Depp followers and Heard defenders hasn’t simply made it robust for an web passerby to shortly perceive what is going on on. It is made the job for individuals like longtime trial guide and psychologist Amy Singer tougher too. She’s usually introduced in to seek the advice of on excessive stakes instances, together with the Casey Anthony prison trial and Michael Jackson’s civil trial. 

Singer is not consulting for Depp or Heard, however she was watching. Singer’s group has a set of social media listening instruments that deduce what jurors is perhaps pondering by following social media posts of individuals with comparable demographics and backgrounds. What she’s discovered is not the everyday coverage debate we hear throughout an emotional homicide case, or the cultural conversations we normally have round youngster abuse throughout molestation trials. 

As an alternative, Singer’s group is detecting the rifts between the 2 film stars’ fandoms.

“It is extra like a political debate,” she stated, referring to the trial as a “pig v. pig” case, the place “who provides a rattling who wins?”

If you happen to aren’t being bombarded by Depp v. Heard movies, by the way in which, Singer’s social media listening instruments point out you are in all probability older. Whereas the court docket case is blowing up throughout YouTube and TikTok, the place viewers are likely to skew youthful, the “grownup inhabitants” she tracks on Fb and Twitter are extra frightened with the Ukraine warfare and inflation. “They are not speaking about Amber Heard. ‘Amber who?'”

Making {dollars}

Lahiru Darsha began posting movies about Depp v. Heard when he felt just like the trial wasn’t going the Pirates of the Caribbean star’s approach. Quickly, Darsha was posting brief video snippets — lower than 2 minutes — on his YouTube channel, Redux Goals Lab.

Earlier than the trial, the 25-year-old’s channel principally had movies of his streaming gameplay from the hit crime drama recreation Grand Theft Auto. The sport had helped him study English, and the movies made him about $100 in advert income each few months whereas he was in class incomes a cybersecurity diploma.

However his Depp movies took off, garnering tens of millions of views inside days of being uploaded. The 35-second Johnny Depp’s Bodyguard Being Hilarious rang up 1.3 million views, Johnny Depp Making an attempt to Resist Laughter, uploaded the identical day, attracted practically 4 million views. By the tip of his first day importing, he’d made $3,700.

“I wished to attract consideration to particular factors that is perhaps missed from the livestreams,” he stated. And the fun of discovering an viewers — most of whom had been constructive to him — impressed Darsha to add much more clips.

He is made greater than $11,000 because the trial started, and plans to make use of the cash both to assist construct a house in Sri Lanka, the place he lives, or research overseas in Europe. He additionally intends to pay again household who’ve supported him via faculty.

A number of days into Might, Darsha seen his YouTube earnings had dropped. He then heard rumors that YouTube moderators had been penalizing accounts that posted snippets from the trial, so determined to cover these movies. After this story’s publication, YouTube additional lowered his earnings by a number of thousand {dollars}. YouTube did not reply to a number of requests for remark for this story.

Making sense

Amid the courtroom snippets pulled from the stay feed, individuals on YouTube and TikTok devoted their time to sober, critical evaluation too.

DC-based lawyer Devin Stone, who heads the YouTube channel LegalEagle, posted a virtually 22-minute-long video breaking down the case and what led as much as it. However he started his video by making enjoyable of the flood of movies cheering on Depp and bashing Heard. “This newest swimsuit and countersuit is already turning right into a circus,” he stated in his video, which has garnered greater than 1.7 million views. “Figuring out the reality of home violence allegations is invariably a difficult prospect. In consequence, the general public’s response to those allegations has been extremely polarizing.”

The emotion amped up throughout Depp’s and Heard’s competing testimonies on the stand, throughout which proof within the type of recordings of private interactions and textual content messages, which celebrities normally attempt to defend from the general public, had been introduced into plain view.

The drama gave married attorneys Ashleigh Ruggles Stanley, 28, and Maclen Stanley, 31, an opportunity to carry some superstar tradition onto their TikTok account, @the.legislation.says.what. 

“When individuals take into consideration the legislation, it sounds very boring, and never like an thrilling TikTok you need to observe,” Ashleigh stated. “So every time there is a tie-in to one thing that persons are already focused on … persons are excited to observe.”

They’ve additionally damaged down courtroom techniques and reactions, drawing in additional than 12.8 million views for his or her 59-second video explaining why Depp’s lawyer as soon as made a celebratory fist pump when Heard stated one thing seemingly innocuous on the stand.

“That is a superb foothold to step in and say, ‘Hey, you might need seen and even favored this viral video, however let’s speak about what’s really taking place,'” she added. 

@the.legislation.says.what let’s talk about Johnny Depp’s lawyer’s fist pump #fyp#foryoupage#amberheard#johnnydepp#lawtok#edutok#johnnydepptiktok♬ authentic sound – Maclen & Ashleigh

Musso, the musician from Texas, in all probability will not be recording any extra parody songs in regards to the case. He thinks his second within the solar from the trial was price three songs. That is it.

Musso’s last providing, Johnny Depp’s Rap (The Last Trial Bop), attracted greater than 195,000 views between TikTok and YouTube. One commenter pleaded, “This cannot be the final. We’d like a cross examination bop and a verdict bop.”

However Musso’s made his choice. “I do not need individuals to get too sick of it.”