Why is Johnny Depp front and center to my entire online life right now?

May 1, 2022 4:34 PM

Why is it that no matter where I go online -- YouTube, Twitter, Insta, FB -- I am seeing loads and loads of posts (whether obviously sponsored or not) that are pro-Johnny Depp, anti-Amber Heard rhetoric. This is a topic I care nothing about and have done nothing to seek out, yet it is absolutely nonstop in my feeds. Who/what is behind this??

Is Johnny Depp paying for this? Are his fans paying for this? I really don't care about the details of the current trial but I'm flabbergasted at how I just can't get away from it.

(Also from the little I've looked into it, eff Johnny Depp.)

posted by BlahLaLa to Grab Bag (18 answers total)

I've seen some of it but not as much as you, and I'm similarly uninterested.

I personally doubt that most of what I've seen myself has been paid for, since it's mostly been small-time, non-bot accounts. I think that a lot of it is just that it's a really attractive narrative. People love to share stories about accusations of abuse turning out to be false, doubly so when they think a favorite celebrity has been exonerated. There's also just the fact that it's scandalous gossip about one of the most famous celebrities in the world. People can get weirdly invested in whether or not celebrities have done wrong or been wronged.

I've not actually read enough coverage of it to have an opinion myself and don't want to, but the truth is really irrelevant to how attractive the narrative is.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 5:00 PM on May 1, 2022

I feel like a lot of people have probably been in at least one pretty toxic relationship, where one or both of the partners was abusive or flung accusations of abuse around. (I have been in one myself). My sense is that diving deep into the Depp/Heard story is a way of revisiting some of that in a "safer" way, because it's not happening to you, and you can talk about it and get validation from likeminded others.

It has every viewpoint possible for those seeking some mirror of their own experience: the guy was the abuser, the girl was the abuser, one or both were making it up, both ended up being abusive in a kind of reaction sort of way, etc. So lots of people can see themselves in it.

(I'm personally trying to stay away from it because I find it triggering but the point is, I can see the lure).
posted by contrapositive at 5:05 PM on May 1, 2022

Garbage Day, Ryan Broderick's newsletter, recently talked about this.
posted by sagc at 5:15 PM on May 1, 2022

Aside from the 2016 US presidential campaign, I’ve never seen a clearer demonstration that misogyny is a form of mass hysteria.

I’ve deleted at least a half-dozen YouTube channels over this.
posted by jamjam at 5:16 PM on May 1, 2022

partly at least because the entire internet economy runs on clicks (most clickable = outrage, second most = adorable things) and this trial is one very likely to generate outrage opinion clicks.

however I like you have noticed that the preponderance seems to be pro-Depp and I too wonder if his PR team is perhaps paying for some of the youtube videos, etc. But I have no info.
posted by fingersandtoes at 5:16 PM on May 1, 2022

I'll hazard a guess - this is an example of the algorithm running as normal. People are clearly watching stuff about it - if I open up a private window and go to YouTube, the first video about the trial is a "reaction" video from three days ago with a whopping ten million views. So in order to maximize engagement, all the social medias are taking this popular topic and shoving it in front of everyone else's face. And as contrapositive says, it can draw a lot of people in because you can easily take sides or find something to hate. And many people are going to be in algorithmically-determined subject circles where viewership is going to be adjacent to something about the trial.

The entire trial is livestreamed and so in addition to the trial footage, there are going to be people doing reaction videos, hot takes, and analysis all for views and clout. So that's a lot of media out there which could be trending and thus pushed by the algorithm.
posted by meowzilla at 5:16 PM on May 1, 2022

The above points are good ones, but the driving force of it really is that Depp has a huge fandom, many of whom are social media savvy and well aware of how to push the algorithm to do what they want with hashtags and trending topics. If you're not on TikTok/fandom social media in general, you may not have realised how big he is to some people.

There are some examples in this article:

The self-deluding quality of this stuff extends to pure fabrication. One TikTok with 1.5 million likes is a short montage of Heard and Depp in the courtroom, with the caption “Johnny Depp looking at her for a split second gives her a smile.” As noted in a top comment, however, Depp doesn’t smile once in the clip. Lower in the thread, more users debate whether a slight pursing of his lips counts as a smile, and, if so, whether he was looking at Heard or someone else when it happened.

I doubt that his PR are paying for anything -- they don't have to. The fandom will do all of this themselves. Then the media captures it, echoes it back, and increases the spread.

Amber hasn't got anywhere near as big a following because she's nowhere near as popular with teen girls/young women in fandom, or the men who like to see successful women fail in general and have happily added themselves to the pro-Depp train.

If you've ever watched a kpop fandom storm Twitter to promote an album or single for their army, you'll know how it works.
posted by fight or flight at 5:27 PM on May 1, 2022

I'm not joking when I say the people who run social media want it that way.

I've had to "do not recommend this channel" dozens of times on youtube in the past week. The algo knows exactly who I am, their surveillance (which can show me an ad for a product I searched 90 seconds ago) knows I have never looked up or posted or spoken aloud about these people (until now I guess, we'll see what happens), and everything recommended to me is obviously pro one specific side rather than generally about the legal event or on anyone else's side.

A choice is being made. You already know who's making it, generally.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:52 PM on May 1, 2022

Also, incels and their ilk didn't, like, go away and they are *online*.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 5:52 PM on May 1, 2022

I follow a lot of law-explainer/commentary type channels, and from what I gather (I'm avoiding the topic), Ms. Heard's lawyers aren't doing too good. So throw arm-chair legal strategist onto the growing pile of reasons.
posted by ctmf at 6:04 PM on May 1, 2022

A lot of people are paying to attention to it, so the algorithms think it's a big deal. And if you interact with the subject even the slightest bit, the algorithm will think you're as interested as other people, even if you aren't. It's likewise the center of my online existence right now, and I know why. On Easter, my sister-in-law came over, and gave us all a lecture about how Johnny Depp is actually an even better human being than Jesus himself. That was, uh, not my previous impression of Johnny Depp, so I did a quick Google to even see what the trial was even about. Then a couple days later, after the algorithms had started to send me Depp/Heard content because of that quick Google search, I saw a video on my Youtube homepage with a title of something like "Depp accuses Amber Heard of pooping in his bed", and like, that headline is too funny to ignore, so I clicked on the video. I was disappointed, but by this point, the algorithm "knew" that I was interested, so I've gotten more and more stuff about it ever since.

Also, some algorithms are just stupid. For reasons, I still use Yahoo, and Yahoo's front page is absolutely littered with Depp/Heard content. It's pretty much all they do anymore, except for syndicating the most vapid Business Insider articles and summarizing TikTok videos (which is actually helpful, so that I don't have to bother ever going to TikTok). It's kind of a nice respite; for the past five years, Yahoo has been under the impression that my two biggest interests are Bebe Rexha (I have no idea who this person is) and children under the age of five dying.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:13 PM on May 1, 2022

Celebrity Gossip must sell lots of ads, esp. for high profit beauty products. I've intentionally avoided this topic, but it's being pushed hard everywhere and is showing up on my social media. I watch only a narrow set of videos, and don't 'like' celebrity stuff, but youtube recommends celebrity stuff routinely, so I assume the ads pay well. I do have friends who have opinions about this, but I can scroll on by.
posted by theora55 at 7:19 PM on May 1, 2022

What others have said, but simply:

-it's about two celebrities
-it implicates other powerful people (ex: Elon Musk)
-it's about two people who are/were sex symbols
-it's really messy
-Men's Rights Activists (barf) have latched onto it
posted by coffeecat at 7:27 PM on May 1, 2022

I think I agree with this take
posted by pullayup at 8:19 PM on May 1, 2022

Also if you're careful with your data and the algos don't have much to work with they will throw more of the stories of day at you which can wind up with a lot of the same story if it's generally sucking up all the oxygen in the online news cycle.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:04 PM on May 1, 2022

Look to the billionaires. Clicks are whatever is motivating Elon Musk to invest heavily. Follow the money, as ever.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:21 PM on May 1, 2022

It is a combination of a set of Extremely Online fans of Depp called the Deppheads (can't find a good non-paywalled explanation of them) and a bot army (which is probably distantly paid for by, or at least the brainchild of, Depp's weirdo lawyer Adam Waldman, who can no longer direct it from Twitter, since he's banned from there), as explained in The Hollywood Reporter's thorough autopsy of Depp's career in 2020:

"One of the perks a distributor can count on with Depp is his social media army of fans. They are among the most loyal and shrill on Twitter. They heap praise on the actor, eviscerate anyone associated with Heard, and have posted exclusive audio recordings of the couple fighting (albeit edited in a way that favors the actor). But many who have battled Depp question whether the army is real or high-end bots. [Heard advisor Roberta] Kaplan believes it’s a combination of the two, with bots amplifying what real fans post."
posted by Snarl Furillo at 12:14 AM on May 2, 2022

Admittedly I am not paying attention but yes, there seemed to be a lot of anti-Amber Heard posts recently but I put it down to Johnny Depp’s side/evidence being presented in court. This week, it’s her turn so the focus might shift.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:35 AM on May 2, 2022