The bitter, banal, and bizarre YouTube circus of Depp v. Heard

The first celebrity trial of the streaming age is between Depp and Heard. More than 100 hours of testimony for content for their own channels have been mined from its livestreamed proceedings. TikTok has trial supercuts, a lot of hot takes, streamers watching and memeing the trial live, and YouTube with all of the above. The trial has achieved a stunning digital ubiquity online, at once hard to look away from and impossible to escape, as compelling as it is intrusive.

The court case is the culmination of six years of bitterness between actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, who were married in February 2015. In May of 2016 Heard filed for divorce and a temporary restraining order against her husband. Heard is being sued for $50 million by Johnny Depp, who claims that a Washington Post op-ed she wrote in which she claimed to be a public figure representing domestic abuse was libelous and prompted Disney to remove him from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. It is implied that Heard's account of abuse is fake. He has argued in court that he was the victim of malicious physical and verbal attacks during their relationship.

Heard and attorney her Elaine Bredehoft watch video testimony of Kate James, Heard's former personal assistant who has previously claimed that Heard had adopted her account of sexual abuse as her own. Credit: Photo by SHAWN THEW/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

It feels like gambling with your mental health when you open the livestream every morning. On April 26th, the public saw video of the small house on his private island estate, then heard from the manager of the property about the dispute between the couple and the wedding. A forensic psychologist was called by Heard's team to testify that she had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and Histrionic Personality Disorder. After a 15-minute break, an officer from the Los Angeles Police Department testified to visiting Heard after an alleged domestic dispute and finding no evidence of violence.

It is a lot to take in.

The trial is addictive because of the endless parade of absurd characters who have been called to testify, dragged into the dark, intimate horrors of the alleged abuse by their proximity to Depp and Heard. These are the people that you rarely see, the people behind the gleaming facade and the people who are not famous. The artist who paints nude caricatures of celebrities and has lived rent-free on the property of Johnny Depp for decades, the former assistant who has accused Heard of sexual assault, and the posh house manager who found the severed head of Heard are all related to the artist. The front desk attendant who was deposed in his car in the middle of his testimony was the most memorable witness. The judge looked stunned and Elaine Bredehoft called it the most bizarre deposition she had ever seen.

Alejandro Romero, the front desk attendant at the Eastern Columbia Building where Depp owned five penthouses, blows vape smoke out of his nose during his deposition. Credit: Photo by JONATHAN ERNST/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Hearing the details of a troubled relationship and alleged abuse read aloud in court for a global audience is strange. This feeling is even more overwhelming when personal details become mundane in the glare of a courtroom's fluorescent lighting. In one deposition, Christian Carino, Heard's former manager and Lady Gaga's ex-fiance, was bored as he answered questions about Heard's break up with Musk. This testimony was followed by a lengthy back-and-forth between Heard's lawyer and the divorce lawyer who was testifying to her work on the couple's separation and has also worked on the divorces of other people. During both of these sessions, live chat commenters claimed to be bored.

The best bits of these sessions are being left out by the most savvy creators. They will comment on Carino's texts and ignore the legalese of the divorce lawyer. When they run out of compelling narratives, they make them up, turning Heard's facial movements into commentary on her character.

An out-of-focus Depp looks on as a recording of Christian Carino's pre-taped deposition plays in court. Credit: JONATHAN ERNST/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

The view counts of small creators who shifted their content to the trial have gone up from hundreds to millions. As psychologists, body language experts, and others comment on the proceedings, this shift extends to the expert reactions genre. A woodworker and a lawyer collaborated to analyze Heard's claims that she was attacked by Johnny Depp while he was chipping the wood of a platform bed.

The Law & Crime Network, which broadcasts court footage on YouTube alongside live chats frothing with speculation and pro-Depp sentiment, has been reaping the benefits of the case. It is the most popular stream of the trial on the internet. The Law and Crime Network has gained more than one million subscribers since April 12. 42 of the 50 most watched videos on the channel are related to the trial.

A screenshot of the The Law and Crime Network livestream on April 26th. More than 480,000 people watch as Dr. Shannon Curry testifies. In the live chat to the right, viewers purchase Super Chats to have their comments highlighted in bright colors. Credit: The Law and Crime Network YouTube channel

The growth was achieved by changing the settings of the live chat so that viewers had to subscribe to the channel to participate. During the court's 15-minute and hour-long breaks, an on-camera host speaks with purported legal experts and encourages viewers to ask questions. That is deceptive language, as viewers can only make a comment through a paid feature called Super chat. The longer the comment stays at the top of the feed, the more the viewer pays.

The viewers in that chat are highly engaged, and an April 27 poll asking, "Did the LAPD officers drop the ball the night of May 21st 2016?" gained more than 600,000 votes in less than four hours. When court was adjourned for a week on May 5, viewers commented that they would see you on the 16th. Some of the jokes popularized in the live chat can now be purchased as stickers on Facebook.

Sellers on Facebook Marketplace have capitalized on the trial's most viral moments, including one in which Heard's lawyer called a large glass of alcohol a "mega pint." Credit: Facebook Marketplace

After watching more than 80 hours of testimony, I am in the middle of information about an intimate relationship between two people I have never met. I've heard their fights, read their texts, and learned about their traumatic childhoods. I don't know what Johnny Depp and Amber Heard did for each other, but I will never know.

It would seem that most people want the trial to be a winner and a loser, a victim and an abuser. The internet and the courts love the same thing. The verdict doesn't matter in this case. As the trial transforms intimate partner violence into a spectator sport, we all lose.