There’s a new formula for punishing women who speak out about abuse by high-profile figures, and it usually goes like this: woman alleges abuse, woman seeks recourse through the justice system, woman’s accusation is made public – and then a tidal wave of fans of her abuser come together to help deny the abuse, attack her credibility and reverse the roles of victim and offender.
If this sounds familiar it’s because Darvo – the “deny, attack, reversevictim and offender” method of manipulating abuse victims – has existed for forever. But social media has given it a whole new dimension, and powerful people now have an army of rabid fans ready to do that work for them.
That’s exactly what’s happening to the singer and actor Halle Bailey, after she was granted a domestic violence restraining order against her child’s father, the YouTuber and Twitch streamer Darryl Dwayne Granberry, known as DDG. Once the news broke, fans jumped to his defence, ramping up an existing campaign of trolling and harassment, where she’s been accused of everything from infidelity during their relationship to keeping their child from him after it was over – the latter a narrative that DDG himself has helped fuel.
Since news of the restraining order broke last week, we’ve gotten some details of the physical, verbal and financial abuse that Bailey alleges, including photos of injuries submitted as evidence. In that time, even more accounts have spawned, claiming that Bailey is lying about the alleged attack, and was herself abusive to DDG. Those criticizing her range from faceless troll accounts to major Twitch streamers with hundreds of thousands of followers, and even Twitter/X communities including one where DDG himself is a moderator.
If this doesn’t feel like deja vu then you’re not paying attention. Just last year, hundreds of X, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts popped up dedicated to keeping public sentiment about the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial firmly in his favor. Heard was accused of being unhinged and, of course, said to be abusive herself. From people making fun of her testimony to memes about her crying on the stand going viral, there was no regard for her humanity or even the horrifying things she alleged happened to her – and it hasn’t stopped.
Jennifer Hough, a Black woman who accused Nicki Minaj’s current husband, Kenneth Petty, of raping her when they were minors, has also felt the fury of a toxic fandom. Petty was convicted of attempted rape in the incident after a plea deal. When he was arrested in 2020 for failing to register as a sex offender, Minaj’s notoriously hateful “Barbz” got to work trying to discredit Hough, sometimes parroting rumors that Minaj herself had started.
With DDG though, this isn’t just your average social media fan; these are the children of the streaming age, a generation whose experience of fandom means being constantly and staunchly engaged with their favourite streamers – staying glued to their screens, watching every waking moment of these people’s lives, and forming twisted parasocial bonds with them.
And did I forget to mention that all of this is happening against the grimy backdrop of the manosphere? Young men online are more misogynistic than ever, and the internet’s culture around hating women has gone from fringe forums to becoming a broad social movement where rather than being shamed, men are applauded for sharing their most violent, hateful thoughts about women.
The patriarchy demands loyalty and requires that its beneficiaries pay their dues in acts of hatred. That means that anyone who doesn’t join in the bullying or speaks up for women is automatically deemed a traitor and punished accordingly. To be a prominent man online today can mean either falling in line with misogyny or risking mockery and ostracization.
The Houston rapper Slim Thug was called everything but a child of God for simply believing Megan Thee Stallion when she said she was shot by Tory Lanez, and DDG just called out Soulja Boy (who was found liable for assault himself last month) for standing up for Bailey.
Still, there’s a different kind of loyalty that’s being weaponized here, where Black men specifically (and women for that matter) are being asked to protect their own, even when they cause harm. There’s no doubt that Black men are unfairly targeted by the criminal justice system, and continue to be stereotyped as violent. But there are Black men who abuse, disregard and disrespect women that they are in intimate relationships with. Both things can be true. And that delicate balance is often exploited to help cast abusive men as victims of a society that does indeed hate them.
From supreme court justice Clarence Thomas claiming the investigation into sexual harassment claims against him were a “high-tech lynching”, to the actor Jonathan Majors going on a sympathy tour after he was convicted of misdemeanour assault and harassment, Black men invoking the racial persecution defence is as typical as it is diabolical.
What this all really means is that the court of public opinion has been compromised; we can no longer rely on good sense to prevail even if the courts are unreliable.
And at the end of the day, it seems like the message is the same – in a world designed to protect men, women simply can’t win.
Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist
