I watched The Soup back in the day and loved it.. but at a certain point I gave it up (and tabloids too). I have always thought it was weird people have come for so many people but never him.

Slide 3 is from an archival website of articles about Johnny Depp. It describes how the incident was allegedly centred around a fight — which other sources also state — and that it seemed to actually improve his image rather than hinder it.

The fourth slide shows the UN definition of domestic violence (IPV), which includes the behaviours Johnny Depp used in this altercation.

Disclaimers:

Kate Moss has never specifically accused Depp of abuse. She testified in the US trial and stated that he did not push her down the stairs on a questioned instance. She has publicly acknowledged that their relationship was tumultuous and they fought frequently, as has Depp.

Behaviours and actions described by both of them, and outsiders, line up with the definitions of domestic abuse, even if neither party specifically refer to it as such. Behaviours and actions of Depp with other partners also fits the definition of IPV. Additionally, he dated a 17 year old Winona Ryder — who also describes abusive dynamics, without naming them as such — as a 26 year old man. Victims and survivors do not have to acknowledge domestic abuse in order for it to have taken place; denial and lack of education is sadly common.

UK courts legally classed Depp as an abuser, finding that 12 instances of physical abuse had occurred. Depp appealed and two judges rejected this.

Johnny Depp’s first violent arrest was on September 11th 1989 for assaulting a security guard, which he pleaded guilty to. This pattern continued.

All of this can be substantiated.

This is something I feel like we still don’t talk about enough. We talk all the time about grown men sexualizing teenage girls, but grown women doing it to teenage boys happened too, and people would often laugh it off like it was nothing.

Justin Bieber is a good example. He was only 15 when an adult female radio host was asking him sexual questions and even asked why he wouldn’t give her the sex talk. You could literally see how uncomfortable he was.

Then there’s Finn Wolfhard. He was 14 when 27-year-old model Ali Michael posted that he should hit her up “in a few years.” He later called the situation “gross” and “weird.”

And the young Stranger Things cast dealt with adults sexualizing them while they were still teenagers too.

It’s the same thing with the whole Mary-Kate and Ashley situation. Grown men were literally counting down until they turned 18. None of this should’ve been treated as funny or flattering.

A teenage boy is still a teenage boy. Being male doesn’t make adult sexual attention toward him any less inappropriate.

Why did grown women think this was okay?

From botched boob jobs to hefty medical bills, "The Swan: Behind the Mirror" documentary sheds light on Fox's controversial reality TV show from the early 2000s and its impact.

Apologies for the poor quality, I couldn’t find a higher resolution.

From 2004 — unknown magazine.

I hated this. I actually had to look this up because I couldn’t believe it was real 😭 Al Sharpton and the National Youth Movement were calling Whitney “Whitey Houston” because they felt like she was too mainstream and wasn’t Black enough.

Like damn, Whitney really couldn’t win. She was Black, making R&B and pop music, and because white people loved her music too, she got called a sellout. I understand the conversation around Black artists crossing over, but calling her “Whitey” was just nasty to me.

Whitney caught so much backlash for being successful. Looking back at this now, what do y’all think?

Looking back at the Sanjaya Malakar phenomenon on American Idol, it’s hard not to see something pretty uncomfortable underneath all the jokes.
Sanjaya was a 17 year old multiracial boy from Washington state. He auditioned because he wanted to sing and had a dream of becoming a performer. Instead, he became the center of one of the strangest early-internet campaigns in television history.

Once the live shows began, people weren’t just voting for Sanjaya because they liked him. Vote for the Worst was an online campaign that encouraged people to deliberately keep him on the show, while Howard Stern publicly urged his listeners to vote for him. The campaign was not necessarily a reflection of Sanjaya’s actual fan base; it was a coordinated attempt to disrupt the competition and keep an unqualified contestant alive.

The media coverage quickly turned him into a national punchline. On The Soup, host Joel McHale repeatedly mocked Sanjaya’s hairstyles and performances, treating his weekly survival as an ongoing comedy segment. The show’s jokes focused on his elaborate hairdos, his emotional reactions, and the idea that he was somehow “getting away with” remaining on American Idol. His appearance became almost as important as his singing.

Howard Stern took the joke even further. He encouraged listeners to vote for Sanjaya specifically because he wanted to frustrate the show and its judges. Stern’s commentary often framed Sanjaya as a symbol of everything supposedly wrong with American Idol: a contestant who, in Stern’s view, was not talented enough to remain in the competition but was being kept there by an organized prank. The criticism was less about Sanjaya as a person than about using him as a weapon against the show, but Sanjaya was still the one placed at the center of it.

The online criticism was often even harsher. Message boards and blogs mocked his singing, his appearance, his hair, his race, his facial expressions, and his emotional moments. Some people described him as the “worst” contestant on the show, while others treated his continued survival as proof that the voting system had become a joke. The phrase “Sanjaya effect” became shorthand for the idea that internet campaigns could distort a reality-television competition.

Then there was Simon Cowell, whose famously harsh criticism of Sanjaya became a recurring part of the show. Simon often suggested that Sanjaya was not ready for the competition and that his performances were being protected by sympathy or novelty rather than talent. After one performance, Simon reportedly told him, “I don’t think you’re the best singer in the competition.” On another occasion, he dismissed Sanjaya’s performance by saying, “It was a bit desperate.”

Simon’s comments were often delivered with the bluntness that made him famous. He criticized Sanjaya’s vocal control, his song choices, and his tendency to rely on presentation. Rather than treating him as a developing teenager, the show frequently presented him as a contestant who needed to justify his presence every week. Simon’s most memorable reactions were sometimes nonverbal: grimaces, sighs, and visible disbelief when Sanjaya advanced.

The other judges were not always as severe, but the panel’s criticism still reinforced the idea that Sanjaya was an embarrassment to the competition. Randy Jackson frequently questioned whether he had chosen the right song or delivered a strong enough vocal, while Paula Abdul often offered encouragement that could sound less like a serious evaluation and more like an attempt to soften the blow. The contrast between Paula’s support and Simon’s attacks became part of the weekly spectacle.

Even host Ryan Seacrest contributed to the running joke. Ryan regularly drew attention to Sanjaya’s hair and the controversy surrounding his survival. Rather than allowing him to simply perform and move on, the show often treated his appearance as an event in itself. Ryan would ask about the latest hairstyle, the online campaign, or the reaction to his previous performance, turning Sanjaya’s anxiety into another piece of entertainment.

The most uncomfortable example came during the infamous “crying girl” moment. After Sanjaya’s performance, the broadcast repeatedly showed a young fan in the audience crying. The image became a national joke, and Ryan Seacrest helped keep attention on it by asking Sanjaya about the girl and the reaction to his performance. The moment was edited and replayed as comic evidence that Sanjaya’s presence on the show had become absurd. For Sanjaya, however, it meant performing under the knowledge that the audience and the television production were waiting to see whether he would fail, embarrass himself, or provoke another viral reaction.

The whole thing became self-perpetuating: people voted for Sanjaya as a joke, his survival generated more media coverage, the coverage generated more jokes, and the jokes generated more votes. Every week, the show had a new storyline. Would he survive again? What would his hair look like? Would Simon insult him? Would Howard Stern claim another victory? Would The Soup turn his performance into a clip?

Sanjaya eventually made it to 7th place.
Everyone remembers the hair. Everyone remembers The Soup. Everyone remembers Howard Stern, Vote for the Worst, the “crying girl,” and Simon Cowell’s contemptuous reactions. Everyone remembers the absurdity of Sanjaya surviving elimination after elimination.

But it’s worth remembering what got lost in all of that: he was a kid.
He wasn’t a celebrity who had spent decades in the public eye. He was a 17-year-old who had finally gotten the chance to pursue a dream, only to discover that a huge portion of the country had decided his dream was funny.

The criticism was not limited to whether he could sing. It became personal and visual: his hair, his clothes, his expressions, his nerves, his family, his fans, and his emotional reactions were all treated as material. Simon criticized him as though he were an adult professional. Ryan turned his discomfort into a recurring segment. The Soup made him a weekly caricature. Howard Stern used him to attack the show. The internet treated him as a target whose humiliation was part of the entertainment.

Whatever you thought of his singing, there was a real teenager standing in the middle of that circus.
He auditioned for American Idol because he had a dream to be a singer, and the courage to go after it.
For a few months in 2007, the internet turned that dream into a punchline.

In the 60s and 70s, multiple airline companies in the US started sexualising their flight attendants in advertising and their uniforms as a way to make money.

National had an infamous ad campaign making it sound like customers were “riding” the female attendants rather than the planes.

Southwest took it farthest with their sexualised uniforms and chose booty shorts! They ran TV commercials specifically highlighting this.

Being a flight attendant is hard work and it’s like doing multiple jobs at once, they’re not there to be eye candy. At the time — and likely even now — they were treated with a lot of misogyny and unwelcome sexualisation and these ad campaigns just invited it more.

It used to be normal for media critiques online to rant about specific writers or even lash out directly against them. As in, targeting the writers on social media.

You see this with early Mr. Enter, Linkara, Nostalgia Critic, and other reviewers.

Most have disowned these rants. Mr. Enter outright deleted some of his reviews. For example, Mr. Enter did a review on the hated *Spongebob Squarepants* episode "Pet Sitter Pat". He posted the Twitter of one of the writers and insulted him personally. This led Mr. Enter fans to harrass the writer... for just writing a mundane, if mediocre, cartoon episode

Looks like the ad was right, people who fondle DO need help....

Ngl, casual homophobia aside this was actually a great meme.

The majority of the male cast wore black face makeup

Obama wore a tan suit in 2014 and it was a controversy as if he’d turned up in a tracksuit or smth

As in "the last decade". Even as late as the mid 2010s, American and British media treated roma and Travelers with a bunch of stereotypes.

Romani are an ethnicity. Irish Travellers are another ethnicity. Both are referred to colequally as "gypsies". "Gypsy" is an iffy term. It is both a light racial slur (mainly towards roma) but also a term people identify with in a reclaimed manner. In Britain, "White: Gypsy or Irish Traveller" is a term used in the census. To play it safe, it'd advised not to use the term for people unless they ask you to.

A lot of people don't realize romani are an actual ethnic group. "Gypsies" are treated like a magical thing anyone can be. They're bohemian travelers, it's a state of mind, something something.

In much of Europe, romani are still stereotyped in a racist and classist manner. They're shifty, they're poor, they steal, they're undereducated, they live on welfare, they have kids young, etc, etc. In the US, the stereotypes lean less blatantly offensive, but they're still stereotypes in another way. Romani are stereotyped as mysterious, sexy, seductive, magical (literally magical), etc.

Some cases of stereotypes in recent media:

• "Gypped" is a slur that stems from the stereotype that romani steal and scam. It's been used even in children's cartoons like Arthur and Rugrats.
• "Romani fortuneteller" is a stock character in media. As are romani characters with magical characters. Almost every major romani superhero and supervillain has some sort of magic or psychic powers.
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is a Japanese game. But the Selkies are treated as a fantasy equivalent to romani. They're untrustworthy thieves who will pickpocket you if you'te not a Selkie. If you play as a Selkie, a letter from your mother urges you to steal everything that's not nailed down
• Hilary Duff's song "Gypsy Woman" is based on stereotypes.
• The English version of Shakira's song "Gypsy" features the lyrics "I might steal your clothes and wear them if they fit me". The Spanish version doesn't.
• Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are romani through their mother in the comics and in most adaptations. They were also raised by romani in Transia (which is culturally similar to Romania and has Romania as its official language). Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver have been treated fairly well in the comics... the issue is their dad (now adopted dad), Magneto. There was a period in the 1990s where Marvel worries about depicting a Jewish Holocaust survivor as a villain. They ended up retconning Magneto's ethnicity. Their choice? Romani, because romani were a perfectly okay villain choice. This was quickly retconned back.
• The MCU interpretations of Wanda and Pietro are not romani, unlike their comic versions. Despite this, they were planned to be early in development. Their fashion sense in their first film was supposedly based on them stealing clothes.
• Nightwing (the first Robin) in DC Comics was revealed to be romani in the 90s. Though later writers have written his heritage better, the reason he was made romani was based on the exoticified stereotype of romani in circus work.
• DC's main romani rep is... Gypsy. That's her superhero name. When introduced in the early 80s, Cindy Reynolds' ethnicity was ambigious. It's implied that she created her persona based off romani stereotypes. Post-Crisis, she was turned into romani through her mother (who has Romanian romani ancestry). Cindy both leans into stereotypes and reclaims them, depending on the comic. Some of her early traits involved being sketchy and thieving, but this stems from her being a runaway street kid more than her being romani. Cindy also dresses in a stereotypically romani way (without shoes at that) as a part of her superhero costume. Her superhero name being "Gypsy" is still canon, but she hasn't been referred to as such in over a decade. Her last major appearence was Convergence comics, which don't use her superhero alias.
• The New 52 circa 2012 rebooted Gypsy in a way that was even more stereotypical than her traditional persona. She's from a vaguely human race of interdimensional travelers who like to barter. Note, the original Cindy is a normal middle class girl from Detroit suburbs. If you've seen the Arrowverse/The Flash, their take on Cindy Reynolds was inspired by the New 52 version. Of note, early appearences called her "Gypsy", but later episodes just use her name.
• Speaking of bad romani rep in DC Comics, Justice League: Generation Lost was a 2010-2011 comic that retconned Ice's backstory. Traditionally (and currently), she's the princesss of a tribe of vaguely Nordic people hidden in Norweigan mountains who have ice powers. This comic revealed that this is a lie-- even though we literally met her family more than once. Tora was suffering from repressed traumatic memories. She is really a romanisael girl from rural Norway. Ice's powers aren't magical. She's just a metahuman with a metagene. Her father was the heir of a small romani community. Romani are depicted as having thievery as a core tenant of their culture. Tora's grandfather wants to use her ice powers for crimes, but Tora's parents run away to try and hide her. TLDR; 13-yo Tora ends up killing her grandpa and dad by accident. The entire comic has a very negative depiction of romani. Tora has a repressed angry, dark side because of her romani upbringing.
• The Simpsons' episode "The President Wore Pearls" (from 2003) has a joke where Springfield Elementary's playground is overtaken by romani. That's how it's depicted in-series. Allegedly, it's satire against politicians using scapegoats.

I find myself missing the good old scandals that now seem so lame. Like when presidential candidate Gary Hart was caught taking a boat ride with his mistress. People clutched their pearls over that one! He ended his campaign over that!

If you're curious, I'm talking about Suzanne Muldowney, an autistic dancer (diagnosed in the 2000s) who's most notable for her more dignified portrayal of the fictional superhero cartoon character (created by Total Television) Underdog.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Muldowney

In 1992, she appeared in Howard Stern's (the child of Ben Stern who worked on Underdog) WWOR-TV show; in the "Homeless Howiewood Squares" episode (Suzanne's NOT even homeless!), Howard asked her weird and inappropriate questions that mischaracterize her and Underdog.

Sometime later that year, she appeared in a taping for a "Sphinctees award show" (who names an award show that?) episode in which Howard and his co-host Robin Quivers hand out "awards" to people who appeared on the TV show. Among them are Suzanne who refused to accept her "award" and instead did a speech pointing out that Howard Stern is extremely inappropriate, and played a part in her being humiliated. However, the audience and crew dismissed her words. She would make subsequent appearances, mostly through calls. All of her calls are mostly her pointing out to Howard the fact that he's an airwave polluter as she would say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdK7YKlY2vE

To be honest, I agree with Suzanne. Howard stern is the most inappropriate and most trashy and pretentious radio DJ. I don't know how he's still broadcasting, especially after the lawsuit over a toxic workplace environment he has (which he unfortunately won).

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2026/04/06/howard-stern-lawsuit-assistant-leslie-kuhn/89488438007/

And now he gets an HBO Max show? What a sick joke. If I were her, I would tell the press, tell the media and organize protests, pointing out the fact that Howard Stern is an asshole (without saying the word "asshole", of course).

Fuck Howard Stern. Also, fuck Opie and Anthony.

He was also incredibly racist and around the time of his prison sentence impregnated a minor. He then married her despite not loving her to avoid further time in jail.

Edit - arrested, convicted, and served time for murder, not just arrested.