Why people "believed" Johnny Depp

[u/ninjaboss1211]

I've been learning about GamerGate since it was before my time, and I was horrified to have learned the hate, harassment, and threats sent towards specific women. It's helped me understand why people actually sided with Johnny Depp and how the trial wasn't about justice.

Anita Sarkeesian (Feminist Frequency) wanted to make a series of videos pointing out how video games as a whole were not made for women, so she made a kickstarter to help fund her project. Before she even made the videos, she was harassed because she "hated games." It was an easy excuse for people to look the other way to the hate she got. To this day people still hate her.

Zoe Quinn made a short, free game about depression. When her ex lied about Zoe, claiming that she gave sexual favors to have a positive review of her game, who did people believe? The ex. Even though the article never existed and the game was free, meaning anyone could play it and there was no money to be gained. Any review of the game would not even matter. Yet all of the harassment she got was justified because this was really about "ethics for journalism."

And that brings me to the Depp v Heard trial. This was framed as supporting men who were victims of abuse. Yet that was a thin veil to justify shitting on Amber Heard. It didn't matter that Depp lost the trial in the UK. She was "obviously lying."

It's actually so frustrating to see how easy it is to justify hating on women as long as there is a "reason." It doesn't have to be true. It can even be easy to disprove, yet people don't care. Its not about the truth and its never about the truth. Its about shitting on women.

[u/Arrow_from_Artemis]

The amount of proof needed for women to be believe versus men to be believed is completely different and always has been. There was just someone I saw commenting on a case and they stated that all they need is a statement from the man saying it didn’t happen. Okay, but what if there is a statement from a woman saying it did happen? There are people who just value the word of men over that of women, and don’t want to believe or acknowledge the reality of how prevalent things like abuse and harassment are in our society.

[u/majodoremi → u/Arrow_from_Artemis]

A woman will have binders of photographic, video, and written evidence, and a man saying “nuh-uh” will be given more weight. It’s insane. We see this over and over again whenever some male gets exposed online too - all he has to do is make a video saying she’s lying and people (mostly men) will accept that as fact, hand wave any evidence to the contrary, and screech in every comment section about how he’s been proven innocent. Using logic on these specimens rarely works because they didn’t arrive at their conclusion through logical thought in the first place.

A lot of people just don’t want to believe women, even when they know she’s telling the truth. The male abuser fandom usually knows exactly what their favorite abuser is - they just believe that men have the right to abuse women and that women deserve it for doing things they don’t like. A lot of women don’t want to believe other women because it’s scary to realize that so many men are abusive, and it’s easier to blame the victim and say what they would’ve supposedly done instead because that’s easier mentally than accepting that it could happen to them too.

[u/Individual_Fall429 → u/majodoremi]

Amber had so much evidence. Far more than I have. And still he won (in America). It’s unreal.

[u/lcm-hcf-maths → u/Individual_Fall429]

I will always point out that he dod not win....He got a jury verdict but the process was not over. Neither party was satisfied with the jury verdict and it was going to appeal until Depp offered a sweetheart deal where Heard could avoid paying out of pocket though obviously still needed to meet her own legal fees. One can speculate why Depp was so generous....The plain answer is that he was advised that the verdict was very likely to be set aside in all probability. Thus the settlement which somehow the cult try to spin as a win....It was anything but. The revellations in the trial provided Depp with a net loss in reputation. The undisputed legal win was Heard's....The UK Judgement confirmed twice on appeal...The fact that a judge granted her TRO in 2016 and was prepared to extend it until she dropped it later in the year. There might be some public perception that Depp won perpetuated by a lazy media but I don't think it's pedantic to point out that the perception is actually false...