It’s what Tom Divon, social media, communications, and culture researcher at Hebrew University in Israel, calls “common pathways of generational memetic communication”-which translates to not wanting to feel left out of a watercooler moment. That sense was supercharged by TikTok’s algorithm, which increasingly pushed Depp content into feeds, creating a cycle that dragged more people in and demanded yet more content. “The appeal to fans’ sense of connection and recognition here is clear,” Williams says. What’s more, Depp’s first post on TikTok-a highlight reel of him performing and driving past his adoring fans at the conclusion of the trial, during which a jury found Heard liable for defamation for a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which she claimed to be a “public figure representing domestic abuse” (she did not name Depp)-is something of a thank you. “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,” says Rebecca Williams, associate professor in media audiences and participatory culture at the University of South Wales. The characters the actor has played-most notably Pirates of the Caribbean’s Captain Jack Sparrow-have previously become memes because of their outlandishness, but the actor himself has now entered the world of his larger-than-life characters. If the defamation suit the actor brought against ex-wife Amber Heard turned Depp into a meme, then his appearance on the platform that propelled him from Hollywood celebrity to social media influencer is the inevitable endgame of a world in which everything is content. Now, after just one post thanking his fandom, his new account has more than 12 million followers. For the past nine weeks, Johnny Depp was TikTok.
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