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starlight-edith · 11 months

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Let me try to respond to everything. I am someone who has cared about this since 2016, but has in-depth cared since 2020. I am a bisexual neurodivergent abuse victim, like Amber Heard.

People claiming that they are abused after their claim abuse is, unfortunately, a documented phenomenon. It is called DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender). Unfortunately because women are more likely to be physical abuse victims, and especially bisexual women are abused an astronomical rate compared to heterosexual cisgender men, DARVO often involves praying on people’s misogynistic stereotypes (gold digger, cheater, histrionic). This does NOT mean it does not ever happen, but it is much more likely to be false if say a much less powerful woman with less wealth by a factor of over ten, says, filed for a restraining order, called the cops, kept a private diary to herself, and took photographs of her injuries.

What you are actually describing for yourself is similar to what happened to Amber. Despite being a man, you were the victim to Deny, Attack, Reverse victim and offender. Do you know what Depp’s defenders, and he himself used to latch onto her? Saying that MeToo meant women were always believed and men never were. Her allegations came out before the MeToo movement. Both the idea that a 13-year-old could “want it” and have power over her / that a person could leverage a movement that did not exist, or that women were universally believed are blatant and disgusting lies.

It is people acting as if the plain obvious truth of who has more power hinges on whatever lefties on twitter are saying. A trans boy before being abused by a 16 year old has no power. Neither does the person who is over two decades younger than a celebrity who was previously in a public pedophilic relationship with a 17-year-old and has a history of dating much younger women, who controlled where her closest friends lived and who was most famous for being his wife. Just because people can twist it using causes like “understanding the patriarchy” or “protecting male victims of abuse” doesn’t change the obvious truth. It’s not that either of those causes are wrong, but they do not apply in reality here. Also I am very sorry about what happened to you, and I hope it doesn’t feel like I’m overstepping to compare this.

I’m also an autistic person and an autistic woman and I’ve cried uncontrollably at seemingly random times when recounting my trauma just like Amber did on the stand. You’re right that body language analysis is garbage pseudoscience and has always been used to police and judge vulnerable people (using or actual police and carceral system to lock up people of color, disabled people, and LGBT people at a higher proportion than anyone else).

On other things about the case, I could go on and on and on about all of the fabrications Depp made and howe every one of them is debunkable. From the idea that the “burn and rape her corpse” texts were venting because claimed during the trial she was an “angel” at that time, to the idea that she shit in his bed and pretended it was the dog (he was actually the one DOCUMENTED to have wanted to make her step in his poop and pretend it’s their dog and sent this ideas to friend).

I agree that being an addict does not inherently make you abusive, but he blacked out frequently and had underlying jealousy and anger issues. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the pictures from the “finger incident” (the one where he claims she somehow exploded his finger off by throwing a bottle, yes you hear that right – and she claims he smashed it off in a rage), but he dipped his bloody finger stump in paint and while high and drunk and scrawled messages slut shaming her and telling her to “be careful at the top” – his team also has texted her apologies for kicking her while he was “blacked out” on a plane (that they tried to deny existed before he accidentally sent over more on his phone than he thought), and he called himself “the monster.”

His addiction was so bad that he involved Heard heavily in his recovery process and initially called her an “angel” to her mother and talked about how he would be dead without her. Addiction does NOT make a person inherently violent, but it can bring the worst out in you when you are already struggling, and it’s important to understand that it’s precisely because not everyone acts that way that it’s ultimately your responsibility what you do when you’re using substances.

As for the meme itself, I understand it’s a bit crass, and I don’t like the way it’s talked about so flippantly, but you have to understand that 95% of the internet were in Depp’s corner memeing rape testimony. That’s not the same thing as referring to Depp as Jack Sparrow. I think the point of it isn’t to make fun of him for being a silly pirate, it’s to make fun of fans who parasocially view him as a character he played instead of trying to understand what really happened and view things objectively. And it’s true that the hate campaign against her was full of sexism. I’ve seen people in left wing spaces crawl out of the woodwork and speak like 4 channers.

We have to acknowledge the misogyny on social media in the Depp vs. Heard case when the republican party posted a meme of Jack Sparrow after Depp won the case, when we are getting more and more fascist in this country every day. If this had somehow happened to a prominent trans man against an older and more powerful woman, it would also be necessary to acknowledge transphobia and point out if people had illogical parasocial attachments to the abusive woman. I don't like the way it's said completely, but I don't think it's making fun of male victims or even of Johnny Depp to point it out - and part of the snippiness or haughtiness is probably because of how hard it's been to hold onto the minority position of supporting Heard against a wave of support for Depp and bigotry surrounding it.

I’m sorry he what now-

Elvis part 2 electric boogaloo???

TL; DR feel free to not read the rest:

I think we’re on the same page here.

The online leftist space oftentimes makes me incredibly uncomfortable. It’s very reactionary. I’ve been harassed for asking simple questions I was genuinely confused about under the assumption that I was trying to “provoke” people.

A lot of people especially online like to think that they could never fall for propaganda but it happens every day. It happened to me several times, it’s happened to you, it’s happened to whoever else may be reading this right now.

Originally I felt as though heard’s retelling of the staircase thing seemed incredibly disjointed and false. Depp’s version made more sense and was more put together. But I can think back to the times my abusers told me “oh I abused you? Give me one example then” and when I blanked they screamed at me saying “if you have to think about it that long it didn’t happen” but that’s just not true. Our brains do weird things to protect us. I don’t remember half the abusive shit that happened to me, and when I do, it’s disjointed just like Amber Heard’s retelling. My abusers often leveraged the fact that they were being cool and logical and I was being emotional and nonsensical as a way to prove that I was lying.

I think exclusively consuming the case through channels like Observe and Todd Grande (they’re buddy buddy and often recommend each others videos to their fans) really impacted my opinions. When someone states their opinion as fact and then (Cherry picks) evidence that backs it up, it’s easy to just take their word for it. Sources: Dude, Trust Me

When Piper (Observe’s ex spouse who appeared on his channel often) came out about her experiences being abused I didn’t want to believe it because this guy was a comfort YouTuber to me at the time and I held their relationship as this shining example of what healthy love is supposed to be. I assume it might be similar for other people with depp although I truly don’t understand how someone could get that attached to an actor simply because they play a cool character. Some of my all time favorite characters are played by shitty people that I despise (Shatner was jealous of nimoy because he was more popular with the fans and literally stopped being friends with him up until he fucking died of cancer all out of spite, Micheal Shanks quit Stargate because he wasn’t “getting enough airtime” when he had multiple episodes dedicated to his character and had several main plot story arcs that spanned literal seasons).

I’ve definitely had parasocial relationships with creators I cared about. I was devastated when I realized that CreepShowArt was a horrible abusive person. I was devastated when iiluminaughtii, whose entire channel is dedicated to criticising corruption, was found to be not only corrupt but entirely morally bankrupt. I was devastated when Ned was proven to be an adulterer because he was the only example in my life at the time of a healthy and loving relationship.

But I didn’t harass people over it. I didn’t defend CSA to my last dying breath. It took me about two weeks to be convinced that she was guilty but only because she was the first. The other two I was convinced about in three days or less.

Obviously all of this is super tied to emotions for me even though I couldn’t care less about the people involved.

Bringing in false equivalencies to rope people like myself in was probably by design. The “market” of abused men is DESPERATE to be seen, valued, believed, and having someone as big as Johnny Depp proving our point skyrocketed the cause so much further.

But you know what I’ve noticed? They only care when it’s Johnny depp. I still get told by complete fucking strangers that my abuse wasn’t real and that I should suck it up and be a man. Unfortunately I’m not a millionaire celebrity that people really like.

The online leftist movement on its face is very progressive, but only when it comes to people they like. It’s like rainbow capitalism, on its face that’s great, we’re getting support, but the minute you look deeper you realize that it’s all performative. Walmart doesn’t care about my rights, crazyfrog69 on Twitter doesn’t actually care about male abuse victims, they want social points for being on the “right” side of the debate.

Being left is all about going against the status quo, radical acceptance, supporting everyone and anyone even if we don’t like or understand them. But now it’s about looking good instead of actually fighting for what’s right. It’s exactly like the current trend of punk/grunge clothing that comes from hot topic. Our clothes aren’t ripped for aesthetics, Janet, they’re ripped because we refuse to participate in capitalist fast fashion and look what you turned our movement into.

I’m starting to think this entire trial was just everyone’s excuse to participate in more performative activism just like the stupid black squares on Instagram.

This is just depressing.

#I really hope nobody reading this is named Janet #I hate saying shit like this because I sound like a Republican #like I’m not Ben Shapiro I beg of you I’m on your side!!!#I don’t really feel accepted in any political space anymore #I know several internet leftists are going to brand me a alt right extremist for this take and that just makes me sad #I miss Obama what happened to that? everything was so much better back then #(or maybe it was better because I was 6 and had no concept of politics)

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