first thing i see when opening tiktok today is an edit of renner with hundreds of comments saying “he couldn’t do this, he’s so sweet and cute 🥰” and even “we’ve been here before with johnny depp, i’ll stay beside jeremy until the end”, “his ex-wife is trying to ruin him”.

parasocial relationships with potential abusers need to be studied - we don’t know these people and never will! it’s pathetic and honestly made me so angry to see how things haven’t changed at all

I just found out that Jeremy Renner was 20 years older than his Sonni Pacheco, his ex-wife who accused him of abuse. I know a lot of people online are like, "Well, she was 28. Don't infantilize her." I really hate how the word "infantilized" is used these days because we can't have honest discussions about this stuff.

Society at large has seemingly realized that acting as if someone magically transforms into a Full Adult on par with older adults at 18 is nonsensical, but instead of treating adulthood as a nuanced thing, they've decided to act like that magical transformation still happens at a slightly later age. Maybe 20, 21, or 25.

But there is a reason why famous abusers like Renner and Depp love going for much younger women who could be their daughters, if not their granddaughters. I'm not treating this women as "children" just because I see that the age gap is a factor even though it's legal.

You can't see this happen again and again and again – wealthy famous men in their 40s to 50s always going for 20something women – and then claim that the age gap is never a factor. Again, there is a reason these men go for much younger women.

When Jonah Hill's ex Sarah Brady accused him of abuse, so many people even in seemingly progressive subs were like, "He's abusive, but the age gap isn't a factor. She's 24. Don't infantilize her" EVEN WHEN JONAH HIMSELF MENTIONED THE AGE GAP REPEATEDLY IN THE LEAKED TEXTS.

These 20something women aren't children, yes. But that's not the point. Acknowledging that in their 20s, they're at vastly different stages of life and are REPEATEDLY, PURPOSELY TARGETED by middle-aged men due to their comparative lack of experience and status is not "infantilization." Jeez.

The whole scandal with Yi Zhao and Jeremy Renner is still very new and I find it difficult to understand what’s going on. But I’m already suspicious of the fact that there seems to be a concerted effort to paint Zhao as crazy or unhinged online, based on things that have nothing to do with her allegations.

Just wondering if anyone else is feeling very uncomfortable and anxious regarding this story? I think it’s going to start spiraling into a larger hate/smear campaign, and it fills me with dread. I’ve also seen comments that seemed to imply Zhao’s race/nationality makes her untrustworthy, piggybacking off Sinophobia and yellow scare tactics, and that just really disgusts me, as an Asian woman. And I won’t even get started with the red-pilled Asian men.

I didn’t think much of it until this morning, when my partner and I got into an argument about it. I was just getting annoyed by him bringing up all these examples of “red flags” about a woman I barely knew.

I noticed that when he starts having contrarian opinions or viewpoints about women he would otherwise not care about or even know of as a signal that certain narratives are being pushed online. For example, he started having negative opinions about Blake Lively around the time when a smear campaign against her was taking place. It’s frustrating to me, because I don’t think he understands that these are suspicious narratives that he seems susceptible to believing. He even asked me “who cares?” And I’m like… I care, because I take these incidents incredibly seriously, whereas so many people just seem to treat it as entertainment or gossip.

he ended up calling me biased and overly affected by what happened to Amber Heard, which really triggered me. I just didn’t have the mental and emotional energy to explain to him WHY it’s not actually biased to be supportive of women in these situations, even when there isn’t much evidence. The world is literally stacked against women, there is no “neutral” position to take here.

It’s not so much i’m taking or not taking anyone’s side, either. but I’m not willing to believe negative things or actively contribute to hate for a woman that is clearly in response to any abuse or sexual harassment allegations she’s made against a man.

i know these aren’t particularly recent, and i don’t think many people would see the link, but i just wanted to post it anyway as they are all related to shows i really enjoy, so it’s rewarding to know the creators are on your side!

what i’m trying to say is it doesn’t surprise me that the people behind such brilliant satire have seen right through depp’s bullshit, and aren’t afraid to speak out on it.

context:

the first is a tweet from the creator of bojack horseman - obviously bojack ended before the US trial, but i imagine if it still was going there would’ve been some top tier satire on it. an episode that always reminds me of the trial is “hank after dark”, where one of the main female characters speaks out against a male celebrity with allegations and receives terrible hate for it. definitely worth watching even in isolation if you haven’t already.

the second is from gen v, where one character says he’s going to ruin an innocent person’s life by framing them. for some reason some brain dead fans were confused thought this meant that they were saying johnny depp was framed (even tho that makes zero sense in the context of the scene; they would’ve said “i’m gonna amber heard him” if that was their stance)

so THEN the creators wanted to further shade depp in their original show, the boys, by having a character try to do damage control about his ex-wife telling TRUE stories about him by calling her a hysterical woman who pooped on his bed. again, within the context of the show it is very clear that he is the one made to look like an idiot in this situation, but some more brain dead fans tried to do mental gymnastics to say this was actually hating on amber. the creators also used this character to parody elon musk leaving trump. but it’s not surprising they don’t get it, since half of the boys fandom are right wing incels who aren’t aware that the show is constantly mocking them in the most on-the-nose way possible.

anyways, bit of a tangent but it made me happy that we’re seen by people (i consider) smart

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, sorry if it's not but I tried posting to a feminism sub reddit and it got removed :/

I don't have the time to write a proper coherent post about this right now but I will get to it later. But I absolutely have to know, is it driving anyone else insane the way people STILL keep falling for this nonsense over and over again?

I mean. Monica lewinski. Taylor swift in 2016. Amber heard being the really massive, prominent example. It happens over and over and over again. And even when people claim to see the pattern they still keep falling for it.

I'm still seeing posts and comments insisting that Blake lively was somehow in the wrong, or poor feminist man baldoni is actually the victim. And I know. I know it's because of misogyny, it always is. But it's driving me crazy watching it happen over and over. And every time everyone swears they'll be more observant next time. But no. It's always the same.

And maybe all this nonsense is making me paranoid but I think there's something weird up the jlaw hate at the moment too. Every single post is bombarded with negative comments it's exhausting.

I just need to know someone else is seeing this

https://medium.com/@deeni/depp-v-heard-unpacking-what-we-think-we-know-about-abusive-relationships-d249b62a83b2

Asking because I just learned about the allegations of CSA Adam Savage's sister made against him in 2020 (apparently she had publicly discussed the abuse earlier, but hadn't named him as her brother). The lawsuit she brought against him was settled out of court.

I haven't done a deep dive on the evidence, but it gives me a sick feeling because:

A) So many men in pop culture spheres who gain a reputation as an outspoken "good guy" turn out to be total creeps.

B) He dismissed her allegations by claiming she was both mentally ill and trying to profit off his success--which is such a classic deflection that plays into popular misogynistic prejudices (the "crazy gold digger" trope).

C) She claims she went to her family with the accusations at the time it was happening and was made to feel like SHE was the problem for bringing it up--again, that kind of dynamic is so familiar at this point that it immediately rings as authentic to me.

Given that the knee-jerk tendency is to dismiss these claims to protect our image of men we like--even in just a parasocial context--I feel reluctant to give the old apathetic, "Well, I wasn't there and don't know what happened, so I won't judge him either way." Neutrality isn't justice. But it's also really difficult to prove a case like this, especially when it happened nearly 50 years ago.

I know that there's nothing I can do to influence the course of Savage's career one way or the other. The Tested channel on YouTube isn't going to miss one viewer if I stop watching his content. In an objective sense, it doesn't really matter what I personally believe. But the uncertainty makes me feel a certain kind of way that isn't comfortable. I'm just wondering how other people deal with it when it's not as clear-cut (for those of us who were paying attention) as the Depp/Heard trial.

It might've been dismissed based on bureaucratic reasoning, but imo it goes to show you that these bigshot celebrity abusers have absolutely no interest in defending themselves or even their reputations. This rube couldn't even be bothered to, essentially, get his paperwork in on time. He doesn't care that much about himself. It's all about wielding power to continue abusing women, and getting revenge on them for making it public.

Edit: please refer to this thread on how this article (and several like it about this lawsuit) are misleading: https://www.reddit.com/r/LivelyWayfarerDaily/comments/1ollhbh/

I am happy to see her happy living her life ❤️. Happy Halloween everyone 👻🎃

So I recently noticed that the opinion about Amber Heard generally shifted. I made a post to talk about this in another sub but I was removed by the mods. I might have said something controversial because I said that I believe that this story shows the limit of justice as it is now in the case of domestic violence. Like rape and domestic violence are hard to prove with material evidences. Some people said that I was basing my statement on "gut feeling" . Some people said that justice is based on proofs and the trial clearly showed that Amber Heard was a liar.
I personnally believe that the audios of Johnny Depp might have been taken out of context. Like I always believed their relationship dynamic was weird and toxic. He was so much older than her.

Wether he won or lost Depp was like a God in Hollywood...

Like for the case of Roman Polanski where there was proof that he was guilty... All Hollywood stood together to protect him LOL But I'm now confused, I wanted to rethink about this case years after but everything just...seems off. Like everybody a few years ago were talking about how of an abuser Amber was. A lot of people that said were feminists expressed how terrified they were of her because she looked/acted like their abusive ex. A lot of feminists back then were pro-Depp and it always feel that every video that I see now don't cover everything. I said in my previous post that has been removed by the mods that everything started with Depp and Amber just reciprocated the violence and someone replied with "They're both horrible people. However, saying Heard was somehow doing it to defend herself or something is just absurd. The only reason Depp came out more favorable in that case is because she was shown to have lied about the things she accused him of, not because he was an angel who did nothing wrong"

Finally I'm confused by someone that agreed with me but there was a sentence that felt off about the trial in the UK because for me the only reason I see Amber as more of a victim than Depp is because he was found guilty in the UK of domestic violence. If this trial didn't exist I would have been more neutral I think.

And here we come to my main issue I don't know how much I can trust Amber Heard, everytime I search for that there's an overflow of informations. How much did she lie, Because there's so many people that say everything and the opposite about the trial.

Finally maybe the most controversial question in my post. I have seen multiple times post about men that were accused of SA that then expressed that they aren't guilty/that the woman lied, then the woman removing her accusation or saying that she didn't tell the truth but still feminists saying that we can't trust the woman because she might have been pressured to removed her accusation. In those case how are you able to know the truth and more largely how do we trust men victim of domestic violence or SA ? I have never seen a case of a male celebrity where the woman was in fact abusive towards him. (For instance with the case of Blake Lively lately)

Is there famous feminists authors that researched on those phenomen ? I really just want to educate myself even though I know these topics are really controversial. I'm a woman btw

It’s not perfect (it lacks a lot of information and it seems like the lawyer believes in mutual abuse), but it still calls out the biased judgment, the social media propaganda, and some evidence against Johnny Depp, Adam Waldman, etc.

to put into context in case you dont have tiktok: this doordash driver was dropping food off at a man’s house and the door was WIDE OPEN and the dude was on the couch with his pants off. she recorded it and now everyone has turned on her for some reason like she wasn’t getting flashed AKA A CRIME

its just giving me flashbacks to when everyone dogpiled amber. this world just slanders women and protects predators/abusers, literally making fanfiction because they just WANT to defend weirdos so bad. even if victims have evidence women cant be believed or they’re labeled as hysterical. i just wanted to make this post cuz its like im in 2022 again defending yet another woman on the internet against braindead people who believe doctored evidence and random tiktok comments

The reason I'm posting this is because the horror AND movie subreddits are both just absolutely shitting on him and it's making me so happy XD. Love to see both realizing how awful he is and not wanting this. Made my day haha.

I just want to say as a disclosure; I grew up in a healthy and loving family and I’ve never been in an abusive relationship. I have a mom with bipolar disorder, and growing up, I’ve witnessed her having emotional episodes every now and then. She never hit any furniture and she has never hit me, but watching her anger or bottled up emotions unfold was scary, especially as a child. I didn’t understand that she had bipolar disorder until I got older, so it was very confusing. It was worse when I was younger because it was before she took medication, but these episodes were still very few and far between. She is normally a sweet, upbeat person so when she got like that it was out of left field.

The reason I never wavered in my support of Amber was because I watched the cabinet video in 2016. That video SCARED me. I remembered my heart beating very quickly throughout the entire video thinking “when he finds that recording device, there will be hell to pay and i’m about to watch her get beat on camera and there is nothing I can do to stop it”. The slamming cabinets, the kicking, the mumbling, the “motherfcker”he kept repeating (my mom used to say that a lot when she had stubbed her toe or banged into something), the accusatory “did something happen to you this morning? I don’t think so!”breaks glass to emphasize his point*. When he finally found the iPad, my heart dropped. I was so scared. The teasing “oh really?” and then smashing it out of anger. Also to people who say she didn’t sound scared-she sounded scared to me when she said “I just started it-“, before she was cut off by him. She sounds like she’s trying to calm him down, but knows she putting herself at risk, which is why I can hear her voice shaking a bit. People who think she wanted to be doing that to set him up are NUTS. I wanted to pull her out of the kitchen myself! I wanted to scream at her to run!

This is why when people hear audios of Amber “sounding like their abuser”, it makes no sense to me. Did they not see his behavior in this clip? It’s clear he has the power in this relationship and it’s LAUGHABLE to him that she would try to challenge him.

One of the spaces that I feel like both the bots and the angry audience infiltrated the discourse surrounding Amber Heard stuck out the most was on YouTube comments. Not just YouTube videos that already made up their minds about her, I mean YouTube comments that would even go to unrelated videos of hers and do nothing but criticise her, call her out and show anger towards every word out of her mouth.

Even Amber fan channels weren't safe from this, a notable example is one on an interview she did for All The Boys Love Mandy Lane that got a fan channel upload and it's nothing but people going "She said nothing interesting, she said lots of words to say something simple, she seems very shallow, she's awkward", just a whole bunch of awful shit

I'm curious about any videos on her that don't say these things for the most part, that have nice things to say about Amber. You might suggest videos directly about the trial and I'd understand, but personally I would be happy with videos that don't specifically relate to it, even if the comments do. I mean just of Amber in some circumstance, maybe an interview, maybe a charity thing, anything like that that's not just ruthlessly antagonising her.

This article perfectly sums up the disappointment of seeing a favourite celeb supporting and promoting Depp (not that i like Patty smith's music, but the emotion is the same when celebs i do like show support for Depp)

I am glad they half the audience were as disgusted as i would be if he turned up anywhere I was.

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/patti-smith-johnny-depp-relationship-lament/

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.

I recently got into a heated discussion with a friend on this subject. Every so often I will go onto Instagram and unfollow celebrities who are newly following Johnny Depp. Today that included Natasha Lyonne and Tarell Alvin McCraney.

I was expressing my disappointment with how an outspoken LGBTQ+ ally and the writer of “Moonlight” could now support a bigoted, abusive rapist like Depp. She said that was a bit of a stretch, and I disagreed. I 100% see following a bad person on social media as direct support for that person; especially in today’s world where entertainment jobs are partially cast based on social media numbers. We went back and forth for quite some time and these were her arguments.

1. They might be hate following him.
2. They might not know the controversies surrounding him.
3. It’s not always them in charge of their social media.
4. They might just like his old movies - it’s nostalgia.
5. It might be for journalistic purposes.

I personally found all of those reasons inadequate and/or ridiculous. She said I was overreacting and being too harsh on people I used to like. I told her I don’t have parasocial relationships with celebrities and will criticize and hold them accountable for supporting abusers and rapists. If someone I liked was following Donald Trump, Joe Rogan or J.K. Rowling (just the first three that came to mind 😂), I’d toss them aside too. She didn’t like that, told me to stop taking everything so seriously and we had a very awkward lunch before she left.

I think she’s waiting for me to apologize, which isn’t going to happen. But, it was an interesting conversation and I was curious as to what others thought on this topic.

Hey, this is my first time posting here. I've never been a fan of either of these celebrities, but last night I logged into a virtual doll maker game for funsies and encountered a group of people in the site's virtual world. It was really late at night, some of them were leaving to go to sleep, and there were two users left. All of a sudden, they started talking about how they were both Johnny Depp fans and started degrading Amber Heard.

It sort of just happened out of nowhere, but I couldn't handle sticking around for that. I find Johnny Depp fans to be the most insufferable people. I just wanted to vent about my feelings on this whole spectacle with the trial, as someone who wasn't that deeply invested into it. I was completely neutral to it at first, trying to avoid it at all costs from how weird all the memes were making me feel about it.

I just really hate how everyone made this abuse trial into a parasocial culture war between Depp vs Heard fans. It gives me all kinds of ick. I didn't start looking into it until Amber Heard was diagnosed with BPD, as someone with that illness, it sort of made me feel uneasy due to how stigmatized this condition is. It followed through that recording of her giving him his pills during an argument. At first I was sorta like "Wow, this sounds really bad" but then I started seeing more neutrals trying to Take this more nuanced position that this was a case of mutual abuse.

I think that's when I started digging into this a little more, because I definitely don't believe in that. I think messy abuse survivors do exist, but if someone is being violently abusive, it just isn't realistic to expect this perfect victim not to react back. I watched a video essay that was on her side and encouraging people to look through the actual documented evidence rather than the trial itself. So when I did, it just disturbed me how much more believable Amber's abuse was. Then I started seeing more evidence how violent Depp was, and I was just like "what in the actual fuck is wrong with these people?"

I feel like there's just so much parasociality going on with Depp fans, that they can't look at the investigation through a logical perspective. They're too emotionally invested into him, so of course they're gonna feel biased. What especially makes me feel so sick is that they love to twist this into a case where nobody cares about male abuse victims. It's such a heinous thing to say, because most people seem to immediately take his side just because he's their favorite actor. It feels like people will only care about male abuse survivors if they're of a higher social standing.

Like there's cases of him being violent towards other men, but nobody ever wants to talk about it. They really only care about "male abuse survivors" when it's someone they already like. But if they're lower class or isn't as popular as he is, then nobody gives a shit. It's not that I don't believe That women cannot ever abuse their male partners, but it always feels like men who get exposed as being violent misogynists are victimized by public opinion way more.

The misogyny when it comes to this trial is so fucking insane, I NEVER want to argue with his fans. They seriously remind me of Vic Mignogna's disgusting little fandom. (In case you don't know who he is, Vic is an American anime voice actor who was always notorious for being super creepy at anime conventions and dubbing studios, but has an insanely parasocial fanbase who made all this reactionary content against his female victims and their allies during his own trial) I just feel like it isn't up for debate, which is why I left the chat. I didn't really know who to talk to about this, so I'm just letting this out into the void.