Tomorrow, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s six-week defamation trial involves a detailed. Depp is suing Heard, his ex-wife, for $50 million, accusing her of defaming him in a 2018 Washington Publish op-ed wherein she refers to herself—with out naming him—as “a public determine representing home abuse.” Heard, in flip, filed a $100 million defamation counterclaim in opposition to Depp.
The jury will seemingly situation a verdict subsequent week. However on-line—the place each lurid element of the trial has not solely been dissected and debated, however ceaselessly weaponized in opposition to Heard—an inescapable refrain of voices has been declaring her guilt, and his innocence, for weeks. “The professional-Depp, anti-Heard stance is now a dominant development on social media,” my colleague Kaitlyn Tiffany wrote final week:
Throughout the net, Heard’s supposed lies have been changed into all method of memes, and even, by one cosmetics firm, a bit of selling materials. On TikTok, {couples} have been appearing out violent moments as described in Heard’s testimony, with a view to spotlight their alleged absurdity. On Tumblr, Depp supporters proceed to flow into the debunked declare that Heard plagiarized a part of her opening assertion from Patricia Highsmith’s The Proficient Mr. Ripley. On Twitter, I used to be personally stunned to see that even lots of the Harry Types followers I observe are, for no matter motive, adamantly anti-Heard. “Makes me sick listening to Amber Heard,” one wrote. “Actually amber heard is the plague,” wrote one other.
Livestreamed on YouTube, with quotes from witnesses and attorneys printed onto T-shirts and offered on Etsy, the trial has seeped into each nook of the web, enabled by an often-toxic fan tradition that Kaitlyn describes as having additional curdled into “anti-fandom.”
Warring fandoms occupy—and leverage—lots of the identical on-line areas that the polarized political factions do. As one former Depp fan, who got here round to Heard’s aspect after becoming a member of a Reddit group that helps her, stated, “That is QAnon 2022, with the Q drops being every day TikToks analyzing the secrets and techniques hidden in Amber’s physique language.” In the meantime, Depp v. Heard, my colleague Megan Garber observes, “has taken the scale of a political marketing campaign: propaganda, picture administration, exhausting proof subsumed into obscure partisanship.”
What are the real-world penalties for Heard, past the vitriol and harassment leveled at her? An entertainment-industry skilled testified on the trial that Heard could have misplaced $45 million to $50 million in endorsements, TV, and movie work over Depp’s claims that she faked her domestic-violence allegations in opposition to him, and a petition to chop her position, which has already been lowered, within the upcoming Aquaman 2 has greater than 4.3 million signatures. (Depp claims that he misplaced out on a $22.5 million deal to star in a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean.) It’s absolutely little solace to her that although she could also be going through the top of her appearing profession, she is going to endlessly be internet-famous.
Extra on the varsity capturing in Uvalde, Texas:
Newest dispatches: Molly Jong-Quick calls out Invoice Maher for his latest monologue about transgender youngsters [Wait, What?].
Tonight’s Atlantic-approved exercise: Learn Hernan Diaz’s new novel, Belief, which the scholar Jane Hu describes as “an audacious interval piece that … seeks to undo the hardened conventions undergirding myths about American energy.”
A break from the information: What can neuroscientists be taught in regards to the spontaneity of playtime? My colleague Ed Yong particulars the pleasant experiments wherein scientists taught rats hide-and-seek—and rewarded them with tickles.
The Atlantic Crossword: 8-Throughout, eight letters: Habitat for a halophile
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Katherine J. Wu contributed to this version.
