Rickrolling

Screenshot of a Rick Roll video window on YouTube.

Rickrolling is a prank and Internet meme involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up" written and produced by Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman known as Stock Aitken Waterman. The meme is a classic bait and switch: a person provides a link they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the Astley video. The URL can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true source of the link without clicking (and thus satisfying their curiosity). By extension, it can also mean playing the song loudly in public in order to be disruptive. A person who falls for the prank is said to be "rickrolled".

The practice began as a variant of an earlier prank originating from the imageboard 4chan called duckrolling, in which a link to a popular celebrity or news item would instead lead to a photoshopped picture of a duck with wheels. The first instance occurred on the site, where a link to the Rick Astley video was claimed to be a mirror of the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV (which was unavailable due to heavy traffic).

By May 2007, the practice had become widespread, and it eventually began to garner some coverage in the mainstream media. An April 2008 poll by SurveyUSA estimated that at least 18 million American adults have been rickrolled. Partly fueled by the Rickroll phenomenon, Astley's former record company RCA Records is now planning to release a Greatest Hits album.

Notable sightings

Scientology protests

File:Anonymousexposed rickroll.JPG

"Never Gonna Give You Up" has been used as a theme in the protests against Scientology.

In connection with the online meme, "Never Gonna Give You Up" was played and performed at some of the Project Chanology February 2008 protests against the Church of Scientology. At February 10, 2008 protests in New York City, Washington, D.C., London, Edinburgh, and Seattle, protesters played the song through boomboxes and shouted the phrase "Never gonna let you down!", in what The Guardian called "a live rick-rolling of the Church of Scientology". In response to a website created by Scientologists showing an anti-Anonymous video, Project Chanology participants created a website with a similar domain name with a video displaying the music video to "Never Gonna Give You Up".

According to The New York Times, four women's basketball games at Eastern Washington University were rickrolled in March 2008.

Sporting events

EWU basketball games

According to The New York Times, four women's basketball games at Eastern Washington University (EWU) were rickrolled during March 2008. Before the start of the games, Never Gonna Give You Up was played while a Rick Astley impersonator danced and lip-synched to the music. A video containing footage of the pre-game rickrollings, misleadingly combined with previously-recorded game footage, was later released on YouTube. It even apparently showed a fan with a "$cientology Kill$" sign and the EWU mascot, Swoop, holding a "Xenu.net" sign, both references to the aforementioned Anonymous protests.

On March 27, 2008 The New York Times issued a correction stating that the EWU women's basketball games had not actually been interrupted, and that the newspaper was hoaxed by Pawl Fisher, a student; Davin Perry, who shoots game videos for the university; and Dave Cook, the university's sports information director.

New York Mets

On April 4, 2008 many web communities, originating with Fark.com, urged their readers to vote "Never Gonna Give You Up" for the 8th inning sing-along at Shea Stadium for the New York Mets season. The Mets posted a web poll to select a song, and left a blank field for write-ins.

On April 7, 2008 the Mets organization announced "Never Gonna Give You Up" as the winner with more than 5 million votes. The Mets subsequently announced a run off between six songs will be played at Shea Stadium for the next six games starting with "Never Gonna Give You Up" on April 8 2008.

On April 11, 2008, MLB.com reported on the game claiming "Never Gonna Give You Up" was played as a "result of fans rigging the vote in favor of Astley, all part of a universal Internet phenomenon known as Rick Rolling." The song was played during the home opener and greeted with "a shower of boos."

Pittsburgh Pirates and Penguins

The Saturday, April 12 Cincinnati Reds at Pittsburgh Pirates Major League Baseball game at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was Rickrolled when four fans performed a cover of Never Gonna Give You Up in a team-sponsored American Idol competition which was shown on the Jumbotron between innings to an estimated 12,000 fans.

Additionally, a radio Rickroll occurred on April 9 2008, when during the post-game radio show of the Pittsburgh Penguins Radio Network, a caller played the sound clip to thousands of listeners across the Pittsburgh area.

xkcd

Trolling on xkcd.

The webcomic xkcd has featured at least three references to the practice. In comic 351, "Trolling", two men are seen outside Astley's house, tapping into his cable line to be the first to successfully rickroll the artist himself. Additionally, on February 27, 2008, in comic 389, "Keeping Time", a musical score is seen at the top of the panel, to evoke music being played in a store. The music, if played, turns out to be the opening bars of "Never Gonna Give You Up". Comic 396 references uploading The Ring's fatal videotape to YouTube as an outlandish revenge for being rickrolled.

April Fools' Day, 2008

On April 1, 2008 (April Fools' Day) and the following weeks, numerous seemingly uncoordinated instances of rickrolling appeared on the internet, and news media.

The featured videos on YouTube's front page hyperlinked to the Rickroll. The prank began with international YouTube portals before appearing on the main site.

Social blog website LiveJournal announced on the same day that they would be adding a new member to their Advisory Board, linking members to the journal "rickastley", which contains a Rickroll.

Isohunt had the Rick Astley video instead of their normal front page,

The Mahalo Daily video podcast hosted by Veronica Belmont produced a rickroll purporting to be an interview with Steve Jobs.

The website Fark featured a link to a video claiming to be a blooper reel for the Muppets but instead linked to a video of Beaker performing Rick Astley's song (to a video of him originally performing "Feelings" on The Muppet Show). Other social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Reddit subsequently joined in linking the video.

The online web store Think Geek advertised on their front page a Betamax to HD DVD converter device. In the product page a demonstration video was linked which was, in actuality, a rickroll.

Radio and television

Some radio stations, including Washington, DC's WIHT and Cincinnati's WKFS got in on the rickroll phenomenon by inserting the song or clips on radio stations that ordinarily would not play the song. This is not limited to the United States however; the song has been the target of night-time request shows in Edmonton, Alberta on the "Joe" radio station. As a parody of the phenomenon, on April 13 2008, Jon Holmes from BBC 6 music rickrolled the news, by playing the clip instead of the hourly news.

During the April 4, 2008 episode of E!'s The Soup, an introduction to a clip from the season finale of LA Ink led instead into a rickroll.

Other

A rickroll flash mob took place on 11 April 2008 in London's Liverpool Street train station with an estimated 300-400 people in attendance..

One website offers a rickroll-by-phone service, allowing visitors to enter a phone number to be called and have the song played to the answering party. As of April 22, 2008, the service has been "dugg" over 4,000 times.

Rick Astley's reaction

In a March 2008 interview, Astley said that he found the rickrolling of Scientology to be "hilarious"; he also said that he will not try to capitalize on the rickroll phenomenon with a new recording or remix of his own, but that he'd be happy to have other artists remix it. Overall, Astley is fine with the phenomenon, although he finds it a little "bizarre" and only hopes that his daughter receives no embarrassment over it.

See also

• List of Internet phenomena
• Meme

Further reading

• Hasty, Katie (2008-04-05). "'80s singer Rick Astley latest Web phenomenon". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-04-05.
• Horowitz, Etan (2008-03-28). "Friday Picks: Wired on the gadget blog wars, Rick Astley on the 'Rickroll," church sign about Google". OrlandoSentinel.com. Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Ingram, Matthew (2008-03-31). "Rick Astley, born again via YouTube". The Globe and Mail. CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Johnson, Steve (2008-04-01). "On the first day of April: Another Google prank and Rick, rolling along". Hypertext - The wide world of the web. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Leahy, Brian (2008-03-28). "New York Times Gets Rick Roll'd". The Feed: The Only News You Need To Know. G4 TV. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• McCarthy, Caroline (2008-03-26). "'Rickrolled basketball game' video is '80s pop fiction". CNET News. CNET Networks, Inc. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Newborn, Andrew (2008-04-01). "Dumb Internet memes are teh suck". The Gateway. University of Alberta. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Oliver, Chantelle (2008-03-31). "The Academic Rickroll". Walrus Magazine. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Pegoraro, Rob (2008-04-01). "April Foolin'". Faster Forward. The Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Reynolds, Simon (2008-03-28). "Astley calls 'Rickrolling' craze 'brilliant'". Digital Spy. Digital Spy Limited. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Savage, Mark (2008-04-01). "Rickrolling and the league of web fame: An estimated 13 million internet users have been tricked into watching the video for Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up in the last couple of weeks". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Sleiman, Jad (2008-04-01). "Prank gives song new life". Diamondback Online. University of Maryland. Retrieved 2008-04-01. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Staff. "Astley prank storms web: A new internet craze known as 'rickrolling' has thrust Newton-le-Willows' 1980s pop star Rick Astley back into the spotlight". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Staff (2008-03-28). "Rick Astley 'Rick Roll' video prank becomes web phenomenon". MSN Money UK. MSN. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Sternberg, Andy (2008-03-25). "Rick Astley Calls Rickroll 'Hilarious,' 'Bizarre'; Plans Arena Tour, But Can He Still Dance?". LAist. Gothamist LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Van Buskirk, Eliot (2008-03-26). "Rick Astley Addresses the Rickroll Phenomenon". Wired News. CondéNet, Inc. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
• Wells, Steven (2008-04-09). "Opening Riff". Philadelphia Weekly. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
• Tossell, Ivor (2008-04-17). "They're never gonna give you up, Rick". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2008-04-18.
• "The Biggest Little Internet Hoax on Wheels Hits Mainstream". Fox News. 2008-04-22. Retrieved 2008-04-22.

External links

• YTRickRollsYou, channel of a 2008 April Fools' Day prank by YouTube
• Rickroll Database