The bitter courtroom battle between Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard has been gripping the world for weeks, as the Hollywood stars accuse each other of domestic abuse in the glare of global media.

A growing list of unsavoury allegations has flowed out from the defamation trial. The jury at Fairfax County Courthouse in Virginia has heard that Depp graffitied the Rum Diary actress’s name in blood after she severed the top of his finger, that Heard defecated in the Pirates of the Caribbean star’s bed after he failed to show up to her 30th birthday party, and that she suffered PTSD following their break-up.

But a parallel, online war, is also being waged by fans – feeding off the courtroom detail as it emerges. It is just as fierce, but much more one-sided. Depp’s fans have taken to social media to create their own proxy courtroom, exploiting the tools of popular culture to distil the trial into a Disney-like narrative that paints Depp as the hero and Heard as the villain.

In what has been described as the “memeification” of the legal battle, Depp fans in their thousands have carved up courtroom footage into social media videos edited for maximum viral impact.

“Deppheads”, as they call themselves, have chronicled the Jack Sparrow actor’s “EPIC” takedowns of his ex-wife to the tune of jazz-pop backing tracks. They have forensically analysed Heard’s courtroom demeanour (her frantic note-taking is allegedly a sign of panic) and offered biology lessons on the nature of bruising to dismiss Heard’s assault claims.

Some of the Deppheads’ videos are on the more light-hearted side of the scale, including greatest hits-like compilations of the actor snickering as details of his rock’n’roll lifestyle are read out in court. Some appear more obviously manufactured.

One viral clip filmed at a Starbucks drive-through claimed to show competing tip jars labelled “Johnny” and “Amber”, with Depp’s full of cash and Heard’s empty. Others have even tried to outdo Depp’s own legal team.

In one TikTok video captioned “AMBER HEARD CAUGHT LYING AGAIN,” a Depp fan dismisses claims made by Heard’s lawyer that the actress used a particular makeup palette to cover up bruises throughout their marriage. The palette in question, produced by Milani Cosmetics, he claims, did not become available until after the couple had separated.

Another fan has suggested that Heard’s lawyer is secretly a hardcore Depp fan and took on the court case to sabotage her own client.
Depp fans’ strategy of presenting their own evidence to the court of public opinion, devoid of the composure and procedure of a real courtroom, is arguably working.

The TikTok hashtag #JusticeForJohnnyDepp currently has 7.2 billion views, while #JohnnyDeppIsInnocent has more than 1.9 billion. By comparison, #JusticeForAmberHeard, which includes a mixture of videos defending the actress, has little over 25 million views. It seems that Heard’s much smaller fan base, has failed to deliver.

Depp fans are familiar with taking matters into their own hands. They led a similar campaign in 2020 during the British libel case brought by the Edward Scissorhands actor against The Sun for referring to him as a wife beater. Depp lost the case, with the judge ruling that the defendants had shown The Sun’s claims were “substantially true”.

But Deppheads controlled the noise around the trial like a slick propaganda machine. I witnessed this myself, when I live-tweeted an unfavourable revelation about Depp while reporting from the High Court. Within hours, I had thousands of abusive messages on social media and editors received emails about my “fake reporting”.

Later, my name appeared in YouTube videos and in a podcast warning Deppheads not to talk to “Amber stans” – effectively accusing me of being an obsessive Heard fan. In truth, I found the psychology of Depp’s superfans far more interesting than the breakdown of a Hollywood marriage.

Those I spoke to talked about the Kentucky-born actor with the fervour and fanaticism of religious belief. For Deppheads, the star’s wisecracks in court show his wisdom; his admiration for his fans shows his benevolence, and any discrepancies in his testimony show that Depp’s bohemian lifestyle works in mysterious ways. But no amount of damning evidence in court would undermine their belief in him.

Some fans have said they are fighting for male victims of domestic abuse, while a small minority claim to be part of a bubbling backlash against wokeism and the “believe all women” mantra of the #MeToo movement.

This week, Depp-related content trended worldwide on Twitter with the hashtag #MenToo. It’s hard to ignore the fact that those queuing up for a slice of the court drama are mostly female. The majority that I spoke to outside the High Court were either older women who have remained loyal to the star for decades, or part of a younger audience who grew up on a diet of Pirates of the Caribbean films.

According to Eric Wesselmann, an Illinois State University psychology professor and researcher in the nature of fandoms, celebrity obsessives like Deppheads display signs of “parasocial relationships”, in which individuals interact with major media figures as if they were familiar friends. But the rapid evolution of social media appears to have triggered a gear change in the depth of the parasocial relationships that fans engage in.

“Fan interaction is certainly increasing,” he says. “Technology affords easier opportunities to connect with other like-minded individuals, and also increases the accessibility that fans have with a celebrity.” Plus, social media makes it easier for Deppheads to play whack-a-mole with observers who show any signs of diversion from their crusade.

“The echo chamber is easier to step into with social media,” Wesselmann adds. “We can choose our outlets. It’s a lot harder to hear dissenting opinions or, if we do hear dissenting opinions, we can shush them or unfollow them and it probably intensifies the process. “People are also likely to act much more extremely online than they would if they were in a face-to-face interaction. They lack the real-life social cues.”

According to Zoe Fraade-Blanar and Aaron Glazer, authors of Superfandom: How Our Obsessions Are Changing What We Buy and Who We Are, the recipe for a superfan contains three ingredients: critical mass, a platform and an emotional response. “The critical mass required to support a fandom varies greatly based on the fan object — for professional sports teams, you may need thousands of fans; for an online webcomic, you might just need dozens,” Mr Glazer explained in an interview with NBC.

But it is the platform that seems to play a crucial part in determining the emotional response. “In all cases you need a place for fans to congregate,” said Mr Glazer.

When Deppheads congregate at a real-life courtroom, the emotional response they are seeking appears to be little more than recognition from the Hollywood star himself. Fans outside the Fairfax County Courthouse in Virginia have learned that Depp will roll down the windows of his Cadillac Escalade each morning and wave to them. Livestream footage from inside the courtroom has also shown Depp glancing over to his fans from time to time and chuckling.

But when Deppheads congregate on online platforms such as TikTok and Twitter, the emotional response they are seeking appears far more complex. It is unclear whether Depp’s superfans are genuinely trying to win over the court of public opinion, or merely enjoying the noise they create.

Depp’s superfans are nothing new — fanbases have existed for as long as celebrities. But their ability to mobilise social media to wage war on Heard, and anyone who stands in their way, seems unprecedented. Perhaps it is the scale of the defamation trial, with $150 million at stake in damages, that has sparked the frenzy. After all, there was something of a celebrity gossip drought during the pandemic.

But if the online courtroom created by Deppheads is the new yardstick for how fanbases will operate in the age of social media, it is a worrying one. Heard only began her testimony on Wednesday. While the jury in Fairfax County Courthouse has been ordered to carefully weigh the evidence from both sides, the court of public opinion is under no such obligation.