Rube Reaper
Elite
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2021
- Messages
- 2,836
To put it mildly, this surreal explosion of internet culture vilification of Heard feels dispiriting and troubling. What made so many millions of people feel so justified in treating such a personal, toxic relationship like popcorn fodder? At what point before the bot armies and men’s rights activists poisoned the well of discourse around this trial could a reasonable assessment of the evidence and the facts have been made? Did that point ever exist?
Most of the reporting on these memes has placed the blame for their sensationalist tone squarely on the evolution of fandom content creation. But recall that the white supremacist alt-right movement has a long history of memeifying everything they want to normalize and legitimize, and keep in the forefront of your mind that the alt-right latched onto this case as its bulwark long before fandom and the internet at large did. By now, after years of political disinformation campaigns, we’re used to social media’s natural ability to contort reality. Rarely, however, has it bent this far, this rapidly, for this many people, in service of something this vile.
Most of the reporting on these memes has placed the blame for their sensationalist tone squarely on the evolution of fandom content creation. But recall that the white supremacist alt-right movement has a long history of memeifying everything they want to normalize and legitimize, and keep in the forefront of your mind that the alt-right latched onto this case as its bulwark long before fandom and the internet at large did. By now, after years of political disinformation campaigns, we’re used to social media’s natural ability to contort reality. Rarely, however, has it bent this far, this rapidly, for this many people, in service of something this vile.
The Depp-Heard trial is monstrous. It’s just the start.
Amber Heard is just the first target of a new extremist playbook.
www.vox.com