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What’s up, guys?

Rachel into here and I am teaming up with your favorite ringer podcasters to deliver the Bravo drama and news that you’ve been craving on morally corrupt, the show about all things, Bravo from the housewives, the summerhouse at everything in between.

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We’ll be mentioning it all every week.

Check it out on Spotify and the ringer.com.

Today’s episode is about the trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.

This is a trial that is totally captivated the country.

0:34

It’s obviously all over television.

It’s all over celebrity news, but it’s really bigger than just celebrity television.

I go on Twitter and it’s the top of the trending topics box.

I’d go to the New York Times and stories about Amber Heard are among the most read articles on the site on Instagram.

The story is everywhere, on Tick-Tock.

0:50

The story is everywhere on Saturday Night Live.

The story is everywhere, and I can’t tell you how many people have reached out to me, personally on Twitter.

Or reached out to the show on plain English and Spotify.com to say, please do something about this, Johnny Depp, a her trial, but I have to begin with a confession.

1:08

I don’t get it.

Like, I literally don’t get it.

I know journalists aren’t supposed to do this.

We’re not supposed to say like hi.

Welcome to a show about a story.

I don’t remotely understand.

Please stick around while I marinate in total confusion, but literally, I can’t with the story to use the old adage.

1:25

This is a riddle wrapped in.

A mystery inside an enigma, the riddle is why people are so, so, so obsessed with a story.

The mystery is why people hate Amber Heard so much and the Enigma is why online fandom is so freaking weird.

And why being a internet fan or an internet anti-fan makes us act?

1:44

So stupid lie.

The first as we like to do on the show, when the news is maximally strange, just the facts.

A brief history of depth V heard Amber Heard met Johnny Depp in 2009.

Filming the movie, The Rum Diary.

Which nobody saw, they started dating in 2011.

2:01

They got married in 2015, heard filed for divorce about a year later in 2016.

She got a temporary restraining order against depth at alleged abuse, both verbal and physical.

They settled that in court and heard promised to donate her proceeds to charity.

2:17

There was a restraining order that was dismissed and they issued a joint statement saying, the relationship was quote, intensely passionate, and at times, volatile and quote, two years after that day.

Career starts to fall apart in 2018.

He Sue’s a British newspaper, the Sun for calling him a quote, wife-beater courage, testifies at trial, depth loses the case, movie fans began to turn on Amber, Heard 2 million of them.

2:40

Sign a petition to get her fired from the movie Aquaman in December 2018.

Amber Heard publishes an op-ed in the Washington Post timed with the release of Aquaman that says she is, quote, a public figure representing domestic abuse and quote, the ACLU reportedly goes It writes that I’ve had for her for some reason, little weird, but not criminal, Johnny Depp.

3:01

Then Sue’s Amber Heard for defamation 450 million dollars.

Amber Heard countersuit, Johnny Depp for a hundred million dollars, and now we have the trial, so that brings us up to date and to start things off.

I wanted to bring onto the Pod, our producer, Devon manzi to beg her for some clarity, on the situation.

3:20

So, Devon, welcome to the podcast.

How you doing?

Hi, it’s going great.

It’s surreal to be here.

So how close if you follow this story?

And what is so interesting about it to you?

At this point.

It’s sort of hard to avoid anything about it.

3:39

I would say it’s hard to find someone who truly knows nothing about it because I feel like both online and in conversations with my friends and my co-workers.

It’s just everywhere and it’s everything that People wanted to, even the people that are ignoring the dep heard trial are like actively ignoring the Deptford trial.

4:01

They’re like, I am doing my best to like, ski around the obstacle.

That is the news about, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard that keeps flying at me, through my computer screen.

Yeah, it’s crazy.

I read, I read it in a headline that apparently, it’s more sort of popular online than the Roe versus Wade overturning.

4:24

It is interesting.

Yeah, interesting to say the least debt versus heard in the long run.

Probably is going to have less to do with the future of American politics and policy than Roe versus Wade, but there’s something about this that I really, really fascinates me like the details of this case, who did what to whom to a certain extent.

4:41

I have to declare like epistemic bankruptcy here.

Like I don’t know, I will never know.

I am personally not going to investigate exactly what Johnny did or did not throw an Amber and whether or not Amber did or did not.

Not take shit on his bed.

But the thing that I do know that is very, very confusing, is how much the internet seems to hate Amber Heard.

5:03

Have you seen this?

Have you just seen how people online are to have it out for Amber Heard for some reason?

Yeah, I mean At first I was like, oh, I didn’t realize Johnny Depp had so many millions of like Diehard fans that just were completely silent until now.

5:19

Um, I don’t think that’s necessarily the case.

I mean, I’m sure it is for some people but I don’t think that you know, everybody is super concerned with Johnny Depp receiving Justice and and, you know, finding out who really was in the wrong versus, who is in the right.

5:39

It feels like it’s more About creating this kind of gotcha moment for a woman.

It feels like this desire to create this like, oh, you know you were wrong to kind of prove this woman wrong is somewhat.

5:57

Rooted a little bit in internal and external misogyny.

It’s like, you know, women is spent the last decade but the me to movement sort of coming more into their their power and this trial has in a way become kind of like a symbol of People trying to take a little bit of that power back.

6:18

I think, that’s exactly right.

And so to help us understand this, we’re going to bring on my colleague at the Atlantic Caitlin.

Tiffany.

Caitlin is a writer about all things strange on the internet and she wrote a very conveniently titled article for the Atlantic called why the internet hates Amber Heard.

6:34

So next up, will be talking to Caitlyn.

I’m Derek Thompson.

This is plain English.

7:03

Kaitlyn Tiffany, welcome to the podcast.

Hi.

Thanks for having me.

Kate little, why is the internet so obsessed with this trial?

Well, I think one thing to understand about what like, why so much of the trial stuff seems to be everywhere is that it is like emanating from these groups of people that are Already really tightly connected and worked so that would be you know, the Johnny Depp fandom or related groups that are sympathetic to the Johnny Depp fandom.

7:34

This is sort of why I like, I mean not to like draw this comparison right off the top but it’s this is sort of like why gamergate felt unavoidable, right?

Like not because literally every person on the internet was interested in it, but because it started with these groups who are super tightly, not worked really good at like signal.

7:53

Boosting and just like pushing things out over and over until like, eventually it does hit that point of like Mass interest or like even just Mass passing interest.

So we just do a quick 101 on What gamergate Was.

8:08

I know that’s like a really complicated question because it was like a thousand things.

That’s somewhat predicted the internet age, in which we all live, but like, in a nutshell, what was gamergate?

Yeah, gamergate.

It’s like, I don’t know, arguably the most like important, like Historical event of my adult life, but it started actually like when I was my first year, as a journalist, look at a tech website, so it’s very intimately acquainted, with, with gamergate.

8:34

But basically, like gamergate was this elaborate, like, I guess you could say like system or network of harassment campaigns that started in video games, fear and was directed at women in that industry.

And then just radiates it outwards to, to be sort of fist just like, Massive outpouring of misogyny and reactionary Politics on the internet.

8:59

And a lot of these people that were harassing women, harassing female journalists.

Often in gamergate.

We’re really tightly connected like within the network of people on Reddit or Twitter or Facebook and Instagram, like if you think about sort of how the internet kind of works a little bit like a virus, this is an old metaphor that has been unfortunately brought very very close to our lives and Here’s what you’re talking about with like well-connected individuals is kind of like super spreaders like the same way that we understand that with the virus.

9:31

There’s certain people that are more efficient at spreading the virus it with in an indoor environment there.

Certain people online that by by virtue of where they are in a network.

They’ve really influential friends or by sheer simple virtue, of the fact that they have a lot of followers.

Like they don’t have 50.

They have 500,000 or a million people that are closely connected to them if they want to push a message that says attack this female.

9:53

Attack this male journalist attack.

Amber Heard, they’ll be very influential because of the scale of their of their reach and the scale of the people that are first order connected to them.

Is that right?

Totally.

And I think like even more so than than during gamergate like me, now have an Internet that has like pretty coherent incentive structures where you know there there comes a like easy to spot Tipping Point where there’s enough.

10:23

Interest in a topic that if you start creating content about that topic, it can be hugely beneficial for you.

So, this obviously started with fans of Johnny Depp like pushing out these narratives.

And then quickly it becomes something that you know general interest YouTuber is going to make a video about because it will get a million views.

10:42

Or like I recently wrote about this woman who used to be sort of a generic like Instagram lifestyle influencer and has since grown her audience, like exponentially by Covering these like pop culture.

True Crime, you know, stories that blow up overnight.

10:59

Like she did a lot of stuff about free Brittany and Gabi potato, whatever.

So, I think it’s like that, that two-step like is what really gets it to the point where like every single person in your life is like wow, why am I seeing so much stuff about this trial?

11:16

Right?

So what you’re saying is like the sort of like two waves of anti Amber Heard is mmm.

The first wave of anti Amber ISM.

Are Johnny, Depp fans.

These are people who have lots of followers and love Pirates.

Love.

11:32

I don’t Edward Scissorhands.

They love the whole Johnny Depp Cannon and the second is trial starts.

They start pushing out a bunch of negative stuff that and Ur Amber Heard and they got to get a lot of attention from their own communities.

The second wave of Amber ism is all these people who are like lifestyle bloggers or Lifestyle vloggers on YouTube, seeing hmmm.

11:51

What is everyone talking about?

What’s the trending topic of the day?

Oh, it seems to be finding various ways to hate on Amber Heard.

And so kind of like mercenaries.

They come out of the woodwork and they start producing content that is likely to get them a lot of clicks.

And suddenly, this sort of second wave blooms the anti and Amber Heard movement where it now is just this like all consuming beast on the internet.

12:15

Yeah, totally.

And then like, you know, both of those groups are able to sort of appeal to people that have like natural sympathies for what they’re doing.

So like you You know, the easy thing to compare this to would be q and on, like people who love, puzzles or love to believe that there are like, you know, secret machinations behind Hollywood, where behind, like, what the Press isn’t telling you like they’ll be drawn in they’ll be curious about this story.

12:38

Similarly.

Like, I think there’s been some coverage of like men’s rights activists who like, you know, want to emphasize how women can manipulate and Destroy men.

Like, this is a convenient story for them to.

So you’re all the like it’s just going to be this like Sort of like rolling, right?

12:55

There’s another down in the fourth wave and the fifth wave in the sixth wave.

Yeah, so let’s get to the article that you wrote for the Atlantic called and we’ve already started to answer this question, why the internet hates Amber Heard described first, the nature of the internet’s hatred for Amber Heard, like, give me examples.

13:10

What level of disgust are we talking about here?

Yeah, like total discussed.

I think like, what really drove it home for me and made me be like, this is really bizarre.

Is that like I follow a lot of Harry Styles fans.

Twitter.

And I started to see them tweeting like, you know, listening to a herd, makes me sick.

13:28

Like Amber Heard is the as the plague.

And then so, that was pretty startling because I thought that language was like, pretty strong and unexpected from from them, especially because the Harry Styles fandom considers itself to be pretty Progressive.

And then, you know, the other, the second thing that I noticed that was really jarring was on Tick-Tock.

13:50

There were a lot of teenagers who were like acting hanging out, you know, Amber herds claims from her testimony about like specific instances of her, you know being like violently abused.

They were acting that on Tick, Tock to make fun of them in the say, that’s just like you.

14:08

Like, you could probably write a thesis paper on some of these tick-tocks because there’s just like so much going on.

It’s so weird to see like a teenage girl asked her boyfriend to put on a pirate beard and pretend to slap her in the face as a joke.

But like you say, there’s no way that people can see the But I’m shaking my head and just utter bafflement and confusion here, but it’s also and we’re going to touch on this at the very end.

14:30

Not only is it confusing just like in the abstract, it specifically confusing given that we’re supposed to be in the era of me too.

Like I feel like we just had this National lesson in how women who plausibly put forth accusations of physical and verbal abuse should be believed, believe women.

14:50

And this is the, this is the exact opposite.

This isn’t just Don’t believe women.

This is don’t believe women and then investigate all the ways that they might be evil.

And then also like jokingly reenact their stories of abuse on Tick-Tock, for likes and shares.

Like it’s utterly strange to me, what is happening here?

15:09

And you had a really interesting theory that you put forth in your article.

It’s a theory of anti fandom and you touched on this whole academic theory of anti fandom on the internet, so, Tell us what that is.

15:24

Who are anti-fans and what is anti fandom.

Yeah, I think it’s a pretty simple concept.

Just like maybe one that doesn’t come up very often, but Auntie fandom is just like, you know, somebody who is paying close attention to a, you know, it could be a fictional character but or in this case a celebrity not because they like them but because they hate them and, you know, sometimes that’s inspired by like in this case, you know, there are Johnny Depp fans who?

15:53

I hate Amber Heard because they feel that she is like manipulative and calculated and out to ruin his life.

That’s a I think a huge portion of the of the anti-fans that were talking about.

There are probably a sizable number who are also just solely anti-fans of a herd like just like don’t care about Johnny Depp.

16:13

It just want to hate her and I actually did get a bunch of emails.

After I wrote the story that I didn’t read in full because Wow, they were too disgusting.

That started off.

Like I don’t even care about Johnny Depp.

Like I don’t even think it’s fair for you to say.

This is about fandom.

16:29

Like I just think Amber Heard is repulsive.

So so that’s Auntie fandom and it looks like fandom in a lot of its particulars like in practice because they’re doing the same kinds of things as like, you know, keeping track of everything the person says and like, you know, searching for more photos and more videos.

16:49

And for me.

And opinions about the person’s clothes and learning about like, who their friends are.

And you know what, their what their interests are.

All of those things that you would associate with being, like, a really big fan of someone that you adore.

They’re doing the same thing, just with, like, a completely different motive before we go, any deeper on anti Phantom.

17:10

Could you just give me something concrete about why people don’t like her?

Like, maybe, maybe I’m just like to agreeable to Understand this but like, you know, I’m not even asking you to reanimate other people’s disgusted.

17:26

Amber herds.

Maybe just answer the question this way.

What is the specific thing that most people call out when they’re hating on Amber Heard like what aspect of her presentation?

Especially if these people aren’t fans of Johnny Depp.

It’s like, why are you going out of your way to hate someone?

17:42

What way is it about her?

I mean, I think like part of the issue is that the testimony is really complicated.

And Johnny Depp has made a lot of claims that a I heard was abusive towards him and like, you know, I don’t want to like get into evaluating the validity of their various claims that there that are being.

18:01

Are we have no idea core but like, like I do think that she’s like something a little bit less than our perfect ideal of the victim.

And that’s confusing to people.

Sincerely confusing, to some people, or to others, like sort of an opening in which to say like she is making this.

18:20

Up, like, she just wants to destroy him.

You know, they think that she like he’s claimed that she threw a bottle at him and it cut off the top of his finger.

And so, you know, people drawn, these really like visceral images or he has also claims that she like pooped in their bed.

18:39

And these are people have drawn on that to paint this like picture of her, as like, just totally out of control, like, very grotesque.

It’s just so interesting to me because in my conceptualization of it, it’s like, there’s some relationships that are Really, really bad.

There’s some relationships that are just really bad.

18:54

He is back to her.

This is a heterosexual relationship that I’m describing.

He’s terrible to her.

She is terrible to him.

They’re awful to each other and they should just break up and they did.

They were married for like less than a year and they broke up and they said that they had a quote volatile relationship in their public statement.

19:10

And it’s clear it meets or plausible that they both did either verbally or physically abusive things to each other.

It’s just very interesting to me that a situation like that.

There’s that one be a fan or anti-fan of one or the other person in a relationship.

Like, maybe they both just sucked for each other and acted really suck Ali for 11 months.

19:30

Like I’m not trying to be glib about it, but that just enough, it seems like such a plausible, just description of what of what happened here, rather than one person being an Angel and the other being a devil but that’s what anti Phantom does.

It seems it.

It fits complicated reality into the straitjacket of angel devil.

19:50

And it made me think of two things.

The first is in politics.

There’s this concept of negative polarization, which is very popular in political science, as the idea that a lot of Democrats aren’t pro Democrat.

The really fundamentally anti-republican or even just anti-trump and that is how they Define their political identity.

20:09

They’re actually kind of anti Democrats too, but they’re mostly anti Republicans.

And then, on the other hand Republicans that are like, I don’t even like Trump, but I just hate the identitarian left so much that they pushed me to become a This concept of negative polarization of politics is somewhat similar to anti fandom, but the other thing it reminds me of is the way that I listen to podcasts in a weird way.

20:32

I’m a big podcast person.

I love sports podcast and there’s some days when I don’t really want to listen to a podcast about a team that I like.

I want something a little bit more delicious.

I want to hear someone shit on a team that I don’t like or a player that I don’t like, like that is the best way to wake up in the morning is to like have a really Ali articulate description of why the person or team that you hate is even worse than you thought.

20:56

And like, I get to a certain extent where that motivation for anti fandom might come from but if you point out, in this case, it goes one level deeper.

They’re not just negatively polarized.

They don’t just enjoy hearing about their least favorite player being shitty.

21:14

They’re looking for ways.

There’s sleuthing for ways to prove that.

Amber Heard is the demon, right?

Talk a little bit about this would have detective work.

That is a part of the ante Amber internet.

Yeah, so I think like, that’s another reason that people are really drawn to the stories because there’s so much material.

21:36

So, you know, some of the accounts I’m following people are, you know actually digging through the testimony line by line.

They’re looking at, you know, previous court records.

They’re looking at, you know, if Amber Heard Mentions like the specific date.

21:52

That that something happened to her like that.

She was abused there.

Then going to find like every photo of her taken around that date to kind of say like, well, does it look like she was suffering, doesn’t look like she was miserable whatever.

So going through like I have any photo, they can get their hands on or a lot of the courtroom analysis has been like zooming in and like slowing down and like attempting to provide captions for Things that people are saying under their breath or attempting to analyze people’s body language.

22:25

And like what that might reveal about what they’re saying, which is something that was super familiar, familiar to me from reporting on the anti-fans and the One Direction fandom, who were really, you know, obsessed with one of the band members.

22:41

He had like a woman, he was casually seeing got pregnant and they were infuriated by this because it seemed to counter or like, Use their story about him being gay and closeted and secretly in love with Harry Styles.

So they did a ton of like digging up videos and providing their own captions for them that like would go viral on Tumblr.

23:05

If you were inclined to believe them.

They would seem like, you know, this is evidence.

Like this is what they’re saying and then, if you would actually watch it close.

Are you like, I like, I actually can’t hear anybody saying what this caption says like you.

But like this, I thought that was like, so bizarre, the time because this was like 2015, like before people were really talking so much about like media manipulation or like creeping disinformation.

23:34

Now information, right?

There was no, even, you know, Biden, disinformation governance board for us to have a fracas about.

It’s interesting because this connects with my theory that the internet just makes detectives of us all for better or worse because we all have have access to the same machine and the same internet.

23:54

We feel like we have equal access to the truth.

And this is beautiful in some ways.

It, it, it allows us to become smarter.

It allows us to become expert at various things, that we didn’t necessarily study, or that outside of our of our interest and domains.

But it also allows us to, you know, get out of our lane get into a lane.

24:13

We don’t know a whole lot about and get sort of sucked down a rabbit hole of disinformation and become totally deluded about a subject.

I see this as a part of Q and on, I see it as a part of vaccine denial, this ability of average internet users to be their own detectives is this very complicated good thing that also has all of these bad implications producer, Devon has a question for you, Devon.

24:37

Go right ahead.

II.

Do have a question and this is something that’s sort of been like the most mystifying thing for me about the whole Amber Heard Johnny Depp trial.

Social media response.

So you mentioned that like a lot of hairstyles stands are getting into it online and are super anti Amber Heard.

25:01

I would assume that a lot of Harry Styles fans are women themselves.

So what’s behind sort of the large amount of women that are also piling on to Amber Heard?

Yeah.

I mean, I think partly that’s just because like of where the Story was born.

25:22

Like there was just a lot of women in this fandom.

But like that is a consistent part of like, the anti, fandom conspiracy theories that I’ve looked into in the past.

And like, you see like women in particular doing these like, really weird contortions around like, you know, obviously if you’re like, picking apart This Woman’s image and like calling her a liar in the public eye and like, you know, relying on all these tropes about Like gold diggers or like Jezebel’s or whatever.

25:53

Like that’s obviously misogynistic.

Like that’s just plainly the definition of misogyny, but a lot of them will say like no.

Actually like basically, like, as a woman, like I can see through her like men.

26:09

Can’t necessarily see what we see and it’s sexist for you to tell me that I can’t do this, because she’s a woman and like, especially in this I feel like a lot of participants have really like evoked.

26:25

They’re like moral duty to me to almost like, you know, there’s insist that like, you know, if she is a liar, like, she’s destroying me too.

And like, making things worse for, you know, quote unquote, real victims of abuse and like ultimately as a feminist.

26:42

It’s like my responsibility to kind of like police the borders of this movement so that it’s not corrupted.

And, you know, like I not a psychologist I think.

But that’s like, I mean, I think it’s pretty delusional and it’s like a little bit of like this.

26:59

Like, yeah, like I said, like, kind of contorting in order to like make things fit.

They’re like, you know, Progressive framework, but I think it’s so interesting to think about this coexisting with the me to movement, which is no more than a few years old and you should have play this out a little further.

27:18

I think it’s a point that Michelle Goldberg made the New York.

Today, or yesterday?

And even the New York Times, for example, if you go to like the most popular articles, like half of them are about Amber, Heard and Johnny Depp right now, this write this story is completely taken over the world, but she makes the point here quoting from her now.

27:33

Quote, if depth, somehow prevails one, can expect similar lawsuits against other women, who say they’ve suffered abuse already.

The singer Marilyn Manson has filed a defamation lawsuit against his ex-fiancee, Evan Rachel Wood.

Who by the way, is accused him of all sorts of things and has this Documentary on HBO continue to read and one of several women who have accused him of sexual violence and quote.

27:57

So it’s just, it seems to me that like a lot of these women.

If they are indeed trying to protect me to are somewhat burning the bridge, they hope to cross.

Because they’re, they’re creating a scenario by which every time a famous person is accused of physical or verbal abuse.

28:17

It could potentially become open season on the Accuser.

They won’t be perfect.

There’s never going to be an angel fallen from Heaven who accuses his celebrity of physical, or verbal abuse to score, to be something in their past.

That is, at least a little bit.

28:33

I don’t know.

Questionable sketchy, like, whatever sort of normal human, adjective word, you want to use.

So it just makes me concerned that.

This Playbook can be run indefinitely.

Like maybe Amber Heard really, is that?

I have no idea about her moral character.

28:49

Maybe is she is as bad as Some of the some of the conspiracy theorists a but you can run this play book on anyone and it creates a scenario where coming out against the celebrity for verbal and physical abuse is extremely risky because you’re afraid of getting the Amber Heard treatment.

29:06

Optimistically, I guess I would like to hope that this is this this like rash of backlash is so blatant and like so bizarre that like people will learn from it more quickly than Baby, they have from, like previous similar incidents.

29:23

Like, you took us like what 15 years to deal with her Britney Spears issue.

But yeah, I think that is.

It is like troubling and it’s strange to think about this isn’t necessarily like young women.

29:39

Yeah.

Isn’t where I would have imagined a me to backlash stemming from especially like not in this convoluted way where, you know, Some of them.

I think probably sincerely think they’re defending it others.

29:55

I think probably are covering up like an opinion that they had the whole time.

Which is that like women are liars or, or that it was like an elitist movement.

It was only ever about celebrities, or whatever which, you know, I think maybe there’s some validity to some of that criticism at some level.

30:15

But yeah.

I wonder if my last question for you is what the big picture take away from this episode is I think for me the big picture take away is that like the social physics of the internet has no moral conscience.

30:31

Like the exact same logic by which seeing a trend of dumping a nice bucket of water on your head to support a terrible disease.

Research for terrible disease is the exact same social logic that leaves like n sync’s Lance, Bass.

30:51

To act out Amber herds testimony to get likes on Tick.

Tock.

Like it’s the same thing, like people aren’t thinking when they log online with like their moral mind, first and foremost.

They’re thinking with their social mind.

31:07

They’re thinking, like, how do I get likes and retweets, and shares, and build social status on the internet and sometimes the way to do that is just to do what everyone else is doing.

So, when everyone else is acting ethically, I guess that’s kind of nice, but when everyone else is just Hacking Amber Heard because everyone else is attacking Amber Heard.

31:24

It’s basically a Cascade of social influence.

Then people act like dicks and like that’s like my kind of big takeaway.

Is that like the same the same function can force us toward like good or morally ambivalent sort of, you know, viral Trends and like sort of absolutely bizarre inexplicably, horrible mass behavior for me, approaching it from like as someone who’s really interested in fandom and has focused on fan.

31:50

And for a long time, I think this is also an important moment for people to think about like, you know, the way that we understand different groups on the internet.

I think has been pretty simplistic for a long time.

Like, you know, everyone knows gamergate is bad or when knows, the angry 4chan, boys are bad and that when they try to manipulate the topic of conversation on the internet that internet that we should be scared of that.

32:13

But, you know, more recently, there’s been a lot of talk about fandom being this like Progressive and inspiring movement.

You know, when when K-pop fans were taking down like police apps during the black lives, matter movement, people were really excited about that and that is like an interesting and inspiring use of the tactics that fandom, but these things exist on the same Spectrum.

32:34

They’re using the same tactics for amplification.

They can sort of exploit people in the same way and like it’s just something to be aware of rather than just assuming like anytime, you know, you know that like teen girls on the internet are harmless and it’s like the in cells that we need to be worried about other times.

32:58

Like the internet is a dangerous machine like in anybody’s hands.

The internet is a dangerous machine in anybody’s hands Caitlin Tiffany.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, of course.

Thank you.

So Devon.

What do you think?

I I think that that was all really fascinating.

33:15

It’s the kind of like hive mind of the Internet is just a really fascinating thing and I admittedly I spend a lot of time on the internet.

I spend a lot of time on Reddit.

It’s probably the most embarrassing.

33:31

Thing about me, but I I’ve been noticing this kind of growing movement of more misogyny.

Both kind of internal and external and I’m hoping this isn’t sound, you know, to conspiracy theory e, but I feel like it’s kind of a reaction to the whole me to era and to, you know, the Trump election and yeah, I don’t know.

33:59

I’ve just been noticing online.

It’s been people.

Growing Bolder and louder.

And this is kind of become like a lightning rod for all of that.

Yeah.

I think I think culture is a pendulum, you know, I would love to pretend that like the the arrow of progress is purely linear and things just get better and better and better.

34:18

But culture is a pendulum, like we swing one way in terms of me too.

And what happens is we swing to a place where a lot of people feel like the pendulum has swung too far and they wait for a moment, I think too.

Like let spring this deep, well of misogyny and they find a moment like this.

34:36

When a lot of people, whether it’s Johnny Depp fans or the second wave of you know, Instagram mercenaries who want to hop on the Johnny Depp fan wave.

They see this happening and they say, oh, this is my opportunity to finally say what I’ve always thought about me too, which is that I think it’s totally bullshit.

34:51

And I hate that we had to pretend that women are always telling the truth because I had ba bla bla and suddenly they’re out with it.

And so we’re seeing all sorts of attitudes.

Is that I think some men, and I guess women to have toward women that for a few years were sort of like stifled because what was what was going viral?

35:12

Were me to Sentiments rather than anti Amber sentiments.

And I think, you know, one of my big takeaways, I guess it’s just like this is just bizarrely and unfortunately, like how culture works is?

It works in this weird pendulum, a kind of thing to a certain extent.

35:28

I guess you could argue that it’s a similar thing is happening in the lgbtq area where you had a Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage and that was clearly a high Watermark legally for the gay rights movement.

But now I think in a lot of different states, you see a variety of bills that I would describe as relatively straightforwardly homophobic.

35:48

So there again, you see that the pendulum of culture swinging back and I don’t know to me.

That’s that’s another takeaway from this.

Yeah.

Definitely.

I mean, my takeaway is is just that I am worried.

Little bit, you know, not specifically in regards to this trial, but more sort of just about the precedent that it sets, because exactly like what sort of Caitlin was saying.

36:10

I’ve been noticing online stuff about, you know, like the Marilyn Manson case and people are saying, you know, oh, well, you know if if Amber was lying about this as Aunt, Rachel Rachel Wood is probably lying to and I’ve just it sets a kind of scary precedent that I think, I don’t know.

36:30

I don’t know.

If it’s going to continue Christmas backtracking, I think the real progress was made in the me to movement in terms of not immediately jumping to the conclusion that beautiful women who claim verbal and physical abuse, or probably hiding something and just out to get their alleged abusers.

36:48

Like that was a good thing to overcome and I’m a little bit concerned that we’re undoing some of that progress with the Amber Heard trial that said again, I returned to my initial statement about this case which is utter bafflement.

I have no idea what happened behind the scenes.

And I’m trying to remain relatively ambivalent about the about the details of the case.

37:09

Devon.

Thank you very much next week and everyone else.

I will see you next week.