Annabelle Escaped

About

Annabelle Escaped refers to a hoax that began in August 2020 due to a false translation or a Wikipedia edit claiming that the alleged cursed doll Annabelle escaped the Warren Museum of Connecticut where she was housed. The claim, which was later debunked by the museum owner, quickly trended on Twitter and caused TikTokers and Twitter users to parody her escape.

Origin

On August 14th, 2020, a rumor spread on Twitter that the cursed Annabelle doll escaped the Loraine Warren Museum. Although, it is unknown how the rumors started, YouTuber Hi Tech shared a theory that the rumor was started because one Hollywood Reporter^[4] article about actress Annabelle Wallis running was mistranslated to "Annabelle escaped" (shown below). People^[1] magazine claimed that it was merely a false Wikipedia page edit.

Spread

On August 14th, 2020, Twitter user @saraa_oz^[2] shared a screenshot of Annabelle's Wikipedia page captioned, "the real annabelle doll just escaped from the warren’s museum. that’s it, 2020 is over." The tweet gained over 32,800 likes in five days (shown below, left). That same day, Twitter user @DoNyA_76^[5] shared a reaction image captioned, "Me two days ago : 2020 can't get worse than this . Today : Annabelle doll escaped from the museum." (shown below, right). The tweet received over 2,500 likes in five days.

That day, the museum owners announced in a YouTube video that Annabelle had not escaped. The video accumulated over 1.7 million views in five days (shown below).

On August 14th, TikTokers began commenting on the hoax with videos parodying her escape. TikToker johnny.garcia shared mock images of Annabelle on the beach in a video that gained over 129,500 likes in five days (shown below, left). On August 16th, TikToker dailydoseofdereck shared a collection of Twitter memes about Annabelle in a video that acquired over 120,000 likes in three days (shown below, center). The next day, TikToker juicyplatypus shared video of a doll walking and referred to Annabelle's escape (shown below, right). The video garnered over 424,900 likes in two days. StayHipp^[3] published an article on the TikTok memes.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References