'Amberturd': Tacky TikTok trend mocks Amber Heard with degrading memes on her testimony
TikTok is seeing yet another bizzare trend in the wake of the Amber Heard vs Johnny Depp defamation suit. Over the past several days, dozens of clips on this short-form video platform have been made using the video or audio from Amber Heard's testimony at the trial. Certain videos with millions of views have seen creators reenacting, dancing to, or simply mocking the 'Aquaman' actress.
One video in particular that has over 30 million views in a duration of five days features a video of Heard testifing in an emotional manner on the stand and it is overlapped with an iconic Kim Kardashian clip in a judge's robe saying, "Ew, this is so cringe. Guilty." from an episode of 'Saturday Night Live'
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Videos with the hashtag 'amberturd' have been receiving tons of views. As per TikTok, the hashtag has over 1.2 billion views. These include a video, from TikTok user @sansanjovs, which has been viewed nearly 10 million times, featuring a mocking reenactment of Heard’s testimony. Another viral TikTok posted on Sunday, May 8, was viewed over 14 million times. It shows a cat that has a blonde wig on (as a way to depict Amber Heard) and Depp's Jack Sparrow in 'The Pirates of the Caribbean'. The 9-second video clip is captioned, "Johnny looks so innocent!" The audio used was Heard saying, "I was walking out of the bedroom. [Depp] slapped me across the face. And I said, ‘Johnny, you hit me. You just hit me."
TikTok has removed several videos that have used Heard's testimony as the audio. The company says that this violates the anti-bullying policies and that they will continue to enforce these rules. TikTok's Community Guidelines state in part that it prohibits “Content that disparages victims of violent tragedies.” In addition, per TikTok’s policies, “We remove expressions of abuse, including threats or degrading statements intended to mock, humiliate, embarrass, intimidate or hurt an individual.
However, in addition to the videos specified above, multiple TikToks that have used Amber Heard's testimony as the audio were still found on the platform as of Monday afternoon, May 9. Last week, Heard said in court to jurors, "This is horrible for me to sit here for weeks and relive everything. This is the most painful and difficult thing I have ever gone through."
Depp has sued Heard for $50 million, alleging that she destroyed his career by alluding to her domestic abuse allegations in a 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post although she did not name him in the piece.