--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial has entered its sixth and likely final week of testimony. Over these six weeks, we have had a lot of news. The war in Ukraine, surging inflation, Elon Musk tries to buy Twitter, political primaries, a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that could spell the end of Roe v. Wade, a baby formula crisis, I could go on. But for these six weeks, if you've logged into any kind of social media, you've been subjected to just an onslaught of... I have a message for Amber Heard. Amber, I just would like to...
--:-- [Sound of laughter]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Ahead on Today Explained why the internet hates Amber Heard. I know it's really sad. There's no court for the next week, but it's perfect. It gives me time to dissect Amber's lies on the stand.
--:-- [Sound of laughter]
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Caitlin Tiffany, staff writer at The Atlantic, you recently wrote about Johnny Depp and Amber Heard and why the internet hates Amber Heard so much. Is it just me or is it on like every platform everywhere?
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Yeah, it is. I think it's been bubbling up for about a month. The first wave of coverage was journalists being like, is this real? Like, are these bots? Are these people? This can't possibly be like such a widespread topic of debate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hundreds of miles away from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, This high-profile case will be right here in Fairfax County. And in a rare move, cameras will be allowed inside the courtroom.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: What seems immediately attractive about this story, I think, is that it's the kind of thing that involves a lot of salacious details and a lot of different celebrity players, including Elon Musk, very tangentially. Attorneys may want to hear from the world's wealthiest man because he dated Amber Heard. So it really appeals to this culture that's super concentrated on the internet right now of like investigation and amateur sleuthing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: All right, you guys, let's get into it. More lies Amber told on stand part. I can't keep up. What I would call like pop culture true crime. Pop culture true crime. You know, kind of like the aftermath of the Free Britney movement. People are really interested in this process of like wading through court documents and through various like depositions and testimony.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Remember Source X? They said Amber definitely went through hard times because of his addiction, but he was not abusive. I think it's just like a really rich well of content to mine, I guess. It's more so even than just the normal speculating about a celebrity where you have paparazzi photos to go through.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Amber Heard lying again after they played a recording of her hitting Johnny Depp. Again, that's you and Mr. Depp on that recording, right? That's correct. And Mr. Depp was hiding from you in the bathroom. Isn't that right, Ms. Heard?
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: I think a lot of people got into this during the pandemic with like the Gabby Petito case or QAnon. I don't think this is directly related to QAnon, but I think it's like the same kind of urge to put these puzzle pieces together and pull from this really big sprawl of documents and hidden connections.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so I think that's part of it. Let's just wind back and talk about everything that's happened up until this point. These two people, they really seem to hate each other now, but that wasn't always the case, right?
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Yeah. She's of another era, you know. I mean, it's like walking into a room and meeting Lauren Bacall or Betty Davis or, you know, any sort of great Veronica Lake. So Johnny Depp and Amber Heard met in 2009, which would have been maybe not the peak of his career, but still a high point of his career. Definitely like amidst Pirates of the Caribbean frenzy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You're supposed to be dead! Am I not? And the beginning of Amber Heard's career. So she was much younger than him, like 20 years younger than him. They started dating in 2012, and in 2015, they got married. And they were only married for a year. In 2016, Amber Heard filed for divorce and requested a protective restraining order, which she was granted by a judge in Los Angeles.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: The 30-year-old actress accused Depp of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse. well before the events of Me Too, which arguably was kicked off in October 2016 with the Trump hot mic. This was locker room talk. The story was kind of murky. There weren't a lot of details available. They released these kind of like vague statements. They were saying that there wasn't like an intention of physical harm in their relationship, which was very vague.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then they also said that Amber Heard hadn't lied for financial gain. So that was vague, too. Hmm. So even way back then, in 2016, the two of them essentially signed statements saying Amber Heard did not make anything up for money Right But it also didn you know outline any culpability on Jenny Depp part either You know, at first she got this $7 million divorce settlement, but she said she would be donating all of it.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: So there wasn't as much controversy, as far as I recall, about this situation at that time because there weren't a lot of details available and there wasn't much to create a narrative out of. So that's where it starts. How does that start to change?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, so it starts to change when the allegations are sort of resurfaced because of Me Too and because of the attention that was being put on sexual abuse and violence in Hollywood and in popular culture in 2017. And then Amber Heard becomes an ambassador on women's rights for the ACLU.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Here we are, enduring and surviving almost too much, and I want to just be one of the many, many voices right now of women, of countless women who are standing up and saying, enough is enough, hear me too, yes, me too, time's up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's the capacity in which she wrote the op-ed for The Washington Post, in which she talks about herself as a public figure who represents domestic abuse and had all these experiences with a more powerful man who she doesn't name. But her allegations get a lot of coverage, including The Sun, a British tabloid, writes a headline about them in which it refers to Johnny Depp as a wife beater.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: So that instigated him suing the tabloid for libel in the UK which is an important precedent in this case because in the course of that trial which took place in 2020 Amber Heard testified specifically to substantiate the claim that Johnny Depp was a literally quote-unquote a wife beater.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This morning Johnny Depp lost his libel trial against The Sun after they branded him a wife beater. Judge Mr Justice Nickel found that 12 of the 14 alleged incidents of domestic violence were, in his words, substantially true.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: And in 2019, then Johnny Depp filed the lawsuit against Amber Heard for defamation because of her Washington Post op-ed, which has brought us to this trial now. That's the claim that the jury will be deliberating on.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So basically, the UK has already been through this to some degree, and they decided that Johnny Depp is, in fact, a wife-beater. Correct. And then he sues Amber Heard again at some point in Virginia?
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Yeah. He sued in Virginia for sort of complicated legal reasons. But essentially, like, in California, where Amber Heard and Johnny Depp both live, you can file to dismiss a frivolous defamation lawsuit before a trial. So obviously that's something Amber Heard would have tried to take advantage of had she been sued in California.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But that is not part of the defamation laws in Virginia where, you know, the Washington Post, you know, maintains some of its business operations, which is why Johnny Depp was able to sue there instead.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: That's like a pretty common move increasingly. I think Virginia is getting a bit of a reputation as a quote-unquote libel tourism state for that reason.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So he's very much suing her there because it might be easier for him to win there. Yeah. I mean, maybe his lawyers are suing there because it'll be easier for him to win there. I don't know how much he knows about libel law.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: And this lawsuit is very much about the op-ed that Amber Heard wrote in the Washington Post in 2018. Right. I think, you know, basically the case would be about proving that Amber Heard is lying, proving that seemingly he seems to be intent on proving that she was actually the abusive partner in the relationship.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then secondarily, he will probably have to prove that what she wrote about caused him significant financial or emotional harm of some kind.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: And despite the trial being very sad and personal and salacious, if you just consumed it via the internet, you'd think it's just one big joke.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right. I have a message for Amber Heard. Amber, I just would like to, oh, I thought you were going to punch me.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: So basically, as soon as testimony started being presented in the trial, there was this kind of cottage industry of people pulling moments from it, either because they were really disturbing and it was kind of a watching a car accident type of situation or because they wanted to make fun of them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Amber, what do you recall on June the 16th?
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: I don't know. He was looking at me. And I just saw, I just saw in his eyes, brown. Because his eyes, they're brown.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For example, in some of Amber Heard's testimony, she was describing a moment in which Johnny Depp slapped her across the face pretty quickly on TikTok. There were dozens of teenagers acting this scene out in order to highlight what they felt was an inconsistency.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: I said, Johnny, you hit me. You hit me. In the face. my back was towards you but you hit me in the face but i mean obviously she meant that she had been hit so hard that she was facing the other way and then had to turn back around but but pretty much immediately people were acting it out making fun of these inconsistencies they thought they saw in her testimony picking out these really grotesque images like um johnny depp has accused amber heard of pooping in his bed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So they've come up with these nicknames like an Amber Turd fan accused her of exploiting like me poo instead of me too sympathy. And there have been just like just meme after meme after meme after viral rumor.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Yeah, I've seen claims that she murdered her own mother so that she wouldn't be able to testify in favor of Johnny Depp. It's been weird to see just like how pervasive it is because I don't think that it's only Johnny Depp fans. I've seen members of all kinds of fandoms talking about how disgusting they find Amber Hurd.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I follow a lot of Harry Styles accounts for worker reasons and a lot of them were tweeting like Amber Hurd is the plague claiming that she setting women rights back by making up these claims
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: It's just it's a total mess. And my friend Ryan Broderick, who has an Internet culture newsletter called Garbage Day, his coverage of it, he titled like something like all the worst people on the Internet have found each other.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I felt like that was a really accurate summation of what's going on. Why all the meanies on the internet are being so mean to Amber Heard?
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: In a minute, on Today Explained. Support for today's show comes from Adio. What is Adio?
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--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Far too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown, or one we never wanted in the first place. But still, we stick it out, and we give reasons like, what if the next move is even worse? I've already put years into this place, and maybe the most common one, isn't everyone kind of miserable at work?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But there's a difference between reasons for staying and excuses for not leaving. It's time to get unstuck. It's time for strawberry.me. They match you with a certified career coach who helps you go from where you are to where you actually want to be.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Your coach helps you get clear on your goals, create a plan, build your confidence, and keeps you accountable along the way. So don't leave your career to chance. Take action and own your future with a professional coach in your corner.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Go to strawberry.me slash unstuck to claim a special offer. That's strawberry.me slash unstuck.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: I used to be respected. People took me at my word. Then I became a lawyer representing Amber Heard.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Caitlin Tiffany, staff writer at The Atlantic. You mentioned earlier that when we first started seeing Amber Heard, Johnny Depp stuff on TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, everywhere. The initial feeling a lot of people had was something like, this must be bots. This must be fake. Someone is paying for this.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Yeah. There were quite a few firms who analyzed bot activity that looked into it, and they found a couple hundred bots or something, which I think is pretty typical around any major news event.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There are people who will create bots to participate in it for various reasons, probably have to do with click farming. But yeah, I mean, in general, this is real. It's been pushed out on TikTok and Instagram and Twitter.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: And I think part of the reason that it's everywhere is that it's being pushed around by these groups that are already really tightly networked and are already really good at amplification. And that would especially be fans and fandom.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So are these Johnny Depp fans? Yeah, some of them are definitely Johnny Depp fans. Who knew his fans were this passionate until now?
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: I know. I think that's part of why people were surprised, because everyone knows who Johnny Depp is. I think he had a little bit of a resurgence when he got involved in the Harry Potter movies.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Magic looms only in rare souls. So some of it's definitely Johnny Depp fandom. A lot of it is also this kind of separate phenomenon. called anti-fandom.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Anti-fandom? Yeah, anti-fandom. Like you're a fan of not being a fan? Right, yeah. In a lot of fandoms, they're called antis. People who just viscerally hate a celebrity or if you're talking about a fictional character, a fictional character.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that is what determines their fan practice. And I think in this case, there's definitely a huge faction that doesn't care so much about Johnny Depp at all.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: I've actually gotten a lot of emails from people that start, I'm not a Johnny Depp fan, but people are going online to hate Amber Heard specifically. It's not anti-feminism. I'm very for feminism. It's anti-Amber Heard. There's a difference.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And some of those people are Johnny Depp fans who think that she's manipulating him and controlling him and ruining his life. And others just see her as this sort of, like, dangerous figure who's making women look bad or disgusting to them in some other way.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: But that is, like, as highly personal and engaging and fixation-inducing as regular fandom.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sounds like anti-fandom didn't come to be in light of this trial. What's, like, the history of anti-fandom? What else have people been anti-fans of?
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: The example that I have touched on the most in my own work is in the One Direction fandom. One of the members, Louis Tomlinson, he had sort of a surprise pregnancy situation with a woman that he had been dating casually.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Louis is expecting a baby with Los Angeles-based stylist Brianna Jungwirth, also 23. This was a very big deal within the fandom because a lot of people believed that he was secretly gay and closeted and in love with Harry Styles.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Yeah, as soon as this pregnancy became news, it was like narratively undesirable impossible There had to be a different story to explain why you know he would be on Good Morning America saying Obviously it a very exciting time So I'm buzzing. Thank you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Pretty much immediately, like an anti-fandom sprung up around the woman that he impregnated, Brianna Jungwirth, who was not a person who was in the public eye, really, until this incident.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: And this really aggressive anti-fandom sprung up around her. They were analyzing every one of her outfits, every one of her tweets, every one of her Instagram posts, but they were doing it because they hated her.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They were variously portraying her as this, like, mastermind who's manipulating Louis Tomlinson and ruining his life. And then they also, you know, discuss her as, like, stupid and gross and often, like, accusing her of being, like, a bad or delinquent mother.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: All of these things that seem on their face to be so obviously misogynistic, but what was interesting to me about them and about all of the anti-fandom examples that I would kind of bring up in relationship to Amber Heard was that they claimed to actually be feminists and said, I'm not misogynistic.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If I don't criticize this woman because she's a woman, that's misogynistic. And actually she's the one making women look bad. And it's my responsibility almost as a woman to call her out because men can't see what she's doing.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: That became a huge part of the Amber Heard anti-fandom, which was why I felt like, okay, this is part of a continuum or a pattern in fandom. we hate these women, but we are no longer comfortable saying, I hate women, they're gross.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So instead, we have these contorted explanations of like, well, I hate this woman because she's evil, or I hate this woman because she's actually undermining me too, or she's actually an abuser. She's actually doing all of these things that go against my progressive politics and my interest in social justice.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Do we have any idea if these anti-fandoms are more often directed at women? Yeah, it's definitely more often women than men.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, people hate all manner of celebrities for all different reasons. But I think the anti-fandoms that pick up a lot of momentum are the ones that are focused on women.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Another example I've reported on is Benedict Cumberbatch's wife, Sophie Hunter. His fans claim that she is just part of an international, like, drug and human trafficking ring.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What? Yeah, it's wild. Benedict Cumberbatch's wife, what did she do to anybody? I guess it's just that people were really surprised by how quickly they got married.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: They don't believe that their children are real. You know, they think she faked all of her pregnancies. Fake pregnancies or lies about paternity is really common in all of these conspiracy theories.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Gee, get a life, internet. I mean, just to be clear, there's no evidence at all that Sophie Hunter is an international crime syndicate mafia boss.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Thank you for that. I mean, thinking about Benedict Cumberbatch's wife and, you know, this guy from One Direction's ex-girlfriend, baby mama, whatever, Amber Heard has more reason to actually have fans than any of those people.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She was in an Aquaman movie or two. I can't tell. But is anyone coming to her defense? There's definitely little groups on Twitter and Tumblr that are supporting Amber Heard.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: I spoke to a woman who had made a new Twitter account specifically for that purpose, to debunk claims about Amber Heard's testimony that were blatantly ridiculous, or to point out the way that making fun of her claims of being abused, whether or not you ultimately think she's telling the truth about every single one of those claims, it's still really messed up to just make jokes about domestic violence on the internet all day long.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah. It just feels like we're supposed to be a little bit more mature at this point after Me Too, after Black Lives Matter, after just having some sense online that like there is reason to be a little more sensitive to people.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: It's sort of shocking to see how brutal people are willing to be to this individual who is on the stand whether you believe her or not like pouring her heart out and crying and talking about just awful things that may or may not have happened in her life i mean we don't know but it just feels wise to keep a distance and maybe respect it but that is not the way this has gone
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, if you're the type of person who makes any kind of content for the internet, there's certainly an incentive to start making content, making fun of Amber Heard, or at least following the trial from an anti-Amber Heard perspective.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: And there's been some like good reporting about youtubers totally pivoting to that kind of coverage because it gets tons of views or um i was following this instagram user who used to do like totally generic lifestyle you know here's my beautiful house in california type of stuff like her account has gone through like several phases of gaining like hundreds of thousands of followers and it's always because she starts covering something like free britney or gabby petito and most recently, Johnny Depp.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She just goes all day long posting clips from the trial and emoting about, oh, I can't believe Amber Heard used to make fun of Johnny Depp's Wynonna Forever tattoo. Like, we love Wynonna.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: I think she specifically said that was evidence of Amber Heard's psychopathic derangement because she would make fun of that tattoo. Her audience is clearly eating it up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's definitely, like, motivation to make this kind of stuff. It is really strange to see a Me Too backlash coming from seemingly, like, young women. That's not the corner where I thought it would come from.
--:-- Caitlin Tiffany: Caitlin Tiffany is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she wrote an article titled Why the Internet Hates Amber Heard. Recently, you can read it at theatlantic.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our show today was produced by Amina Al-Sadi. edited by Matthew Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and engineered by Paul Mounsey. I'm Sean Rameswaram from It Is Today Explained.
