Note: Anyone who seeks to understand the thought processes and behaviour of abusive men should read Lundy Bancroft’s book, “Why does he do that?”, by a therapist who had worked with such men for 15 years prior to writing it. You can read it on Internet Archive. Also, I am using rather colourful language in this post. I’m not a journalist, linguistically restricted by etiquette, so please excuse me; these people are exasperating.

After days of testimonies from Amber Heard’s witnesses in Johnny Depp’s defamation trial, still ongoing, the social media discourse has not changed one iota, the focus remaining on analysing Amber’s every facial expression, mocking her every apparent emotion, launching conspiracy theories and predicting her imminent loss of the trial.

This, despite Depp having already lost a libel case against The Sun in the UK in 2020, when he sued them for calling him a wife beater, an assessment found by the judge to have been substantially true.

Today, her witnesses’ statements are not turned into headlines, as was the case with each of those who testified for Depp, whose every word was all but framed by a hungry crowd; they were presumed to be credible from the beginning, despite the crowd having zero ways to prove or disprove witness credibility on either side.

Instead, on social media, it’s post after post and title after title on how she’s lying about everything, how Depp’s team wrecked her, how she’s a psycho and so forth. Day by day, the hatred increases; the theories get wilder. It’s almost as if the crowd were intoxicated with…well, whatever Johnny Depp was taking, to make him so paranoid, hateful and arrogant.

At a minimum, you could call this a loss of objectivity, fairness and decency on a monumental scale, given the number of people involved in targeting this woman while she makes her case in court.

One might be tempted to think of those who make death threats or mock someone’s experience of domestic violence as evil, particularly when they engage in targeted harassment. These folks however are not worthy of that consideration. The notion of evil is, after all, associated with some form of intelligence.

Even casting them in a real life version of Idiocracy would be unnecessarily flattering. Likewise, the fine inhabitants of the Capitol in The Hunger Games fail to depict the level of desensitisation by comparison – at least those folks were paying attention to the cruelty they were witnessing.

Without taking away from their individual humanity (lest I become like them), when congregating, Depp’s supporters become the goo from Ghostbusters, emerging from the sewers to flood the streets whenever summoned. They become ectoplasm, to be pointed by his PR team and social media whores (not to be mistaken with sex workers) in any given direction.

Turning an arrogant, controlling man with a violent temper into a saint who wouldn’t hurt a fly

One can easily tell the crowd is performative only in attributing the innocent victim status to Depp, as people in the real world are acquainted with the dynamics of a relationship dominated by a man’s paranoid jealousy, objectification of women, career control of his spouse, extreme intoxication and drunken vandalism (rampages actually). All of the above have been proven on Depp’s part.

Common sense, as well as decades of research, determine that a combination of those elements is highly indicative of physical violence. A man’s drunken rampage quite often starts with an accusation, continues with smashing property and ends with assault. After all, jails are full of such men who couldn’t control themselves for a reason – the difference being they didn’t have a team of lackeys behind them at all times, like Depp, to physically stop them from hitting *some* people *some of the time* or to clean up their messes.

Multiple witnesses have testified to Depp’s bodyguards intervening when he was about to physically attack someone. He was also sued for punching a crew member on set in 2018. It’s safe to say that their job isn’t limited to protecting Depp from the world, but also the reverse, and by doing so keep him out of prison. His bodyguards may well say they never saw him hit anybody and be correct – because when present, they would intervene before it happened. It doesn’t make the man a saint or a peaceful person; quite the opposite.

All Depp’s PR had to do was label him as a victim of abuse instead. As soon as this label took off, none of his proven behaviour, or his own words for that matter, were even considered relevant by the public.

Suddenly, Heard’s every antagonistic word towards him was dissected and turned into verbal abuse, while his abysmal language towards her became flowery language. I suppose when a man repeatedly calls his wife a useless whore and a cunt, she’s supposed to kiss his behind. Suddenly, she was seen as unhinged for throwing the odd object in his direction; he for a change was merely blowing off steam when vandalising entire properties. And of course, it was only because she had made him do it.

Overwhelming evidence in the form of private communications

While some people question the force used by Depp when attacking Amber on a number of occasions, leading them to question the attacks altogether, there is overwhelming evidence that he indeed abused her physically, not to mention mentally, the latter being a foregone conclusion.

A long trail of written apologies from Depp, not only to Amber but to mutual friends and to her father, can be found if someone pays attention. Witnesses also testified he would apologise after his drunken rampages (smashing property and frightening people in his presence).

There are also communications between Depp or Amber and third parties, referencing the abuse. The kicking incident on the plane, which Depp’s security now magically claims had not been witnessed by them, was discussed at length in a written conversation between Amber and Depp’s assistant, Stephen Deuters, which apparently contributed to Depp losing the UK trial. There, Mr Deuters, who for obvious reasons was not called to testify for Depp in the US trial, refers to Depp’s abysmal behaviour on that plane and apologises on his behalf.

As a side note, there’s this marvelous suggestion from Depp, that she should write a letter to him and put it in an envelope every morning, reminding him not to hurt her and not to go crazy that day. This, I know from experience, is a way for the addict/abuser/abusive addict to put the onus on their partner for how those interactions go, treating the drunken abuse like a natural phenomenon and not something they can prevent by not getting into those states.

This is not speculation; it’s right from the horse’s mouth:

The channel displaying this audio, Belle Antoinette, is among the handful standing up against the absurd coverage of this trial and rationally discussing the evidence, whereas most content creators/ click whores pander to the ignorant, rabid hoard (shame on them, by the way).

The past few weeks have seen a number of articles describing the cottage industry the trial has become, elevating the social media platforms of people previously unknown. Whatever their sins to date, a number of mainstream outlets (apart from right-wing ones, of course) have made the moral choice, going against the tide of tabloid rubbish inundating the internet. Those which allowed commenting however were predictably attacked by members of the mob.

The hashtag people

Johnny Depp’s strategy (or rather that of his team) must have included a clever maneuver – that of weaponising the brainless, buzzword-loving populace seeking approval by appearing to engage in social justice causes. The hashtag people. The ones who jump on any bandwagon to garner social media praise for themselves, in the form of likes and retweets. This crowd, of course, does not operate with half-measures. One cannot be a half-angel, half-victim, half-empath for them to champion. They operate with absolutes, because those they support reflect a certain way on them and must therefore be perfect.

The villain, likewise, must be completely stripped of any human qualities and condemned to the worst possible fate the crowd can achieve. Their supporters, be they friends and family members or only slightly affiliated witnesses testifying in court, must all be discredited to the bone marrow. Their character must be demolished with theories upon theories.

One of the most shocking aspects has been the crowd’s lack of respect for professionals such as Dr Dawn Hughes (who has testified in major cases such that of Keith Raniere), as well as a number of other doctors brought forth by the defence, ridiculed en masse by a bunch of gawking, popcorn-munching side show runners such as Angry Clickwhore Andy Signore and his audience.

The algorithm on YouTube and TikTok

As mentioned in various articles, an explosion of pro-Depp content has emerged on these platforms and previously unrelated channels started covering the trial exclusively to garner views. The narrative has become so one-sided that as much as one searches for content in defence of Amber Heard, it is nearly impossible to find. With the exception of the three channels linked to above, plus a couple more advising objectivity, I have been simply unable to find anything but content demonising or ridiculing Heard and raising Depp to a legend status.

An integral part of this tidal wave consists of click-bait content displaying fake inflammatory quotes from celebrities or events that never took place, which when one is following a court case can be very confusing. Thousands of viewers interact with the content (without paying attention) and comment as if it were genuine news.

The curious case of That Umbrella Guy

For a few years, the above-mentioned channel had complained of severe censorship on YouTube, claiming any content mentioning Amber Heard was being penalised or censored by the platform. It’s now safe to say that’s not the case at all, given that everyone and their dog is uploading such content, no matter how vulgar or unrealistic.

Recently, it turned out in court that this individual had at some point been in contact with Adam Waldman, Johnny Depp’s previous attorney, known for releasing confidential information to the press. He was therefore an integral part of the PR machine working to paint Amber Heard in a negative light, including by popularising the speculation that Heard or someone in her inner circle had defecated on Depp’s bed “as a prank” (this was never proven, and was quite likely attributable to a dog). The gesture made no sense as Depp was not even living there at the time and was not expected to show up to find it.

Since the trial began, this individual has been uploading several videos daily, each with an inflammatory, sensationalist title, each time arguing Amber Heard had damaged or lost her case already (the case is far from over and the jury has yet to deliberate).

What was real, exaggerated or downright made up remains to be seen when the trial is over.

In fact, it will be interesting to comb through a variety of titles used by such people while covering the trial, in hindsight.

In the next post, if time affords, it would be worth analysing the glaring IPV risks and facets of domestic abuse in Depp’s behaviour, as described by reputable sources working with domestic violence victims.