6h 15min, sep 1, 2020 y - MEDIUM I Asked Johnny Depp’s Supporters Why They Fight for Him. Here Are Their Answers

Description:

I Asked Johnny Depp’s Supporters Why They Fight for Him. Here Are Their Answers.

By Deborah Handover

Johnny Depp currently awaits the imminent ruling on his U.K. lawsuit against News Group Newspapers, whom he is suing over The Sun’s 2018 headline calling him a ‘wife-beater’. The trial, which concluded in July, brought every imaginable detail of his volatile relationship with ex-wife Amber Heard into the spotlight. If you’re new to the case (or my perspective on it), read my previous piece for context:

A lot has happened since I published that piece. The English trial kicked up a media frenzy, turning attention towards social media, where support for the Pirates of the Caribbean star is strongest. Reporters like the New York Times’ Rachel Abrams and BBC’s Marianna Spring have dropped into the inboxes of pro-Depp social media accounts, the latter sending a boiler-plate message to seemingly every account she could find and the former going so far as to contact one user’s family members and place of work. Both appeared to be searching for some connecting thread, some explanation or answer to the ever-pressing question: Why do you support Johnny Depp?

Amber Heard recently proposed a somewhat unorthodox answer: no one actually does support Johnny Depp. Indeed, in Heard’s recently-filed counterclaim, she accuses Depp and his representatives of “creating, coordinating, controlling, and/or manipulating social media accounts created specifically for the purpose of targeting [Amber] Heard, computer-controlled social media accounts, and/or inauthentic accounts controlled by a single agent to amplify content misleadingly.”
She then goes on to claim that Depp needs these ongoing cases to remain relevant in the eyes of the media “while his stardom otherwise wanes.” Overall, Heard asserts that the majority of online activity surrounding the two libel suits is fabricated by Johnny Depp and his representatives, in order to “generate the impression that viewers and consumers do care”.

There are several issues here. Primarily, the claim lacks any proof that the accounts were created by, controlled by, or even contacted by Johnny Depp or his representatives. But above all, it implies that any and all outcry against Amber Heard or in support of Johnny Depp must be from super-fans or fake/manipulated accounts, because it is unfathomable that real people might be genuinely invested in a case with domestic violence at its center.

So why, if the users tweeting about these cases are indeed real, do they feel so strongly about to the matter? Why devote so much time to talking about it? Why bother?

I wanted to know the answer myself. So, I asked.

More than 100 people replied. Below are just a few of those responses.

[Full Article in links below]

Added to timeline:

Date:

Images: