Depp v. Heard
trial or media phenomenon?
The Depp v. Heard trial, lasting almost 2 months, was a very curious media phenomenon. While being on the news everywhere, inescapable both online and offline, it also managed to create its own internet bubble.
Since the beginning, this was not going to be your usual defamation trial: Johnny Depp, actor famous for roles such as Edward Scissorshand, Pirates of the Caribbean and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as the Plaintiff and his ex-wife, best known for her role in Aquamen, Amber Heard as the Defendant.
The case already landed itself to media attention. But no one could manage to what extent. While there were (a lot) of memes online, viral moments going around, sometimes even without context, many people would actually watch the trial live more than 6 hours a day, every day.
Screenshot of @LawAndCrime Youtube Channel
Both traditional and new media outlets were covering the trial but in a very different way. And people were actually more trusting of the no-traditional coverage (an ongoing trend for news). But maybe, at least this time there was a reason for it.
On Youtube, Twitter (now X) and Tik Tok, while you would still find the ordinary person commenting on it, and, let’s be honest, it was the majority. As it happened with the #FreeBritney movement, lawyers got involved.
Lawyers, such as Emily D. Baker, would live stream in parallel to the trial, during breaks, and even on weekends explaining what was going, legal wise. And while videos and streams were happening on Youtube, some lawyers, like Larry Forman, even travelled to attend the trial in person since it was open to the public.
You're immersed. You know, when you're watching it on TV, you're married to the four corners of the screen. You can't go like, "Oh, what's over here that the camera is not capturing?"
Larry Forman, Lawyer
Click here to watch the full interview.
Forman would be right, that’s probably part of the reason why the general public was so inclined to disregard everything the media said: it was detached and it looked like news outlets had their own agenda instead of just covering the case. But a youtuber? A tik toker?
They were able to bring a fresh perspective to the case, and asked the same question that everyone was asking. And all the lawyers involved? They were the voice of reason, they gave educated answers to what people were wondering, showing both sides and discussing what could have been done differently for both parties.
A lot of people, as mentioned, even travelled to watch the trial in person, with the queue being its own ecosystem in the trial coverage. #Justicefortheline, #JusticefortheDUIguy... When people are willing to camp outside of a courtroom the evening before to watch a trial happen in real time, a concert-like situation starts to happen. With people trying to cut others off and others being a victim of circumstance.
There were a lot of moments that transcended the trial, from the queue to actual moments in court. An example comes from Morgan Tremaine, trial witness and former TMZ employee and his cross examination conducted by Ms. Bredehoft (Heard’s Lawyer), while you can watch the full testimony here, below is the viral moment:
Mr. Tremaine, recalling the experience says:
It was kind of like a Baroque, like a Renaissance painting. Everybody kind of looked to the person nearest to them, like "that just happened" and even the jury.
Morgan Tremaine, witness
Click here to watch the full interview.
This was one of the biggest moments in the whole trial, at least online. Yes, weirdly enough people were actually interested in the trial itself but this really went mainstream.
Mr. Tremaine even noticed that, resulting his testimony on May 25, 2022 the world litigious even had a spike in worldwide google searches and he even got an action figure as memorabilia to remind himself of the crazy experience.
This trial changed the way the media gets involved with this cases, engages with the law. Law-tubers were able to geek out on their profession, offering a well informed reportage of the events and analysis, Mr. Forman said that he learned not to “assign value to the information.”
He also created a new way to engage the general public: talk about the jury.
The jury in this case was sealed. One of the key participants of the trial was kept secret to the public. So, Mr. Forman started tweeting about the jury’s behaviour, without assigning value to their actions, gaining instant success and letting people from all over the world take a peek of what no news outlet or live stream dared to show.
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