Plain English with Derek Thompson - Why Does the Internet Hate Amber Heard?

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

It's the trial of the century—kind of. The legal showdown between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard has captivated the country, and Derek is a bit confused. Why is everybody talking about this miserable celebrity relationship? Why are so many people obsessed with demonizing Amber Heard? Producer Devon Manze explains to Derek why she thinks the trial has conquered the news cycle, and The Atlantic's Kaitlyn Tiffany explains why the internet hates Amber, and what it says about the future of truth, fandom, and who we are on the internet. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [e-mail]. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Kaitlyn Tiffany Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys, Rachel Lindsay 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. It's the show about all things Bravo. From the Housewives to Summer House and everything in between, 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. 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 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 TikTok, 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 Amber Hurd trial. But I have to begin with a confession. 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 this story. To use the old adage, this is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The riddle is why people are so, so, so, obsessed with the story. The mystery is why people hate Amber Hurd so much, and the enigma is why online fandom is so frigging weird, and why being a internet fan or an internet anti-fan makes us act so stupidly. But first, as we'd like to do on the show, when the news is maximally strange, just the facts, a brief history of Depp v. Hurd. Amber Hurd met Johnny Depp in 2009, filming the movie

The Rum Diary, which nobody saw. They started dating into two years. 2011, they got married in 2015, Hurd filed for divorce about a year later in 2016. She got a temporary restraining order against Depp that alleged abuse, both verbal and physical. They settled that in court and heard promise to donate her proceeds to charity. 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. End quote. Two years after that, Depp's career starts to fall apart. In 2018, he sues a British newspaper, the son, for calling him a, quote, wife beater. Hurd testifies that trial, Depp loses the case. Movie fans began to turn on Amber Hurd,

two million of them sign a petition to get her fired from the movie Aquaman. In December 2018, Amber Hurd 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, end quote. The ACLU reportedly ghost writes that op-ed for her, for some reason. A little weird, but not criminal. Johnny Depp then sues Amber Heard for defamation for $50 million. Amber Heard countersues Johnny Depp

for $100 million. 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, Devin Manzi, to beg her for some clarity on this situation. So Devin, welcome to the podcast. How you doing?

Hi, it's going great. It's surreal to be here. So how closely do you follow the story and what is so interesting about it to you? At this point, it's sort of hard to avoid anything about it. 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 coworkers. it's just everywhere. And it's everything that people want to talk about. Even the people that are ignoring the Depp Hurd trial are like actively ignoring the Depp Hurd trial. They're like, I am doing my best to like ski around the obstacle

that is the news about Johnny Depp and Amber Hurd that keeps flying at me through my computer screen. Yeah, it's crazy. I read a headline that apparently it's more, sort of popular online than the Roe versus Wade overturning, which is interesting. Yeah, interesting to say the least, Depp 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 really, really fascinates me. Like the details of this

case, who did what to whom? To a certain extent, I have to declare like epistemic bankruptcy here. Like, I don't know. I will never know. I am personally not going to invest exactly what Johnny did or did not throw at Amber, and whether or not Amber did or did 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 Hurd. Have you seen this? Have you just seen how people online are to have it out for Amber Hurd 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. 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, you know, finding out who really was in the wrong versus who was in the right. 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 rooted a little bit in internal and external misogyny. It's like, you know, women have spent the last decade with the Me Too movement,

sort of coming more into their power. And this trial has in a way become kind of like a symbol of people trying to to take a little bit of that power back. 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. So next up, we'll be talking to Caitlin. I'm Derek Thompson. This is plain English. Caitlin Tiffany, welcome to the podcast. Hi, thanks for having me. Caitlin, why is the internet so obsessed with this trial?

Well, I think one thing to understand about why so much of the trial stuff seems to be everywhere is that it is emanating from these groups of people that are already really tightly connected and networked. So that would be the Johnny Depp fandom or related groups that are sympathetic to the Johnny Depp fandom. this is sort of why like, I mean, not to like draw this comparison right off the top, but 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 were super tightly networked, really good at like signal 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. I know that's like a really complicated question because it was like a thousand things that somewhat predicted the internet age in which we all live. But like in a nutshell, what was Gamergate? Yeah. GamerGate's like, I don't know, arguably the most like important like cultural historical event of my adult life. But it started actually like when I was my first year as a journalist like at a tech website. So it's very

intimately acquainted with GamerGate. But basically, like, GamerGate was this elaborate, like, I guess you could say, like, system or network of harassment campaigns that started in the video game sphere and was directed at women in that industry and then just radiated outwards to be sort of this just, like, massive outpouring of misogyny and reactionary politics on the internet. And a lot of these people that were harassing women, harassing female journalists often in Gamergate, were 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 in the last two years. 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, there's certain people that are more efficient at spreading the virus within an indoor environment. There's certain people online that by virtue of where they are in a network, they have 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 journalist, attack this male journalist, attack Amber Heard. they'll be very influential because of the scale of their reach and the scale of the people that are first order connected to them. Is that right? Totally. And I think even more so than during GamerGate, like, we now have an internet that has like pretty coherent incentive structures where, you know, there comes a like easy-to-spot tipping point where there's enough 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, a general interest YouTuber is going to make a video about because it will get a million views. 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. Like she did a lot of stuff about Free Brittany and Gabby Petito, whatever. So I think it's like 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? Right.

So what you're saying is like the, there's sort of like two waves of anti-amber herd. The first wave of anti-amberism are Johnny Depp fans. These are people who have lots of followers and love pirates, love, I don't know, Edward Scissorhands, they love the whole Johnny Depp canon. And the second this trial starts, they start pushing out a bunch of negative stuff about Amber Hurd, and they get a lot of attention from their own communities.

The second wave of Amberism is all these people who are like lifestyle bloggers or lifestyle vloggers on YouTube seeing, hmm, what is everyone talking about? 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-amber herd movement where it now is just this like all-consuming beast on the internet. 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 QAnon, like people who love puzzles or love to believe that there are like, you know, secret machinations behind Hollywood or behind like what the press isn't telling you. Like, they'll be drawn in. They'll be curious about this story. 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. for them too. So you're all the, like, it's just going to be this like sort of like rolling pile of junk. Right. That's the third and the fourth wave and the fifth wave and 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. Describe first the nature of the internet's hatred for Amber Heard. Like give me examples. What level of disgust are we talking about here? Yeah, like total disgust. 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 on Twitter, and I started to see them tweeting, like, you know, listening to Amber Hurd makes me sick. Like, Amber Hurd is the plague. And then, so that was pretty startling because I thought that language was, like, pretty strong and unexpected from them, especially because the Harry Styles fandom considers itself to be pretty progressive. And then, you know, the second thing that I noticed that was really jarring. was on TikTok, there were a lot of teenagers who were, like, acting out, you know, Amber Hurd's

claims from her testimony about, like, specific instances of her, you know, being, like, violently abused. They were acting them out on TikTok to make fun of them in the state that's just, like, you, like, you could probably write a thesis paper on some of these TikToks because there was just, like, so much going on. It's so weird to see, like, a teenage girl ask her boyfriend to put on a pirate beard and pretend to slap her in the face as a joke. But, like... There's no way that people can see this, but I'm shaking my head and just utter bafflement

and confusion here. It's also, and we're going to touch on this at the very end, not only is it confusing just like in the abstract, it's 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. And 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 TikTok for likes and shares. Like it's utterly strange to me what is happening here. 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. 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 anti-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 hate Amber Heard because they feel that she is like manipulative and calculated and out to ruin his life. That's, I think, a huge portion of the, of the anti-fans that we're talking about. There are probably a sizable number who are also just solely anti-fans of Amber Heard, like just don't, like, don't care about Johnny Depp that 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,

well, 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. Like, I just think Amber Heard is repulsive. So that's anti-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 and forming opinions about the person's clothes and learning about, like, who their friends are and, you know, 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, like, motive. Before we go any deeper on anti-fandem,

can you just give me something concrete about why, people don't like her. Like, maybe I'm just like too agreeable to like understand this, but like, you know, I'm not even asking you to, to, you know, reanimate other people's disgust of Amber Heard. So maybe just answered 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? What is it about her? I mean, I think, like part of the issue is that the testimony is really complicated and johnny

dep has made a lot of claims that amber heard was abusive towards him um and like you know i don't want to like get into evaluating the validity of their various claims that they're that are being uh we have no idea court but um like i like i do think that she's like something a little bit less than our perfect ideal of a victim and that's confusing to people sincerely confusing to people or to others like sort of an opening in which to say like she is making this 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 draw on these really like visceral images or he has also claimed that she like pooped in their bed. And these people have drawn on that to paint this like picture of her as like just totally out of control and very grotesque. It's just so interesting to me because in my conceptualization of it, it's like there are some relationships that are just really, really bad. There's some relationships that are just really bad. He is bad 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.

And it's clear at least or plausible that they've been. both did either verbally or physically abusive things to each other. It's just very interesting to me that a situation like that requires 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 suckily for 11 months. Like I'm not trying to be glib about it, but that just seems like such a plausible description of what happened here rather than one person being an angel and the other being a devil. But that's what anti-fandom does, it seems. It fits complicated reality into the straight jacket of angel devil.

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. That's the idea that a lot of Democrats aren't pro-democrat. They're really fundamentally anti-Republican, or even just anti-Trump. And that is how they define their political identity. They're actually kind of anti-democrats, too, but they're mostly. 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 becoming Republicans. This concept of negative polarization in 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. I'm a big podcast person. I love sports podcasts. 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. That is the best way to wake up in the morning is to have a really articulate description

of why the person or teen that you hate is even worse than you thought. And I get to a certain extent where that motivation for anti-fandom might come from. But as you point out, in this case, it goes on level deeper. They're not just negatively polarized. They don't just enjoy hearing about their least favorite player being shitty. They're looking for ways. They're sleuthing for ways to prove that Amber Heard is the demon, right? Talk a little bit about this sort of detective work that is a part of the anti-amber internet.

Yeah. So I think that's another reason that people are really drawn to this story is because there's so much material. 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 Hurd mentions, like, the specific date that something happened to her, like, that she was abused. They're then going to find, like, every photo of her taken around that date to kind of say, like, well, it doesn't look like she was suffering. Doesn't look like she was miserable, whatever. So going through, like,

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 and like what that might reveal about what they're saying, which is something that was super familiar to me from reporting on the anti-fans in the One Direction fandom who were really, um, obsessed with one of the band members, he had like a woman he was casually seeing and got pregnant. And they were infuriated by this because it seemed to counter or like confuse 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.

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 closer, you'd be like, I actually can't hear anybody saying what this caption says. Like, you know, but like this, I thought that was like so bizarre at the time

because this was like 2015, like before people were really talking so much about like media manipulation or like. Disinformation, malinformation. 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 access to the same machine and the same internet. We feel like we have equal access to the truth. And this is beautiful in some ways. It allows us to become smarter. It allows us to become expert at various things that we're

we didn't necessarily study or that outside of our of our interests and domains. But it also allows us to, you know, get out of our lane, get into a lane 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&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 go right ahead i do have a question um and this is something that's sort of been like the most mystifying thing for me about the whole amber her jenny debt trial social media response so you you know you mentioned that like a lot of harry styles stands are

getting into it online and are super anti amber heard 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 onto Amber Hurd? Yeah. I mean, I think like partly it's just because of where

the story was born, 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. Like that's obviously misogynistic. Like that's just plainly the definition of misogyny. But a lot of them will say like no. Um, actually, like, basically, like, as a woman, like, I can see through her. Like, men 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 case, I feel like a lot of participants have really, like, evoked their, like, moral duty to me, too, 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, 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 like yeah like as I said like kind of contorting um in order to like make things fit their like you know progressive framework but i think it's so interesting to think about this coexisting with the me too movement which is no more than a few years old and you should

play this out a little further i think this is a point that michelle goldberg made the new york times today or yesterday i mean 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 debt right now this art this story is completely taken over the world. But she makes the point here, quoting from her now, 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-fiance

Evan Rachel Wood, who, by the way, has accused him of all sorts of things and has this documentary in HBO, continuing to read, and one of several women who have accused him of sexual violence. end quote so it 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 it can potentially become open season on the accuser because they won't be perfect there's never going to be an angel fallen from heaven who accuses a celebrity of physical or verbal abuse,

there's going to be something in their past that is at least a little bit, 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 bad. I have no idea about her moral character. Maybe she is as bad as some of the conspiracy theorists say. But you can run this playbook on anyone, and it creates a scenario where coming out against a celebrity for verbal and physical abuse is extremely risky because you're afraid of getting the Amber Heard treatment. 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 maybe they have from, like, previous similar incidents.

like, you know, took us like, what, 15 years to deal with in Britney Spears issue. But, yeah, I think that it is, it is, like, troubling. And it's strange to think about this isn't necessarily, like, young women, yeah, isn't where I would have imagined a Me Too 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, I think, probably are covering up, like, an opinion that they had the whole time, which is that, like, women are liars 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. But, yeah. I wonder, my last question for you is what the big picture takeaway from this episode is. I think for me, the big picture takeaway is that, like, the social physics of the internet has no moral conscience, like, the exact same logic by which seeing a trend of dumping an ice bucket of water on your head to support a terrible disease, research for a terrible disease, is the exact same social logic that leads, like, ensigns Lance Bass to act out Amber Hurd's testimony on

to get likes on TikTok. 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. 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 attacking Amber Hurd, because everyone else is attacking Amber Hurd, it's basically a cascade of social influence, then people act like dicks. And that's like my kind of big takeaway,

is that like the same function can force us toward like good or morally ambivalent sort of 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 fandom 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. Everyone knows the angry 4chan boys are bad. And that when they try to manipulate the topic of conversation on the internet, that we should be scared of that. 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,

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 of fandom. But these things exist on the same spectrum. 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, that like teen girls on the internet are home.

harmless and it's like the in cells that we need to be worried about all the time. 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, Devin, what did you think?

I think that that was all really fascinating. 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 thing about me. But 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 Too era and to, you know, the Trump election and, yeah, I don't know. I've just been noticing online.

It's been people have been growing bolder and louder, and this has kind of become like a lightning rod for all of that. Yeah, I think culture's a pendulum, you know. I would love to pretend that, like, the arrow of progress is purely linear and things just get better and better and better. But culture's 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 sprung too far,

and they wait for a moment, I think, to let spring this deep well of misogyny. And they find a moment like this 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. And I hate that we had to pretend that women are always telling the truth because I hit blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and suddenly they're out with it. And so we're seeing all sorts of attitudes that I think some men, and I guess some women, too, have toward women that for a few years were sort of like stifled because what was going viral were Me Too sentiments rather than anti-amber sentiments. And I think, you know, one of my big takeaways, I guess, is just like, this is just bizarrely and unfortunately,

like, how culture works. Is it works in this weird, pendulum-y kind of thing? To a certain extent, I guess you could argue that 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. So there again, you see the pendulum of culture swinging back. And I don't know, to me, that's another takeaway from this. Yeah, definitely. I mean, my takeaway is just that I am worried a 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, 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 Amber was lying about this, Evan Rachel, Rachel Wood is probably lying too. And I've just, it sets a kind of scary precedent that I think, I don't know, I don't know if it's going to continue. The president is backtracking. I think that real progress was made in the Me Too movement in terms of not immediately jumping to the conclusion

that beautiful women, who claim verbal and physical abuse are probably hiding something and just out to get their alleged abusers. 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 return 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 details of the case. Devin, thank you very much. My pleasure. see you next week. And everyone else, I will see you next week.