Johnny Depp Has Become a Full-Circle Meme

Over the course of nine weeks, Johnny Depp was called TikTok. Johnny was named TikTok. After thanking his fans, his new account has more than 12 million followers. If the defamation suit the actor brought against his ex- wife turned him into a meme, then his appearance on the platform that propelled him from Hollywood celebrity to social media influencer is the end of the world.

The characters the actor has played, most notably Pirates of the Caribbean's Captain Jack Sparrow, have previously become meme because of their outrageousness, but the actor himself has now entered the world of his larger than life characters. "Depp's joining of TikTok is interesting because I'm not convinced that would have happened pre- trial or if that platform hadn't been so influential in producing content and shaping opinion."

The highlight reel of him performing and driving past his fans at the conclusion of the trial was his first post on TikTok. Williams says the appeal to fans is obvious. That sense was boosted by TikTok's algorithm, which pushed more and more content into feeds, creating a cycle that dragged more and more people in.

It is what Tom Divon, social media, communications, and culture researcher at Hebrew University in Israel calls common pathways of generational memetic communication. The easiest way to engage with a watercooler moment is to make a lot of content. Some videos show what Heard and Depp might have thought during the trial while others show how they behaved in court.

Since the trial began in mid-April, TikTok has become the 21st-century version of Court TV. TikTok was taken over by footage from the trial. The videos using the #johnnydepp and #justiceforjohnnydepp were viewed over 11 billion times. That's close to 34.1 billion and 20.4 billion According to TikTok, the #johnnydepp and #justicefor johnnydepp are both extremely popular.

Users created videos to feed the interest in the trial due to the popularity of content. Users who acted as talking heads about the trial's developments, and theories about whether Heard's legal representative was a fan of Johnny Depp, had access to supercuts of key moments in testimony. One TikTok user claimed to be a juror in the case in order to get more attention.