This Michael Jackson Lyric Sent Me Down a Rabbit Hole 🐇 🕳️ #episode1

I can't be the only one that's been going down this Michael Jackson rabbit hole, this lore on the internet. I've been a diehard fan of his since I can remember and the other day I went down this unintentional rabbit hole. It has definitely piqued my interest and I love me a good rabbit hole. I love me a good conspiracy and I love me a good story of like where something came from. That leads me to this random fact or piece of information that I didn't know. I'm sure there's others on the internet that also didn't know and if you know me, you know that I love sharing facts. In fact, anytime I'm at the dinner table with family or friends, I'm usually the one that's like, did you hear? And it's not about people. I don't like talking about people. I love sharing a good fact. Maybe some of you, my dog, Ruby, can you not do that right here? You guys hear that? Hopefully not. My question was, who's Annie and why is she not okay? And this is where my rabbit hole began. So my assumption was maybe Annie was somebody that Michael Jackson actually knew. Maybe there was like some weird story behind this person. Of course, it could just be a song, but I also feel like with Michael Jackson, there's a deeper meaning behind all of his music. Listen, because I'm not the best at retaining information, like I can read a story and I'm just so enthralled and within five minutes, I couldn't retell you the story. I actually have a very hard time retelling stories. It is a problem. So I'm going to bring my research up with me. Hopefully that doesn't bother anybody. Just so I'm getting the facts straight or like what I have found. We're going to be trusting my trusty dusty laptop and my notes with my findings of who Annie is and where all of this came from. So let us begin. All right. Annie. Who the heck is Annie? Smooth Criminal came out on the album Bad in 1987. Throughout the song, there is a woman, Annie, who seems to be in distress. Apparently somebody attacked her in her apartment. And then this is where we get the incredibly famous line, Annie, are you okay? This is where things got interesting. There's a popular story or theory online that Michael Jackson got the phrase from CPR training, which at first to me sounded a little bit insane until I learned that the CPR mannequin is known as CPR Annie. And when you are learning CPR, the first thing that you are taught to do is check for a response. So you're taught to tap or shake the subject and ask, Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie? I mean, it's verbatim what is in the song. So apparently that's how Smooth Criminal was born. Also in the song, Michael sings about resuscitation, which again, you know, that doesn't sound like a coincidence to me. There's so many theories. In fact, there's a woman that was interviewed on Dr. Phil and she claims she's Annie and that the song was written about her and she wants her royalties. There's all kinds of lore out there. The only thing is there's not an actual account where Michael Jackson is confirming that this is where the song came from. And I think that that's why so many ideas or theories have come from this. All right. So let's say that this is named after Annie the mannequin, but where did that come from? And this is where when I go down a rabbit hole, I go down the rabbit hole. And if I'm going to go down, I'm going to drag y'all with me. So this is what landed me in Paris in the 19th century. So we've got to take it back a little bit. Sometime around the 1800s, a young woman's face started appearing all over Europe. She had closed eyes with a slightly open mouth and the expression on her face was extremely peaceful, which is a little bit, a little bit odd, especially if you know where this story continues. But her face became incredibly famous. People would hang copies of her face in their homes. She basically became this bizarre cultural icon. And I don't want to butcher the name. This is what her name is. And it's known as the unknown woman of Seine. Is that how you? Let me make sure I'm saying that right. Seine? The river in Paris rhymes with pen. OK, so Seine. And if I'm pronouncing that wrong, I'm sorry, but I'm going to pronounce it the rest of the time as Seine. So according to the story that's been passed down for over a century, this woman was dead. So the story is sometime in the late 1800s, the body of a young woman was pulled from the Seine River in Paris. There were apparently no signs of violence, no identification. And because of that, the assumption was that she had taken her own life. Her body was then taken to a morgue in Paris and no one was able to identify her. So this is kind of where it gets strange. Somebody that was working at the morgue was shocked at the look on her face, like how peaceful and beautiful she looked even in death. And so he decided to make a plaster mask of her face. And these are called death masks. You know, this is a thing. People would create masks after people died. Now, what makes this weird is they didn't usually do it unless you were famous or well-known. And this person was neither. No one even knew who she was. And yet somehow multiple copies of her face were being made everywhere. People love these to the point that they were making so many copies. These were sold everywhere and people just had them hanging in their homes. By the 1900s, this woman became a cultural phenomenon. Lots of stories were circulating on who she might have been, which is so interesting because imagine becoming famous when nobody even knows who you are. And the other odd thing is we don't actually know if the story of her being pulled from the Seine River is true. So this is where the rabbit hole gets even deeper. Lots of historians have questioned whether the story of the unknown woman actually happened the way they said it did. I mean, to be honest, look at her face. Look at it, right? She looks peaceful. She's almost smiling. And some people have argued that she doesn't look deceased. I mean, this isn't what you would expect to see on the face of someone who's been pulled from a river. And I don't even know if we know how long they claim she was in the river. That's a whole other thing. That's been another theory. They're like, this was a this was a mask of an alive person. We don't actually know, which is annoying. So yeah, the fact is, we don't know her name. We don't know how old she was. We don't know if she drowned. We don't even know if she came from the River of Sin. We're not even sure if she was alive or if she wasn't. But whoever she was, her face became the most recognizable face in the world. And she would eventually be given the name Annie. All right, now let's skip ahead. Now we're in the 1950s. A Norwegian toy manufacturer named Osmond, how do you say that? Osmond Lateral? You think I want to know how to say that? If these pronunciations are incorrect, I am sorry. But how do you even say this word? Lairdal? Lairdal? He was in charge of developing the first CPR mannequin. He wanted the mannequin to feel human, to look human. And he did want it to be a woman. He felt people practicing on a mannequin, doing mouth to mouth resuscitation, everybody would feel better if it was a woman. He creates this mannequin. And then when it comes to the face, he's wondering, well, what face should I use? And then he remembered that there was a relative of his that had the unknown woman of sin hanging on their wall. And so he used her face as the CPR mannequin, meaning that this mysterious woman who may or may not have drowned in the 1800s became the face that millions of people would practice saving from death. And this is kind of my favorite part of the whole rabbit hole. Think about how CPR is taught. Millions upon millions of people practice mouth to mouth resuscitation directly on Annie, which has led her to being described as the most kissed face in history. A woman whose real name has been completely lost to time, whose face has somehow survived more than a century, has been kissed by millions of strangers learning how to save another person's life. And I kind of like that because if this story is true, think about how full circle this is. A young woman dies anonymously. Nobody knows who she is. Someone decides to preserve her face. Her face travels through generations, and then eventually her likeness becomes the tool millions of people use to learn how to prevent someone from dying. Then think about this. The most famous, I would say, the most famous singer that has ever lived releases a song asking, Annie, are you okay? And then suddenly everybody knows her name. At least the name we gave her. That's my rabbit hole for the day. I don't know what I'm going to do with this. I feel like I need to make a series of some sort. I do go down rabbit holes often. And like I said before, if I'm going to go down, I'm bringing you with me. My next question is, which I'm not going to get into today, but like, who's Billie Jean? We know she's not Michael's lover, but she's just a girl. Does anybody know the story behind that? If there's something random that you've always wondered about, drop it in the comments and let's go down this rabbit hole together. I do wonder though if Annie is real and she's out there. I do wonder if she's okay. All right. See you guys next time.