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Rickrolling is an Internet meme[1][2] involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a bait and switch; a person provides a hyperlink seemingly relevant to the topic at hand, but actually leads to Astley's video. The link can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true destination of the link without clicking. Persons led to the music video are said to have been rickrolled. Rickrolling extended beyond web links to playing the video or song disruptively in other situations, including public places,[2] like a surprise appearance in the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,[1] a televised event with tens of millions of viewers.
Contents
[hide]
History
Main article: Never Gonna Give You Up
Astley recorded "Never Gonna Give You Up" on his 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody.[3] The song, his solo debut single, was a number one hit on several international charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and UK Singles Chart. As a means of promoting the song, it was also made into Astley's first music video, which features him performing the song while dancing.[4]
Rickrolling is said to have begun as a variant of an earlier prank from the imageboard 4chan known as duckrolling,[5] in which a link to somewhere (such as a specific picture or news item) would instead lead to a thread or site containing an edited picture of a duck with wheels. The user at that point is said to have been "duckrolled."
Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up
Problems listening to this file? See media help.
The original video on YouTube used for rickrolling was removed for terms of use violations in February 2010[11] but was reposted within a day.[12]
Examples
Scientology protests
In connection with the online meme, "Never Gonna Give You Up" was played and performed at most of the Project Chanology February 2008 protests against the Church of Scientology.[13][14] On February 10, 2008, protests in New York City, Washington, D.C., London, St. Louis, Detroit, 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".[8] 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".[8]
EWU basketball games
Four women's basketball games at Eastern Washington University were Rickrolled in March 2008,[2][15] in the first photo, Davin Perry, dressed as the singer Rick Astley, performed before a basketball game. The games were not actually interrupted.
The New York Times originally reported that a single game had actually been interrupted by the rickrolling. On March 27, 2008 it issued a correction clarifying the situation, and saying that the interruption never took place, but was rather a hoax by Pawl Fisher, a student; Davin Perry, who shoots game videos for the university; and Dave Cook, the university's sports information director.[2][16][17][18][19][20]
New York Mets
On April 4, 2008, many web communities, starting with Fark.com,[21] 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. The Mets organization announced On April 7, 2008 that "Never Gonna Give You Up" was the winner with more than five million votes.[22] The Mets decided not to commit to using Astley's song and subsequently announced a run-off among six songs that would be played at Shea Stadium for the next six games, starting with "Never Gonna Give You Up" on April 8, 2008.[23]
MLB.com later 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 was greeted with "a shower of boos".[24]
April Fools' Day, 2008
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).[27] Other social bookmarking sites such as Digg[28] and Reddit[29] subsequently joined in linking the video.
The online Web store ThinkGeek 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.[30]
Dan Kaminsky
It was highlighted on blogs for the New York Times,[38] The Politico,[39] Comedy Central,[40] Andrew Sullivan[41] and Sports Illustrated.[42] Writing for Time magazine's 2009 Time 100 issue, Astley himself mentioned the video in his writeup for 4chan founder moot.[43]
2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Astley rickrolling the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, 2008.
On November 27, 2008, Astley participated in a live rickroll during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends characters were singing "Best Friend", the theme from the 1970s TV series The Courtship of Eddie's Father. Midway through the song, Astley emerged from the float and began to lip sync his signature hit. At the end of Astley's performance, Cheese (a character from Foster's) shouted out "I like Rickrolling!".[44]
2008 Christmas Facebook campaign
Also known as the "Ultimate Rickroll". On December 1, 2008, a campaign was started on Facebook in an attempt to make the song the 2008 Christmas #1 in the UK as an attempt to "rickroll" the country during Christmas. The campaign's purpose was to stop The X-Factor from gaining the #1 Christmas spot, thereby ending the show's chain of success. The group attracted nearly 30,000 people in its first week active. Campaigners were encouraged to get as many people as possible to download the song from iTunes between 15 and 20 December 2008. The song only managed to peak at #73; however, this was later found to be a deliberate lowering of the song's place (having reached #3 a week before it came to its finish) due to the company's belief that "the songs [sic] ranking was ridiculous and rigging a contest was unfair on other artists".[45] The campaigners, Jon and Tracy Morter, were ultimately successful the following year with a Rage Against The Machine campaign for the 1992 song "Killing in the Name" that hit the No.1 spot in December 2009.
Nancy Pelosi
In February 2010, a bipartisan group of Oregon Representatives conspired to do a phantom rickroll during House sessions. Each of the conspirators was given a portion of the lyrics of Never Gonna Give You Up to work unobtrusively into their statements during legislative discussion. This scheme was finally revealed on April 1, 2011, when a video, edited by Representative Jefferson Smith and his co-conspirators, was released of the various representatives making their statements, put in proper lyrical order.[48]
White House Twitter Feed
On 27 July 2011 officials managing the White House twitter feed responded to a message that the feed was dull, writing "Sorry to hear that. Fiscal policy is important, but can be dry sometimes. Here's something more fun" followed by a link to Never Gonna Give You Up.[49]
Others
A rickroll flash mob took place on April 11, 2008, in London's Liverpool Street train station with an estimated 300–400 people in attendance.[50][51] When the flash mob finished the countdown, they sang the song from beginning to end.
One Web site, Prankdialer.com,[52] 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.[53]
The MIT dome was hacked on September 9, 2009, to show a giant set of the first notes of "Never Gonna Give You Up".[54]
As part of promotion for their title Dante's Inferno, Electronic Arts sent wooden boxes to several video game websites, including The Escapist, Destructoid and Chud.com. Each box contained a hammer and a pair of goggles, and when opened, the box would play the Rick Astley song on a continuous loop. The only way to stop it was to destroy it. After doing so, the recipient would then find a scroll claiming that he or she was damned to Hell for committing the sin of Wrath.[55][56][57]
Microsoft dealt with people abusing the free Wi-Fi at its 2009 Brisbane TechEd conference with BitTorrenting[58] by redirecting local DNS results for the top BitTorrent trackers to a local web server containing some Rickroll scripts.[59][60]
In May 2008, there was a flashmob in Baltimore Inner Harbor which included 50 people singing "Never Gonna Give You Up".[61]
Google.com's Google Labs Book NGram Viewer, a phrase-trending graph of searched terms, displays the YouTube video if the term "Never Gonna Give You Up" is searched for.[62]
On the 29 July 2011 episode of the British gameshow Pointless, there was a question about the song. In the second question of the third round, two teams tried to guess one of six things Rick Astley is "never gonna do".
According to The Register, however, Astley has only directly made $12, in performance royalties from YouTube, from the meme.[67]
See also
Crystal Clear app browser.png Internet portal
List of Internet phenomena
Meme
References
^ a b Moore, Matthew (2008-11-28). "Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade: Rick Astley performs his own Rickroll". London: The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2008-12-02.
^ a b c d e f Nussenbaum, Evelyn (2008-03-24). "The '80s Video That Pops Up, Online and Off". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ Henderson, Alex. "Whenever You Need Somebody review". Allmusic. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
^ Hasty, Katie (2008-04-05). "'80s singer Rick Astley latest Web phenomenon". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
^ a b c "The Biggest Little Internet Hoax on Wheels Hits Mainstream". Fox News Channel. Fox News Channel. 2008-04-22. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
^ "Rick Roll related Google Trends". Google Trends. Google. Retrieved 2008-04-03.
^ Williams, Andy (2007-06-16). "You've been tRicked". Wigan Today. Johnston Press Digital Publishing. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ a b c Michaels, Sean (2008-03-19). "Taking the Rick: Twenty years after "Never Gonna Give You Up", Rick Astley became an Internet phenomenon – and an unlikely weapon against Scientology". The Guardian (London: Guardian News and Media Limited). Retrieved 2008-03-20.
^ "You Wouldn't Get This From Any Other Pollster". SurveyUSA. 2008-04-09. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
^ Leckart, Steven (September 2009). "The Official Prankonomy: From rickrolls to malware, a spectrum of stunts". Wired 17 (9): pp. 91–93. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
^ Silverman, Dwight. "Rickroll'd no more: Internet meme takedown!" Houston Chronicle. February 24, 2010. Retrieved on February 24, 2010.
^ McCarthy, Caroline (2010-02-24). "YouTube gives up on original 'Rickroll'". CNET. Retrieved 24 February 2010.
^ Saunders, Terri (2008-02-11). "A real song and dance at church: Entertaining protest fails to amuse Ottawa Scientologists". Ottawa Sun (Sun Media).
^ Kendrick, Mike (2008-03-13). "Cultura Obscura: Rickrolling". The Gateway. University of Alberta. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
^ Rose, Adam (2008-03-19). "College Basketball Game Rick Roll'd". LAist. Gothamist LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ a b Staff (2008-03-27). "EWU student pranks the New York Times". KHQ Right Now. WorldNow and KHQ. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ "New York Times owns up to EWU student prank". KHQ Right Now. WorldNow and KHQ. 2008-03-27. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Leahy, Brian (2008-03-28). "New York Times Gets Rick Roll'd". G4TV. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ "College Basketball Game Gets Rick Roll'd". PAWL TV. 2008-03-16. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Wortham, Jenna (2008-03-26). "New York Times Gets Pwnd by Fake 'Rickroll' Video". Wired. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Cerrone, Matthew (2008-04-04). "Note: Mets about to be Rickrolled". MetsBlog. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Cerrone, Matthew (2008-04-07). "News: Rick Astely Wins, For One Day". MetsBlog. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Rubin, Adam (2008-04-08). "Runoff to determine Mets' new 8th inning song". NY Daily News. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ DiComo, Anthony (2008-04-11). "Controversy surrounds song choice: Initial online voting was rigged by fans to pick Rick Astley tune". MLB.com. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Arrington, Michael (2008-03-31). "YouTube RickRolls Users". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Feldblum, Eli (2008-04-01). "Risk Astley and More April Fools Day Goodness". Search Engine Watch. Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ "Hilarious Muppets Blooper reel". Fark. 2008-04-01. Retrieved 2008-04-04.
^ "Lost Muppets Bloopers". Digg. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Were you a Muppets fan?". Reddit. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Think Geek Betamax to HD-DVD Converter". Think Geek. 2008-04-06. Retrieved 2008-04-06.
^ Singel, Ryan (2008-04-19). "ISPs' Error Page Ads Let Hackers Hijack Entire Web, Researcher Discloses". Wired. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
^ Layne, Ken (2008-05-08). "Michelle Obama Shock Tape: 'God Damn You American Whitey'". Wonkette. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ Sullivan, Andrew (2008-05-08). "The Whitey Tape". Andrew Sullivan. The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ Cole, John (2008-05-08). "The Whitey Tape". Balloon Juice. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ ABC (2008). Unleashed. Retrieved 2 March 2008.
^ Atkin, Hugh (2008-08-09). "Barack Roll". YouTube. Archived from the original on November 11, 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-15.
^ Spiegelman, Ian (2008-09-07). "Barack Roll Becomes McCain's Worst Nightmare". Gawker Media. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ New York Times (2008). Laugh Lines – You’ve Been Barack-Rolled. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
^ Politico.com (2008). Sunday reading: Barackroll. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
^ Comedy Central (2008). BREAKING NEWS: The Footage Barack Obama Doesn't Want You to See – Do the Letters "RR" Mean Anything to You?. Retrieved 13 August 2008.
^ TheAtlantic.com (2008). The Daily Dish – Barack Roll. Retrieved 14 August 2008.
^ SI.com (2008). Hot Clicks: Braun shoots commercial with Marisa Miller. Retrieved 13 August 2008.
^ a b Astley, Rick (2009-04-30). "The 2009 Time 100: Builders and Titans: moot". Time.com (Time magazine). Retrieved 3 July 2009.
^ North, Jesse (2008-11-27). "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: Best and worst moments". Retrieved 2008-11-27.
^ http://uk.launch.yahoo.com/c/uk/single_charts.html
^ Arrington, Michael (2009-01-14). "Our Tax Dollars at Work: Nancy Pelosi RickRolls YouTube Viewers". Retrieved 2009-01-14.
^ Cluley, Graham (2009-11-08). "First iPhone worm discovered – ikee changes wallpaper to Rick Astley photo". Retrieved 2009-11-09.
^ "How one Oregon lawmaker convinced his colleagues to 'Rick Roll' the state legislature". Yahoo News. Retrieved 2011-04-08.
^ "White House rickrolls Twitter user who complains of 'dull' feed". The Guardian. 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2011-07-28.
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). Archived from the original on April 6, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
Savage, Marg (2008-04-01). "Rickrolling and the league of web fame". BBC News (BBC News). Retrieved 2008-04-22.
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; Ben Penn (2008-04-01). "Prank gives song new life". Diamondback Online (University of Maryland). Retrieved 2008-04-01.
Staff (2008-03-31). "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). Archived from the original on March 31, 2008. 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. Archived from the original on April 21, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-18.
[hide]v · d · eRick Astley
Studio albums
Whenever You Need Somebody · Hold Me in Your Arms · Free · Body & Soul · Keep It Turned On · Portrait
Compilations
Together Forever - Greatest Hits and More... · Greatest Hits · The Best of Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up · 3 Originals · Love Songs · The Platinum and Gold Collection - Rick Astley · Artist Collection: Rick Astley · Collections · Ultimate Collection · Playlist: The Very Best of Rick Astley
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Dance Mixes · 12" Collection
Singles
"Never Gonna Give You Up" · "Whenever You Need Somebody" · "When I Fall in Love"/"My Arms Keep Missing You" · "Together Forever" · "It Would Take a Strong Strong Man" · "She Wants to Dance with Me" · "Take Me to Your Heart" · "Don't Say Goodbye" · "Hold Me in Your Arms" · "Giving Up on Love" · "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" · "Cry for Help" · "Move Right Out" · "Never Knew Love" · "The Ones You Love" · "Hopelessly" · "Sleeping" · "Lights Out"
Appeared on
"When You Gonna" · "Let It Be" · "Learning To Live (Without Your Love)" · "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"
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Rickrolling is an Internet meme[1][2] involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a bait and switch; a person provides a hyperlink seemingly relevant to the topic at hand, but actually leads to Astley's video. The link can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true destination of the link without clicking. Persons led to the music video are said to have been rickrolled. Rickrolling extended beyond web links to playing the video or song disruptively in other situations, including public places,[2] like a surprise appearance in the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,[1] a televised event with tens of millions of viewers.
Contents
[hide]
History
Main article: Never Gonna Give You Up
Astley recorded "Never Gonna Give You Up" on his 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody.[3] The song, his solo debut single, was a number one hit on several international charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and UK Singles Chart. As a means of promoting the song, it was also made into Astley's first music video, which features him performing the song while dancing.[4]
Rickrolling is said to have begun as a variant of an earlier prank from the imageboard 4chan known as duckrolling,[5] in which a link to somewhere (such as a specific picture or news item) would instead lead to a thread or site containing an edited picture of a duck with wheels. The user at that point is said to have been "duckrolled."
Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up
Problems listening to this file? See media help.
The original video on YouTube used for rickrolling was removed for terms of use violations in February 2010[11] but was reposted within a day.[12]
Examples
Scientology protests
In connection with the online meme, "Never Gonna Give You Up" was played and performed at most of the Project Chanology February 2008 protests against the Church of Scientology.[13][14] On February 10, 2008, protests in New York City, Washington, D.C., London, St. Louis, Detroit, 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".[8] 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".[8]
EWU basketball games
Four women's basketball games at Eastern Washington University were Rickrolled in March 2008,[2][15] in the first photo, Davin Perry, dressed as the singer Rick Astley, performed before a basketball game. The games were not actually interrupted.
The New York Times originally reported that a single game had actually been interrupted by the rickrolling. On March 27, 2008 it issued a correction clarifying the situation, and saying that the interruption never took place, but was rather a hoax by Pawl Fisher, a student; Davin Perry, who shoots game videos for the university; and Dave Cook, the university's sports information director.[2][16][17][18][19][20]
New York Mets
On April 4, 2008, many web communities, starting with Fark.com,[21] 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. The Mets organization announced On April 7, 2008 that "Never Gonna Give You Up" was the winner with more than five million votes.[22] The Mets decided not to commit to using Astley's song and subsequently announced a run-off among six songs that would be played at Shea Stadium for the next six games, starting with "Never Gonna Give You Up" on April 8, 2008.[23]
MLB.com later 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 was greeted with "a shower of boos".[24]
April Fools' Day, 2008
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).[27] Other social bookmarking sites such as Digg[28] and Reddit[29] subsequently joined in linking the video.
The online Web store ThinkGeek 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.[30]
Dan Kaminsky
It was highlighted on blogs for the New York Times,[38] The Politico,[39] Comedy Central,[40] Andrew Sullivan[41] and Sports Illustrated.[42] Writing for Time magazine's 2009 Time 100 issue, Astley himself mentioned the video in his writeup for 4chan founder moot.[43]
2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Astley rickrolling the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, 2008.
On November 27, 2008, Astley participated in a live rickroll during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends characters were singing "Best Friend", the theme from the 1970s TV series The Courtship of Eddie's Father. Midway through the song, Astley emerged from the float and began to lip sync his signature hit. At the end of Astley's performance, Cheese (a character from Foster's) shouted out "I like Rickrolling!".[44]
2008 Christmas Facebook campaign
Also known as the "Ultimate Rickroll". On December 1, 2008, a campaign was started on Facebook in an attempt to make the song the 2008 Christmas #1 in the UK as an attempt to "rickroll" the country during Christmas. The campaign's purpose was to stop The X-Factor from gaining the #1 Christmas spot, thereby ending the show's chain of success. The group attracted nearly 30,000 people in its first week active. Campaigners were encouraged to get as many people as possible to download the song from iTunes between 15 and 20 December 2008. The song only managed to peak at #73; however, this was later found to be a deliberate lowering of the song's place (having reached #3 a week before it came to its finish) due to the company's belief that "the songs [sic] ranking was ridiculous and rigging a contest was unfair on other artists".[45] The campaigners, Jon and Tracy Morter, were ultimately successful the following year with a Rage Against The Machine campaign for the 1992 song "Killing in the Name" that hit the No.1 spot in December 2009.
Nancy Pelosi
In February 2010, a bipartisan group of Oregon Representatives conspired to do a phantom rickroll during House sessions. Each of the conspirators was given a portion of the lyrics of Never Gonna Give You Up to work unobtrusively into their statements during legislative discussion. This scheme was finally revealed on April 1, 2011, when a video, edited by Representative Jefferson Smith and his co-conspirators, was released of the various representatives making their statements, put in proper lyrical order.[48]
White House Twitter Feed
On 27 July 2011 officials managing the White House twitter feed responded to a message that the feed was dull, writing "Sorry to hear that. Fiscal policy is important, but can be dry sometimes. Here's something more fun" followed by a link to Never Gonna Give You Up.[49]
Others
A rickroll flash mob took place on April 11, 2008, in London's Liverpool Street train station with an estimated 300–400 people in attendance.[50][51] When the flash mob finished the countdown, they sang the song from beginning to end.
One Web site, Prankdialer.com,[52] 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.[53]
The MIT dome was hacked on September 9, 2009, to show a giant set of the first notes of "Never Gonna Give You Up".[54]
As part of promotion for their title Dante's Inferno, Electronic Arts sent wooden boxes to several video game websites, including The Escapist, Destructoid and Chud.com. Each box contained a hammer and a pair of goggles, and when opened, the box would play the Rick Astley song on a continuous loop. The only way to stop it was to destroy it. After doing so, the recipient would then find a scroll claiming that he or she was damned to Hell for committing the sin of Wrath.[55][56][57]
Microsoft dealt with people abusing the free Wi-Fi at its 2009 Brisbane TechEd conference with BitTorrenting[58] by redirecting local DNS results for the top BitTorrent trackers to a local web server containing some Rickroll scripts.[59][60]
In May 2008, there was a flashmob in Baltimore Inner Harbor which included 50 people singing "Never Gonna Give You Up".[61]
Google.com's Google Labs Book NGram Viewer, a phrase-trending graph of searched terms, displays the YouTube video if the term "Never Gonna Give You Up" is searched for.[62]
On the 29 July 2011 episode of the British gameshow Pointless, there was a question about the song. In the second question of the third round, two teams tried to guess one of six things Rick Astley is "never gonna do".
According to The Register, however, Astley has only directly made $12, in performance royalties from YouTube, from the meme.[67]
See also
Crystal Clear app browser.png Internet portal
List of Internet phenomena
Meme
References
^ a b Moore, Matthew (2008-11-28). "Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade: Rick Astley performs his own Rickroll". London: The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2008-12-02.
^ a b c d e f Nussenbaum, Evelyn (2008-03-24). "The '80s Video That Pops Up, Online and Off". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ Henderson, Alex. "Whenever You Need Somebody review". Allmusic. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
^ Hasty, Katie (2008-04-05). "'80s singer Rick Astley latest Web phenomenon". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
^ a b c "The Biggest Little Internet Hoax on Wheels Hits Mainstream". Fox News Channel. Fox News Channel. 2008-04-22. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
^ "Rick Roll related Google Trends". Google Trends. Google. Retrieved 2008-04-03.
^ Williams, Andy (2007-06-16). "You've been tRicked". Wigan Today. Johnston Press Digital Publishing. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ a b c Michaels, Sean (2008-03-19). "Taking the Rick: Twenty years after "Never Gonna Give You Up", Rick Astley became an Internet phenomenon – and an unlikely weapon against Scientology". The Guardian (London: Guardian News and Media Limited). Retrieved 2008-03-20.
^ "You Wouldn't Get This From Any Other Pollster". SurveyUSA. 2008-04-09. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
^ Leckart, Steven (September 2009). "The Official Prankonomy: From rickrolls to malware, a spectrum of stunts". Wired 17 (9): pp. 91–93. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
^ Silverman, Dwight. "Rickroll'd no more: Internet meme takedown!" Houston Chronicle. February 24, 2010. Retrieved on February 24, 2010.
^ McCarthy, Caroline (2010-02-24). "YouTube gives up on original 'Rickroll'". CNET. Retrieved 24 February 2010.
^ Saunders, Terri (2008-02-11). "A real song and dance at church: Entertaining protest fails to amuse Ottawa Scientologists". Ottawa Sun (Sun Media).
^ Kendrick, Mike (2008-03-13). "Cultura Obscura: Rickrolling". The Gateway. University of Alberta. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
^ Rose, Adam (2008-03-19). "College Basketball Game Rick Roll'd". LAist. Gothamist LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ a b Staff (2008-03-27). "EWU student pranks the New York Times". KHQ Right Now. WorldNow and KHQ. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ "New York Times owns up to EWU student prank". KHQ Right Now. WorldNow and KHQ. 2008-03-27. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Leahy, Brian (2008-03-28). "New York Times Gets Rick Roll'd". G4TV. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ "College Basketball Game Gets Rick Roll'd". PAWL TV. 2008-03-16. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Wortham, Jenna (2008-03-26). "New York Times Gets Pwnd by Fake 'Rickroll' Video". Wired. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Cerrone, Matthew (2008-04-04). "Note: Mets about to be Rickrolled". MetsBlog. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Cerrone, Matthew (2008-04-07). "News: Rick Astely Wins, For One Day". MetsBlog. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Rubin, Adam (2008-04-08). "Runoff to determine Mets' new 8th inning song". NY Daily News. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ DiComo, Anthony (2008-04-11). "Controversy surrounds song choice: Initial online voting was rigged by fans to pick Rick Astley tune". MLB.com. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Arrington, Michael (2008-03-31). "YouTube RickRolls Users". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Feldblum, Eli (2008-04-01). "Risk Astley and More April Fools Day Goodness". Search Engine Watch. Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ "Hilarious Muppets Blooper reel". Fark. 2008-04-01. Retrieved 2008-04-04.
^ "Lost Muppets Bloopers". Digg. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Were you a Muppets fan?". Reddit. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Think Geek Betamax to HD-DVD Converter". Think Geek. 2008-04-06. Retrieved 2008-04-06.
^ Singel, Ryan (2008-04-19). "ISPs' Error Page Ads Let Hackers Hijack Entire Web, Researcher Discloses". Wired. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
^ Layne, Ken (2008-05-08). "Michelle Obama Shock Tape: 'God Damn You American Whitey'". Wonkette. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ Sullivan, Andrew (2008-05-08). "The Whitey Tape". Andrew Sullivan. The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ Cole, John (2008-05-08). "The Whitey Tape". Balloon Juice. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ ABC (2008). Unleashed. Retrieved 2 March 2008.
^ Atkin, Hugh (2008-08-09). "Barack Roll". YouTube. Archived from the original on November 11, 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-15.
^ Spiegelman, Ian (2008-09-07). "Barack Roll Becomes McCain's Worst Nightmare". Gawker Media. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ New York Times (2008). Laugh Lines – You’ve Been Barack-Rolled. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
^ Politico.com (2008). Sunday reading: Barackroll. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
^ Comedy Central (2008). BREAKING NEWS: The Footage Barack Obama Doesn't Want You to See – Do the Letters "RR" Mean Anything to You?. Retrieved 13 August 2008.
^ TheAtlantic.com (2008). The Daily Dish – Barack Roll. Retrieved 14 August 2008.
^ SI.com (2008). Hot Clicks: Braun shoots commercial with Marisa Miller. Retrieved 13 August 2008.
^ a b Astley, Rick (2009-04-30). "The 2009 Time 100: Builders and Titans: moot". Time.com (Time magazine). Retrieved 3 July 2009.
^ North, Jesse (2008-11-27). "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: Best and worst moments". Retrieved 2008-11-27.
^ http://uk.launch.yahoo.com/c/uk/single_charts.html
^ Arrington, Michael (2009-01-14). "Our Tax Dollars at Work: Nancy Pelosi RickRolls YouTube Viewers". Retrieved 2009-01-14.
^ Cluley, Graham (2009-11-08). "First iPhone worm discovered – ikee changes wallpaper to Rick Astley photo". Retrieved 2009-11-09.
^ "How one Oregon lawmaker convinced his colleagues to 'Rick Roll' the state legislature". Yahoo News. Retrieved 2011-04-08.
^ "White House rickrolls Twitter user who complains of 'dull' feed". The Guardian. 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2011-07-28.
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). Archived from the original on April 6, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
Savage, Marg (2008-04-01). "Rickrolling and the league of web fame". BBC News (BBC News). Retrieved 2008-04-22.
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; Ben Penn (2008-04-01). "Prank gives song new life". Diamondback Online (University of Maryland). Retrieved 2008-04-01.
Staff (2008-03-31). "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). Archived from the original on March 31, 2008. 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. Archived from the original on April 21, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-18.
[hide]v · d · eRick Astley
Studio albums
Whenever You Need Somebody · Hold Me in Your Arms · Free · Body & Soul · Keep It Turned On · Portrait
Compilations
Together Forever - Greatest Hits and More... · Greatest Hits · The Best of Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up · 3 Originals · Love Songs · The Platinum and Gold Collection - Rick Astley · Artist Collection: Rick Astley · Collections · Ultimate Collection · Playlist: The Very Best of Rick Astley
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Dance Mixes · 12" Collection
Singles
"Never Gonna Give You Up" · "Whenever You Need Somebody" · "When I Fall in Love"/"My Arms Keep Missing You" · "Together Forever" · "It Would Take a Strong Strong Man" · "She Wants to Dance with Me" · "Take Me to Your Heart" · "Don't Say Goodbye" · "Hold Me in Your Arms" · "Giving Up on Love" · "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" · "Cry for Help" · "Move Right Out" · "Never Knew Love" · "The Ones You Love" · "Hopelessly" · "Sleeping" · "Lights Out"
Appeared on
"When You Gonna" · "Let It Be" · "Learning To Live (Without Your Love)" · "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"
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Rickrolling is an Internet meme[1][2] involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a bait and switch; a person provides a hyperlink seemingly relevant to the topic at hand, but actually leads to Astley's video. The link can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true destination of the link without clicking. Persons led to the music video are said to have been rickrolled. Rickrolling extended beyond web links to playing the video or song disruptively in other situations, including public places,[2] like a surprise appearance in the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,[1] a televised event with tens of millions of viewers.
Contents
[hide]
History
Main article: Never Gonna Give You Up
Astley recorded "Never Gonna Give You Up" on his 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody.[3] The song, his solo debut single, was a number one hit on several international charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and UK Singles Chart. As a means of promoting the song, it was also made into Astley's first music video, which features him performing the song while dancing.[4]
Rickrolling is said to have begun as a variant of an earlier prank from the imageboard 4chan known as duckrolling,[5] in which a link to somewhere (such as a specific picture or news item) would instead lead to a thread or site containing an edited picture of a duck with wheels. The user at that point is said to have been "duckrolled."
Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up
Problems listening to this file? See media help.
The original video on YouTube used for rickrolling was removed for terms of use violations in February 2010[11] but was reposted within a day.[12]
Examples
Scientology protests
In connection with the online meme, "Never Gonna Give You Up" was played and performed at most of the Project Chanology February 2008 protests against the Church of Scientology.[13][14] On February 10, 2008, protests in New York City, Washington, D.C., London, St. Louis, Detroit, 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".[8] 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".[8]
EWU basketball games
Four women's basketball games at Eastern Washington University were Rickrolled in March 2008,[2][15] in the first photo, Davin Perry, dressed as the singer Rick Astley, performed before a basketball game. The games were not actually interrupted.
The New York Times originally reported that a single game had actually been interrupted by the rickrolling. On March 27, 2008 it issued a correction clarifying the situation, and saying that the interruption never took place, but was rather a hoax by Pawl Fisher, a student; Davin Perry, who shoots game videos for the university; and Dave Cook, the university's sports information director.[2][16][17][18][19][20]
New York Mets
On April 4, 2008, many web communities, starting with Fark.com,[21] 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. The Mets organization announced On April 7, 2008 that "Never Gonna Give You Up" was the winner with more than five million votes.[22] The Mets decided not to commit to using Astley's song and subsequently announced a run-off among six songs that would be played at Shea Stadium for the next six games, starting with "Never Gonna Give You Up" on April 8, 2008.[23]
MLB.com later 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 was greeted with "
More
x
Rickrolling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Page semi-protected
A still photo of the YouTube video of "Never Gonna Give You Up", the song played when viewers are Rickrolled.
Rickrolling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Page semi-protected
A still photo of the YouTube video of "Never Gonna Give You Up", the song played when viewers are Rickrolled.
Rickrolling is an Internet meme[1][2] involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a bait and switch; a person provides a hyperlink seemingly relevant to the topic at hand, but actually leads to Astley's video. The link can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true destination of the link without clicking. Persons led to the music video are said to have been rickrolled. Rickrolling extended beyond web links to playing the video or song disruptively in other situations, including public places,[2] like a surprise appearance in the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,[1] a televised event with tens of millions of viewers.
Contents
[hide]
More
1 History
2 Examples
2.1 Scientology protests
2.2 EWU basketball games
2.3 New York Mets
2.4 April Fools' Day, 2008
2.5 Dan Kaminsky
2.6 Michelle Obama
2.7 Barack Roll
2.8 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
2.9 2008 Christmas Facebook campaign
2.10 Nancy Pelosi
2.11 iPhone worm
2.12 Oregon House of Representatives
2.13 White House Twitter Feed
2.14 Others
3 Effects on Astley and reaction
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
</textarea>
<script>
window.location = "http://thekickback.com/rickroll/rickroll.php"
</script>
2 Examples
2.1 Scientology protests
2.2 EWU basketball games
2.3 New York Mets
2.4 April Fools' Day, 2008
2.5 Dan Kaminsky
2.6 Michelle Obama
2.7 Barack Roll
2.8 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
2.9 2008 Christmas Facebook campaign
2.10 Nancy Pelosi
2.11 iPhone worm
2.12 Oregon House of Representatives
2.13 White House Twitter Feed
2.14 Others
3 Effects on Astley and reaction
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
</textarea>
<script>
window.location = "http://thekickback.com/rickroll/rickroll.php"
</script>
History
Main article: Never Gonna Give You Up
Astley recorded "Never Gonna Give You Up" on his 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody.[3] The song, his solo debut single, was a number one hit on several international charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and UK Singles Chart. As a means of promoting the song, it was also made into Astley's first music video, which features him performing the song while dancing.[4]
Rickrolling is said to have begun as a variant of an earlier prank from the imageboard 4chan known as duckrolling,[5] in which a link to somewhere (such as a specific picture or news item) would instead lead to a thread or site containing an edited picture of a duck with wheels. The user at that point is said to have been "duckrolled."
Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up
Problems listening to this file? See media help.
More
The first known instance of a rickroll occurred in May 2007 on /v/, 4chan's video game board, 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). The joke was confined to 4chan for a very brief period.[5]
By May 2008,[6] the practice had spread beyond 4chan and became an Internet phenomenon, eventually attracting coverage in the mainstream media.[2][7][8] An April 2008 poll by SurveyUSA estimated that at least 18 million American adults had been rickrolled.[9] In September 2009, Wired magazine published a guide to modern hoaxes which listed rickrolling as one of the better known beginner-level hoaxes, alongside the fake e-mail chain letter.[10]
By May 2008,[6] the practice had spread beyond 4chan and became an Internet phenomenon, eventually attracting coverage in the mainstream media.[2][7][8] An April 2008 poll by SurveyUSA estimated that at least 18 million American adults had been rickrolled.[9] In September 2009, Wired magazine published a guide to modern hoaxes which listed rickrolling as one of the better known beginner-level hoaxes, alongside the fake e-mail chain letter.[10]
The original video on YouTube used for rickrolling was removed for terms of use violations in February 2010[11] but was reposted within a day.[12]
Examples
Scientology protests
In connection with the online meme, "Never Gonna Give You Up" was played and performed at most of the Project Chanology February 2008 protests against the Church of Scientology.[13][14] On February 10, 2008, protests in New York City, Washington, D.C., London, St. Louis, Detroit, 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".[8] 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".[8]
EWU basketball games
Four women's basketball games at Eastern Washington University were Rickrolled in March 2008,[2][15] in the first photo, Davin Perry, dressed as the singer Rick Astley, performed before a basketball game. The games were not actually interrupted.
More
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 real game break footage, was later released on YouTube.[2][16] It even showed a fan with a "Scientology Kills" sign and the EWU mascot, Swoop, holding a "Xenu.net" sign, both references to the aforementioned Anonymous protests.
The New York Times originally reported that a single game had actually been interrupted by the rickrolling. On March 27, 2008 it issued a correction clarifying the situation, and saying that the interruption never took place, but was rather a hoax by Pawl Fisher, a student; Davin Perry, who shoots game videos for the university; and Dave Cook, the university's sports information director.[2][16][17][18][19][20]
New York Mets
On April 4, 2008, many web communities, starting with Fark.com,[21] 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. The Mets organization announced On April 7, 2008 that "Never Gonna Give You Up" was the winner with more than five million votes.[22] The Mets decided not to commit to using Astley's song and subsequently announced a run-off among six songs that would be played at Shea Stadium for the next six games, starting with "Never Gonna Give You Up" on April 8, 2008.[23]
MLB.com later 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 was greeted with "a shower of boos".[24]
April Fools' Day, 2008
More
On April Fools' Day 2008 and the following weeks, numerous seemingly uncoordinated instances of rickrolling appeared on the Internet, and news media. All of 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.[25]
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.[26]
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.[26]
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).[27] Other social bookmarking sites such as Digg[28] and Reddit[29] subsequently joined in linking the video.
The online Web store ThinkGeek 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.[30]
Dan Kaminsky
More
In April 2008, security expert Dan Kaminsky demonstrated a serious security vulnerability by setting up rickrolls on Facebook and PayPal.[31]
Michelle Obama
On June 7, 2008, a number of political blogs, including Wonkette,[32] Andrew Sullivan,[33] and Balloon Juice,[34] posted an article claiming to show Michelle Obama going on a rant full of racist references to "Whitey", but the video was actually a rickroll.
Barack Roll
Hugh Atkin, an Australian lawyer and notable producer of Internet viral videos,[35] created a popular YouTube parody video of the rickrolling meme involving U.S. President Barack Obama, then the 2008 presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, and a Senator from Illinois, entitled "Barack Roll" that has been watched about 6 million times since its release. The original video has since been muted due to an unauthorized soundtrack,[36] although, as usual in such cases, many copies of the video have been re-uploaded by other users. The video consists of clips of Obama speaking the words of Astley's song. A follow-up video shows Senator John McCain being "Barack Rolled" at the Republican National Convention, though it never happened; the "Barack Roll" image was displayed on the giant blue sky background that was behind John McCain during parts of his speech, and the video was pieced together from footage of the event. The video ends with what looks like the delegation cheering while chanting Obama's name.[37] This version won the Favorite User Generated Video award at the 35th People's Choice Awards.
Michelle Obama
On June 7, 2008, a number of political blogs, including Wonkette,[32] Andrew Sullivan,[33] and Balloon Juice,[34] posted an article claiming to show Michelle Obama going on a rant full of racist references to "Whitey", but the video was actually a rickroll.
Barack Roll
Hugh Atkin, an Australian lawyer and notable producer of Internet viral videos,[35] created a popular YouTube parody video of the rickrolling meme involving U.S. President Barack Obama, then the 2008 presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, and a Senator from Illinois, entitled "Barack Roll" that has been watched about 6 million times since its release. The original video has since been muted due to an unauthorized soundtrack,[36] although, as usual in such cases, many copies of the video have been re-uploaded by other users. The video consists of clips of Obama speaking the words of Astley's song. A follow-up video shows Senator John McCain being "Barack Rolled" at the Republican National Convention, though it never happened; the "Barack Roll" image was displayed on the giant blue sky background that was behind John McCain during parts of his speech, and the video was pieced together from footage of the event. The video ends with what looks like the delegation cheering while chanting Obama's name.[37] This version won the Favorite User Generated Video award at the 35th People's Choice Awards.
It was highlighted on blogs for the New York Times,[38] The Politico,[39] Comedy Central,[40] Andrew Sullivan[41] and Sports Illustrated.[42] Writing for Time magazine's 2009 Time 100 issue, Astley himself mentioned the video in his writeup for 4chan founder moot.[43]
2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Astley rickrolling the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, 2008.
On November 27, 2008, Astley participated in a live rickroll during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends characters were singing "Best Friend", the theme from the 1970s TV series The Courtship of Eddie's Father. Midway through the song, Astley emerged from the float and began to lip sync his signature hit. At the end of Astley's performance, Cheese (a character from Foster's) shouted out "I like Rickrolling!".[44]
2008 Christmas Facebook campaign
Also known as the "Ultimate Rickroll". On December 1, 2008, a campaign was started on Facebook in an attempt to make the song the 2008 Christmas #1 in the UK as an attempt to "rickroll" the country during Christmas. The campaign's purpose was to stop The X-Factor from gaining the #1 Christmas spot, thereby ending the show's chain of success. The group attracted nearly 30,000 people in its first week active. Campaigners were encouraged to get as many people as possible to download the song from iTunes between 15 and 20 December 2008. The song only managed to peak at #73; however, this was later found to be a deliberate lowering of the song's place (having reached #3 a week before it came to its finish) due to the company's belief that "the songs [sic] ranking was ridiculous and rigging a contest was unfair on other artists".[45] The campaigners, Jon and Tracy Morter, were ultimately successful the following year with a Rage Against The Machine campaign for the 1992 song "Killing in the Name" that hit the No.1 spot in December 2009.
Nancy Pelosi
More
On January 13, 2009, in honor of the new YouTube hub for Congress, U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi uploaded a video called "Speaker Pelosi Presents Capitol Cat Cam" to her official YouTube channel. She described it as "a behind the scenes view of the Speaker's Office in the U.S. Capitol." The video depicts cats roaming around the office. A rickroll occurs approximately halfway through the video.[46]
iPhone worm
In October/November 2009, a worm designed to infect jailbroken iPhones changed the wallpaper of infected phones to a picture of Rick Astley overlaid with the text "ikee is never going to give you up."[47]
Oregon House of Representatives
iPhone worm
In October/November 2009, a worm designed to infect jailbroken iPhones changed the wallpaper of infected phones to a picture of Rick Astley overlaid with the text "ikee is never going to give you up."[47]
Oregon House of Representatives
In February 2010, a bipartisan group of Oregon Representatives conspired to do a phantom rickroll during House sessions. Each of the conspirators was given a portion of the lyrics of Never Gonna Give You Up to work unobtrusively into their statements during legislative discussion. This scheme was finally revealed on April 1, 2011, when a video, edited by Representative Jefferson Smith and his co-conspirators, was released of the various representatives making their statements, put in proper lyrical order.[48]
White House Twitter Feed
On 27 July 2011 officials managing the White House twitter feed responded to a message that the feed was dull, writing "Sorry to hear that. Fiscal policy is important, but can be dry sometimes. Here's something more fun" followed by a link to Never Gonna Give You Up.[49]
Others
A rickroll flash mob took place on April 11, 2008, in London's Liverpool Street train station with an estimated 300–400 people in attendance.[50][51] When the flash mob finished the countdown, they sang the song from beginning to end.
One Web site, Prankdialer.com,[52] 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.[53]
The MIT dome was hacked on September 9, 2009, to show a giant set of the first notes of "Never Gonna Give You Up".[54]
As part of promotion for their title Dante's Inferno, Electronic Arts sent wooden boxes to several video game websites, including The Escapist, Destructoid and Chud.com. Each box contained a hammer and a pair of goggles, and when opened, the box would play the Rick Astley song on a continuous loop. The only way to stop it was to destroy it. After doing so, the recipient would then find a scroll claiming that he or she was damned to Hell for committing the sin of Wrath.[55][56][57]
Microsoft dealt with people abusing the free Wi-Fi at its 2009 Brisbane TechEd conference with BitTorrenting[58] by redirecting local DNS results for the top BitTorrent trackers to a local web server containing some Rickroll scripts.[59][60]
In May 2008, there was a flashmob in Baltimore Inner Harbor which included 50 people singing "Never Gonna Give You Up".[61]
Google.com's Google Labs Book NGram Viewer, a phrase-trending graph of searched terms, displays the YouTube video if the term "Never Gonna Give You Up" is searched for.[62]
On the 29 July 2011 episode of the British gameshow Pointless, there was a question about the song. In the second question of the third round, two teams tried to guess one of six things Rick Astley is "never gonna do".
More
Effects on Astley and 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 would be happy to have other artists remix it. Overall, Astley is not troubled by the phenomenon, stating that he finds it "bizarre and funny" and that his only concern is that his "daughter doesn't get embarrassed about it".[63] A spokesperson for Astley's record label released a comment which showed that Astley's interest with the phenomenon had faded, as they stated "I'm sorry, but he's done talking about Rickrolling".[5]
In November 2008, Rick Astley was nominated for "Best Act Ever" at the MTV Europe Music Awards after the online nomination form was flooded with votes.[64] The push to make Astley the winner of the award continued after the announcement, as well as efforts to encourage MTV to personally invite Astley to the awards ceremony.[65] On October 10, Astley's website confirmed that an invitation to the awards had been received. On November 6, 2008, just hours before the ceremony was due to air, it was reported that MTV Europe did not want to give Astley the award at the ceremony, instead wanting to present it at a later date. Many fans who voted for Astley felt the awards ceremony failed to acknowledge him as a legitimate artist. Astley stated in an interview that he felt the award was "daft", but noted that he thought that "MTV were thoroughly rickrolled", and went on to thank everyone who voted for him.[66]
In 2009, Astley wrote about 4chan founder moot for Time magazine's annual Time 100 issue, where he thanked moot for the rickrolling phenomenon.[43]
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 would be happy to have other artists remix it. Overall, Astley is not troubled by the phenomenon, stating that he finds it "bizarre and funny" and that his only concern is that his "daughter doesn't get embarrassed about it".[63] A spokesperson for Astley's record label released a comment which showed that Astley's interest with the phenomenon had faded, as they stated "I'm sorry, but he's done talking about Rickrolling".[5]
In November 2008, Rick Astley was nominated for "Best Act Ever" at the MTV Europe Music Awards after the online nomination form was flooded with votes.[64] The push to make Astley the winner of the award continued after the announcement, as well as efforts to encourage MTV to personally invite Astley to the awards ceremony.[65] On October 10, Astley's website confirmed that an invitation to the awards had been received. On November 6, 2008, just hours before the ceremony was due to air, it was reported that MTV Europe did not want to give Astley the award at the ceremony, instead wanting to present it at a later date. Many fans who voted for Astley felt the awards ceremony failed to acknowledge him as a legitimate artist. Astley stated in an interview that he felt the award was "daft", but noted that he thought that "MTV were thoroughly rickrolled", and went on to thank everyone who voted for him.[66]
In 2009, Astley wrote about 4chan founder moot for Time magazine's annual Time 100 issue, where he thanked moot for the rickrolling phenomenon.[43]
According to The Register, however, Astley has only directly made $12, in performance royalties from YouTube, from the meme.[67]
See also
Crystal Clear app browser.png Internet portal
List of Internet phenomena
Meme
References
^ a b Moore, Matthew (2008-11-28). "Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade: Rick Astley performs his own Rickroll". London: The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2008-12-02.
^ a b c d e f Nussenbaum, Evelyn (2008-03-24). "The '80s Video That Pops Up, Online and Off". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ Henderson, Alex. "Whenever You Need Somebody review". Allmusic. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
^ Hasty, Katie (2008-04-05). "'80s singer Rick Astley latest Web phenomenon". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
^ a b c "The Biggest Little Internet Hoax on Wheels Hits Mainstream". Fox News Channel. Fox News Channel. 2008-04-22. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
^ "Rick Roll related Google Trends". Google Trends. Google. Retrieved 2008-04-03.
^ Williams, Andy (2007-06-16). "You've been tRicked". Wigan Today. Johnston Press Digital Publishing. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ a b c Michaels, Sean (2008-03-19). "Taking the Rick: Twenty years after "Never Gonna Give You Up", Rick Astley became an Internet phenomenon – and an unlikely weapon against Scientology". The Guardian (London: Guardian News and Media Limited). Retrieved 2008-03-20.
^ "You Wouldn't Get This From Any Other Pollster". SurveyUSA. 2008-04-09. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
^ Leckart, Steven (September 2009). "The Official Prankonomy: From rickrolls to malware, a spectrum of stunts". Wired 17 (9): pp. 91–93. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
^ Silverman, Dwight. "Rickroll'd no more: Internet meme takedown!" Houston Chronicle. February 24, 2010. Retrieved on February 24, 2010.
^ McCarthy, Caroline (2010-02-24). "YouTube gives up on original 'Rickroll'". CNET. Retrieved 24 February 2010.
^ Saunders, Terri (2008-02-11). "A real song and dance at church: Entertaining protest fails to amuse Ottawa Scientologists". Ottawa Sun (Sun Media).
^ Kendrick, Mike (2008-03-13). "Cultura Obscura: Rickrolling". The Gateway. University of Alberta. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
^ Rose, Adam (2008-03-19). "College Basketball Game Rick Roll'd". LAist. Gothamist LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ a b Staff (2008-03-27). "EWU student pranks the New York Times". KHQ Right Now. WorldNow and KHQ. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ "New York Times owns up to EWU student prank". KHQ Right Now. WorldNow and KHQ. 2008-03-27. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Leahy, Brian (2008-03-28). "New York Times Gets Rick Roll'd". G4TV. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ "College Basketball Game Gets Rick Roll'd". PAWL TV. 2008-03-16. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Wortham, Jenna (2008-03-26). "New York Times Gets Pwnd by Fake 'Rickroll' Video". Wired. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Cerrone, Matthew (2008-04-04). "Note: Mets about to be Rickrolled". MetsBlog. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Cerrone, Matthew (2008-04-07). "News: Rick Astely Wins, For One Day". MetsBlog. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Rubin, Adam (2008-04-08). "Runoff to determine Mets' new 8th inning song". NY Daily News. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ DiComo, Anthony (2008-04-11). "Controversy surrounds song choice: Initial online voting was rigged by fans to pick Rick Astley tune". MLB.com. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Arrington, Michael (2008-03-31). "YouTube RickRolls Users". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Feldblum, Eli (2008-04-01). "Risk Astley and More April Fools Day Goodness". Search Engine Watch. Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ "Hilarious Muppets Blooper reel". Fark. 2008-04-01. Retrieved 2008-04-04.
^ "Lost Muppets Bloopers". Digg. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Were you a Muppets fan?". Reddit. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Think Geek Betamax to HD-DVD Converter". Think Geek. 2008-04-06. Retrieved 2008-04-06.
^ Singel, Ryan (2008-04-19). "ISPs' Error Page Ads Let Hackers Hijack Entire Web, Researcher Discloses". Wired. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
^ Layne, Ken (2008-05-08). "Michelle Obama Shock Tape: 'God Damn You American Whitey'". Wonkette. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ Sullivan, Andrew (2008-05-08). "The Whitey Tape". Andrew Sullivan. The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ Cole, John (2008-05-08). "The Whitey Tape". Balloon Juice. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ ABC (2008). Unleashed. Retrieved 2 March 2008.
^ Atkin, Hugh (2008-08-09). "Barack Roll". YouTube. Archived from the original on November 11, 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-15.
^ Spiegelman, Ian (2008-09-07). "Barack Roll Becomes McCain's Worst Nightmare". Gawker Media. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ New York Times (2008). Laugh Lines – You’ve Been Barack-Rolled. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
^ Politico.com (2008). Sunday reading: Barackroll. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
^ Comedy Central (2008). BREAKING NEWS: The Footage Barack Obama Doesn't Want You to See – Do the Letters "RR" Mean Anything to You?. Retrieved 13 August 2008.
^ TheAtlantic.com (2008). The Daily Dish – Barack Roll. Retrieved 14 August 2008.
^ SI.com (2008). Hot Clicks: Braun shoots commercial with Marisa Miller. Retrieved 13 August 2008.
^ a b Astley, Rick (2009-04-30). "The 2009 Time 100: Builders and Titans: moot". Time.com (Time magazine). Retrieved 3 July 2009.
^ North, Jesse (2008-11-27). "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: Best and worst moments". Retrieved 2008-11-27.
^ http://uk.launch.yahoo.com/c/uk/single_charts.html
^ Arrington, Michael (2009-01-14). "Our Tax Dollars at Work: Nancy Pelosi RickRolls YouTube Viewers". Retrieved 2009-01-14.
^ Cluley, Graham (2009-11-08). "First iPhone worm discovered – ikee changes wallpaper to Rick Astley photo". Retrieved 2009-11-09.
^ "How one Oregon lawmaker convinced his colleagues to 'Rick Roll' the state legislature". Yahoo News. Retrieved 2011-04-08.
^ "White House rickrolls Twitter user who complains of 'dull' feed". The Guardian. 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2011-07-28.
More
^ "Astley fans' rush hour 'flashmob'". BBC News. 2008-04-11. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Sanchez, Julian (2008-04-14). "The Dance, Dance Revolution will be televised after all". Ars Technica. Ars Technica, LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ "Prankdialer.com Go ahead... Pick up the phone". Über Systems. Retrieved 2008-11-27.
^ "Clickworthy Web sites – Features". The Connection. 2008-04-17. Retrieved 2008-11-08.
^ "MIT Tech". 2009-09-11.
^ "EA Rickrolls Yahtzee". Escapist Magazine. 2009-10-28. Retrieved 2009-10-28.
^ "DANTE'S INFERNO RICKROLLS CHUD.COM!". chud.com. 2009-10-26. Retrieved 2009-10-28.
^ Chester, Nick (2009-10-27). "What's in the Dante's Inferno box?". Destructoid. Retrieved 2009-10-29.
^ BitTorrent, traffic shaping and trusting users (David Connors, TechEd Backstage, 17 February 2010)
^ Never gonna give you up! (David Connors, TechEd Backstage, 18 February 2010)
^ Microsoft RickRolls WiFi Network Leechers (Samzenpus, Slashdot, 18 February 2010)
^ Rickroll prank comes to Baltimore!
^ "Google Labs Books NGram Viewer". Google Labs. 2011-02-05. Retrieved 2011-02-04.
^ Sarno, David (2008-03-25). "Web Scout exclusive! Rick Astley, king of the 'Rickroll,' talks about his song's second coming". Web Scout (Los Angeles Times). Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Astley shortlisted for MTV award". BBC News. 2008-10-02. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "WTF MTV?". Bestactever.com. 2008-10-10. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Rick Brands MTV win 'Ridiculous'". BBC News. 2008-11-07. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "German judge chides Google over YouTube freeloading". The Register. 2010-08-31.
Further reading
^ Sanchez, Julian (2008-04-14). "The Dance, Dance Revolution will be televised after all". Ars Technica. Ars Technica, LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ "Prankdialer.com Go ahead... Pick up the phone". Über Systems. Retrieved 2008-11-27.
^ "Clickworthy Web sites – Features". The Connection. 2008-04-17. Retrieved 2008-11-08.
^ "MIT Tech". 2009-09-11.
^ "EA Rickrolls Yahtzee". Escapist Magazine. 2009-10-28. Retrieved 2009-10-28.
^ "DANTE'S INFERNO RICKROLLS CHUD.COM!". chud.com. 2009-10-26. Retrieved 2009-10-28.
^ Chester, Nick (2009-10-27). "What's in the Dante's Inferno box?". Destructoid. Retrieved 2009-10-29.
^ BitTorrent, traffic shaping and trusting users (David Connors, TechEd Backstage, 17 February 2010)
^ Never gonna give you up! (David Connors, TechEd Backstage, 18 February 2010)
^ Microsoft RickRolls WiFi Network Leechers (Samzenpus, Slashdot, 18 February 2010)
^ Rickroll prank comes to Baltimore!
^ "Google Labs Books NGram Viewer". Google Labs. 2011-02-05. Retrieved 2011-02-04.
^ Sarno, David (2008-03-25). "Web Scout exclusive! Rick Astley, king of the 'Rickroll,' talks about his song's second coming". Web Scout (Los Angeles Times). Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Astley shortlisted for MTV award". BBC News. 2008-10-02. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "WTF MTV?". Bestactever.com. 2008-10-10. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Rick Brands MTV win 'Ridiculous'". BBC News. 2008-11-07. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "German judge chides Google over YouTube freeloading". The Register. 2010-08-31.
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). Archived from the original on April 6, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
Savage, Marg (2008-04-01). "Rickrolling and the league of web fame". BBC News (BBC News). Retrieved 2008-04-22.
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; Ben Penn (2008-04-01). "Prank gives song new life". Diamondback Online (University of Maryland). Retrieved 2008-04-01.
Staff (2008-03-31). "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). Archived from the original on March 31, 2008. 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. Archived from the original on April 21, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-18.
[hide]v · d · eRick Astley
Studio albums
Whenever You Need Somebody · Hold Me in Your Arms · Free · Body & Soul · Keep It Turned On · Portrait
Compilations
Together Forever - Greatest Hits and More... · Greatest Hits · The Best of Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up · 3 Originals · Love Songs · The Platinum and Gold Collection - Rick Astley · Artist Collection: Rick Astley · Collections · Ultimate Collection · Playlist: The Very Best of Rick Astley
Remix albums
Dance Mixes · 12" Collection
Singles
"Never Gonna Give You Up" · "Whenever You Need Somebody" · "When I Fall in Love"/"My Arms Keep Missing You" · "Together Forever" · "It Would Take a Strong Strong Man" · "She Wants to Dance with Me" · "Take Me to Your Heart" · "Don't Say Goodbye" · "Hold Me in Your Arms" · "Giving Up on Love" · "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" · "Cry for Help" · "Move Right Out" · "Never Knew Love" · "The Ones You Love" · "Hopelessly" · "Sleeping" · "Lights Out"
Appeared on
"When You Gonna" · "Let It Be" · "Learning To Live (Without Your Love)" · "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"
Record labels
More
RCA Records · Cruz Music
Related articles
Discography · Rickrolling · Stock, Aitken & Waterman
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Rickrolling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Page semi-protected
A still photo of the YouTube video of "Never Gonna Give You Up", the song played when viewers are Rickrolled.
Rickrolling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Page semi-protected
A still photo of the YouTube video of "Never Gonna Give You Up", the song played when viewers are Rickrolled.
Rickrolling is an Internet meme[1][2] involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a bait and switch; a person provides a hyperlink seemingly relevant to the topic at hand, but actually leads to Astley's video. The link can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true destination of the link without clicking. Persons led to the music video are said to have been rickrolled. Rickrolling extended beyond web links to playing the video or song disruptively in other situations, including public places,[2] like a surprise appearance in the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,[1] a televised event with tens of millions of viewers.
Contents
[hide]
More
1 History
2 Examples
2.1 Scientology protests
2.2 EWU basketball games
2.3 New York Mets
2.4 April Fools' Day, 2008
2.5 Dan Kaminsky
2.6 Michelle Obama
2.7 Barack Roll
2.8 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
2.9 2008 Christmas Facebook campaign
2.10 Nancy Pelosi
2.11 iPhone worm
2.12 Oregon House of Representatives
2.13 White House Twitter Feed
2.14 Others
3 Effects on Astley and reaction
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
2 Examples
2.1 Scientology protests
2.2 EWU basketball games
2.3 New York Mets
2.4 April Fools' Day, 2008
2.5 Dan Kaminsky
2.6 Michelle Obama
2.7 Barack Roll
2.8 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
2.9 2008 Christmas Facebook campaign
2.10 Nancy Pelosi
2.11 iPhone worm
2.12 Oregon House of Representatives
2.13 White House Twitter Feed
2.14 Others
3 Effects on Astley and reaction
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
History
Main article: Never Gonna Give You Up
Astley recorded "Never Gonna Give You Up" on his 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody.[3] The song, his solo debut single, was a number one hit on several international charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and UK Singles Chart. As a means of promoting the song, it was also made into Astley's first music video, which features him performing the song while dancing.[4]
Rickrolling is said to have begun as a variant of an earlier prank from the imageboard 4chan known as duckrolling,[5] in which a link to somewhere (such as a specific picture or news item) would instead lead to a thread or site containing an edited picture of a duck with wheels. The user at that point is said to have been "duckrolled."
Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up
Problems listening to this file? See media help.
More
The first known instance of a rickroll occurred in May 2007 on /v/, 4chan's video game board, 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). The joke was confined to 4chan for a very brief period.[5]
By May 2008,[6] the practice had spread beyond 4chan and became an Internet phenomenon, eventually attracting coverage in the mainstream media.[2][7][8] An April 2008 poll by SurveyUSA estimated that at least 18 million American adults had been rickrolled.[9] In September 2009, Wired magazine published a guide to modern hoaxes which listed rickrolling as one of the better known beginner-level hoaxes, alongside the fake e-mail chain letter.[10]
By May 2008,[6] the practice had spread beyond 4chan and became an Internet phenomenon, eventually attracting coverage in the mainstream media.[2][7][8] An April 2008 poll by SurveyUSA estimated that at least 18 million American adults had been rickrolled.[9] In September 2009, Wired magazine published a guide to modern hoaxes which listed rickrolling as one of the better known beginner-level hoaxes, alongside the fake e-mail chain letter.[10]
The original video on YouTube used for rickrolling was removed for terms of use violations in February 2010[11] but was reposted within a day.[12]
Examples
Scientology protests
In connection with the online meme, "Never Gonna Give You Up" was played and performed at most of the Project Chanology February 2008 protests against the Church of Scientology.[13][14] On February 10, 2008, protests in New York City, Washington, D.C., London, St. Louis, Detroit, 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".[8] 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".[8]
EWU basketball games
Four women's basketball games at Eastern Washington University were Rickrolled in March 2008,[2][15] in the first photo, Davin Perry, dressed as the singer Rick Astley, performed before a basketball game. The games were not actually interrupted.
More
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 real game break footage, was later released on YouTube.[2][16] It even showed a fan with a "Scientology Kills" sign and the EWU mascot, Swoop, holding a "Xenu.net" sign, both references to the aforementioned Anonymous protests.
The New York Times originally reported that a single game had actually been interrupted by the rickrolling. On March 27, 2008 it issued a correction clarifying the situation, and saying that the interruption never took place, but was rather a hoax by Pawl Fisher, a student; Davin Perry, who shoots game videos for the university; and Dave Cook, the university's sports information director.[2][16][17][18][19][20]
New York Mets
On April 4, 2008, many web communities, starting with Fark.com,[21] 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. The Mets organization announced On April 7, 2008 that "Never Gonna Give You Up" was the winner with more than five million votes.[22] The Mets decided not to commit to using Astley's song and subsequently announced a run-off among six songs that would be played at Shea Stadium for the next six games, starting with "Never Gonna Give You Up" on April 8, 2008.[23]
MLB.com later 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 was greeted with "a shower of boos".[24]
April Fools' Day, 2008
More
On April Fools' Day 2008 and the following weeks, numerous seemingly uncoordinated instances of rickrolling appeared on the Internet, and news media. All of 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.[25]
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.[26]
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.[26]
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).[27] Other social bookmarking sites such as Digg[28] and Reddit[29] subsequently joined in linking the video.
The online Web store ThinkGeek 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.[30]
Dan Kaminsky
More
In April 2008, security expert Dan Kaminsky demonstrated a serious security vulnerability by setting up rickrolls on Facebook and PayPal.[31]
Michelle Obama
On June 7, 2008, a number of political blogs, including Wonkette,[32] Andrew Sullivan,[33] and Balloon Juice,[34] posted an article claiming to show Michelle Obama going on a rant full of racist references to "Whitey", but the video was actually a rickroll.
Barack Roll
Hugh Atkin, an Australian lawyer and notable producer of Internet viral videos,[35] created a popular YouTube parody video of the rickrolling meme involving U.S. President Barack Obama, then the 2008 presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, and a Senator from Illinois, entitled "Barack Roll" that has been watched about 6 million times since its release. The original video has since been muted due to an unauthorized soundtrack,[36] although, as usual in such cases, many copies of the video have been re-uploaded by other users. The video consists of clips of Obama speaking the words of Astley's song. A follow-up video shows Senator John McCain being "Barack Rolled" at the Republican National Convention, though it never happened; the "Barack Roll" image was displayed on the giant blue sky background that was behind John McCain during parts of his speech, and the video was pieced together from footage of the event. The video ends with what looks like the delegation cheering while chanting Obama's name.[37] This version won the Favorite User Generated Video award at the 35th People's Choice Awards.
Michelle Obama
On June 7, 2008, a number of political blogs, including Wonkette,[32] Andrew Sullivan,[33] and Balloon Juice,[34] posted an article claiming to show Michelle Obama going on a rant full of racist references to "Whitey", but the video was actually a rickroll.
Barack Roll
Hugh Atkin, an Australian lawyer and notable producer of Internet viral videos,[35] created a popular YouTube parody video of the rickrolling meme involving U.S. President Barack Obama, then the 2008 presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, and a Senator from Illinois, entitled "Barack Roll" that has been watched about 6 million times since its release. The original video has since been muted due to an unauthorized soundtrack,[36] although, as usual in such cases, many copies of the video have been re-uploaded by other users. The video consists of clips of Obama speaking the words of Astley's song. A follow-up video shows Senator John McCain being "Barack Rolled" at the Republican National Convention, though it never happened; the "Barack Roll" image was displayed on the giant blue sky background that was behind John McCain during parts of his speech, and the video was pieced together from footage of the event. The video ends with what looks like the delegation cheering while chanting Obama's name.[37] This version won the Favorite User Generated Video award at the 35th People's Choice Awards.
It was highlighted on blogs for the New York Times,[38] The Politico,[39] Comedy Central,[40] Andrew Sullivan[41] and Sports Illustrated.[42] Writing for Time magazine's 2009 Time 100 issue, Astley himself mentioned the video in his writeup for 4chan founder moot.[43]
2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Astley rickrolling the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, 2008.
On November 27, 2008, Astley participated in a live rickroll during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends characters were singing "Best Friend", the theme from the 1970s TV series The Courtship of Eddie's Father. Midway through the song, Astley emerged from the float and began to lip sync his signature hit. At the end of Astley's performance, Cheese (a character from Foster's) shouted out "I like Rickrolling!".[44]
2008 Christmas Facebook campaign
Also known as the "Ultimate Rickroll". On December 1, 2008, a campaign was started on Facebook in an attempt to make the song the 2008 Christmas #1 in the UK as an attempt to "rickroll" the country during Christmas. The campaign's purpose was to stop The X-Factor from gaining the #1 Christmas spot, thereby ending the show's chain of success. The group attracted nearly 30,000 people in its first week active. Campaigners were encouraged to get as many people as possible to download the song from iTunes between 15 and 20 December 2008. The song only managed to peak at #73; however, this was later found to be a deliberate lowering of the song's place (having reached #3 a week before it came to its finish) due to the company's belief that "the songs [sic] ranking was ridiculous and rigging a contest was unfair on other artists".[45] The campaigners, Jon and Tracy Morter, were ultimately successful the following year with a Rage Against The Machine campaign for the 1992 song "Killing in the Name" that hit the No.1 spot in December 2009.
Nancy Pelosi
More
On January 13, 2009, in honor of the new YouTube hub for Congress, U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi uploaded a video called "Speaker Pelosi Presents Capitol Cat Cam" to her official YouTube channel. She described it as "a behind the scenes view of the Speaker's Office in the U.S. Capitol." The video depicts cats roaming around the office. A rickroll occurs approximately halfway through the video.[46]
iPhone worm
In October/November 2009, a worm designed to infect jailbroken iPhones changed the wallpaper of infected phones to a picture of Rick Astley overlaid with the text "ikee is never going to give you up."[47]
Oregon House of Representatives
iPhone worm
In October/November 2009, a worm designed to infect jailbroken iPhones changed the wallpaper of infected phones to a picture of Rick Astley overlaid with the text "ikee is never going to give you up."[47]
Oregon House of Representatives
In February 2010, a bipartisan group of Oregon Representatives conspired to do a phantom rickroll during House sessions. Each of the conspirators was given a portion of the lyrics of Never Gonna Give You Up to work unobtrusively into their statements during legislative discussion. This scheme was finally revealed on April 1, 2011, when a video, edited by Representative Jefferson Smith and his co-conspirators, was released of the various representatives making their statements, put in proper lyrical order.[48]
White House Twitter Feed
On 27 July 2011 officials managing the White House twitter feed responded to a message that the feed was dull, writing "Sorry to hear that. Fiscal policy is important, but can be dry sometimes. Here's something more fun" followed by a link to Never Gonna Give You Up.[49]
Others
A rickroll flash mob took place on April 11, 2008, in London's Liverpool Street train station with an estimated 300–400 people in attendance.[50][51] When the flash mob finished the countdown, they sang the song from beginning to end.
One Web site, Prankdialer.com,[52] 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.[53]
The MIT dome was hacked on September 9, 2009, to show a giant set of the first notes of "Never Gonna Give You Up".[54]
As part of promotion for their title Dante's Inferno, Electronic Arts sent wooden boxes to several video game websites, including The Escapist, Destructoid and Chud.com. Each box contained a hammer and a pair of goggles, and when opened, the box would play the Rick Astley song on a continuous loop. The only way to stop it was to destroy it. After doing so, the recipient would then find a scroll claiming that he or she was damned to Hell for committing the sin of Wrath.[55][56][57]
Microsoft dealt with people abusing the free Wi-Fi at its 2009 Brisbane TechEd conference with BitTorrenting[58] by redirecting local DNS results for the top BitTorrent trackers to a local web server containing some Rickroll scripts.[59][60]
In May 2008, there was a flashmob in Baltimore Inner Harbor which included 50 people singing "Never Gonna Give You Up".[61]
Google.com's Google Labs Book NGram Viewer, a phrase-trending graph of searched terms, displays the YouTube video if the term "Never Gonna Give You Up" is searched for.[62]
On the 29 July 2011 episode of the British gameshow Pointless, there was a question about the song. In the second question of the third round, two teams tried to guess one of six things Rick Astley is "never gonna do".
More
Effects on Astley and 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 would be happy to have other artists remix it. Overall, Astley is not troubled by the phenomenon, stating that he finds it "bizarre and funny" and that his only concern is that his "daughter doesn't get embarrassed about it".[63] A spokesperson for Astley's record label released a comment which showed that Astley's interest with the phenomenon had faded, as they stated "I'm sorry, but he's done talking about Rickrolling".[5]
In November 2008, Rick Astley was nominated for "Best Act Ever" at the MTV Europe Music Awards after the online nomination form was flooded with votes.[64] The push to make Astley the winner of the award continued after the announcement, as well as efforts to encourage MTV to personally invite Astley to the awards ceremony.[65] On October 10, Astley's website confirmed that an invitation to the awards had been received. On November 6, 2008, just hours before the ceremony was due to air, it was reported that MTV Europe did not want to give Astley the award at the ceremony, instead wanting to present it at a later date. Many fans who voted for Astley felt the awards ceremony failed to acknowledge him as a legitimate artist. Astley stated in an interview that he felt the award was "daft", but noted that he thought that "MTV were thoroughly rickrolled", and went on to thank everyone who voted for him.[66]
In 2009, Astley wrote about 4chan founder moot for Time magazine's annual Time 100 issue, where he thanked moot for the rickrolling phenomenon.[43]
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 would be happy to have other artists remix it. Overall, Astley is not troubled by the phenomenon, stating that he finds it "bizarre and funny" and that his only concern is that his "daughter doesn't get embarrassed about it".[63] A spokesperson for Astley's record label released a comment which showed that Astley's interest with the phenomenon had faded, as they stated "I'm sorry, but he's done talking about Rickrolling".[5]
In November 2008, Rick Astley was nominated for "Best Act Ever" at the MTV Europe Music Awards after the online nomination form was flooded with votes.[64] The push to make Astley the winner of the award continued after the announcement, as well as efforts to encourage MTV to personally invite Astley to the awards ceremony.[65] On October 10, Astley's website confirmed that an invitation to the awards had been received. On November 6, 2008, just hours before the ceremony was due to air, it was reported that MTV Europe did not want to give Astley the award at the ceremony, instead wanting to present it at a later date. Many fans who voted for Astley felt the awards ceremony failed to acknowledge him as a legitimate artist. Astley stated in an interview that he felt the award was "daft", but noted that he thought that "MTV were thoroughly rickrolled", and went on to thank everyone who voted for him.[66]
In 2009, Astley wrote about 4chan founder moot for Time magazine's annual Time 100 issue, where he thanked moot for the rickrolling phenomenon.[43]
According to The Register, however, Astley has only directly made $12, in performance royalties from YouTube, from the meme.[67]
See also
Crystal Clear app browser.png Internet portal
List of Internet phenomena
Meme
References
^ a b Moore, Matthew (2008-11-28). "Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade: Rick Astley performs his own Rickroll". London: The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2008-12-02.
^ a b c d e f Nussenbaum, Evelyn (2008-03-24). "The '80s Video That Pops Up, Online and Off". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ Henderson, Alex. "Whenever You Need Somebody review". Allmusic. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
^ Hasty, Katie (2008-04-05). "'80s singer Rick Astley latest Web phenomenon". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
^ a b c "The Biggest Little Internet Hoax on Wheels Hits Mainstream". Fox News Channel. Fox News Channel. 2008-04-22. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
^ "Rick Roll related Google Trends". Google Trends. Google. Retrieved 2008-04-03.
^ Williams, Andy (2007-06-16). "You've been tRicked". Wigan Today. Johnston Press Digital Publishing. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ a b c Michaels, Sean (2008-03-19). "Taking the Rick: Twenty years after "Never Gonna Give You Up", Rick Astley became an Internet phenomenon – and an unlikely weapon against Scientology". The Guardian (London: Guardian News and Media Limited). Retrieved 2008-03-20.
^ "You Wouldn't Get This From Any Other Pollster". SurveyUSA. 2008-04-09. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
^ Leckart, Steven (September 2009). "The Official Prankonomy: From rickrolls to malware, a spectrum of stunts". Wired 17 (9): pp. 91–93. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
^ Silverman, Dwight. "Rickroll'd no more: Internet meme takedown!" Houston Chronicle. February 24, 2010. Retrieved on February 24, 2010.
^ McCarthy, Caroline (2010-02-24). "YouTube gives up on original 'Rickroll'". CNET. Retrieved 24 February 2010.
^ Saunders, Terri (2008-02-11). "A real song and dance at church: Entertaining protest fails to amuse Ottawa Scientologists". Ottawa Sun (Sun Media).
^ Kendrick, Mike (2008-03-13). "Cultura Obscura: Rickrolling". The Gateway. University of Alberta. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
^ Rose, Adam (2008-03-19). "College Basketball Game Rick Roll'd". LAist. Gothamist LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ a b Staff (2008-03-27). "EWU student pranks the New York Times". KHQ Right Now. WorldNow and KHQ. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ "New York Times owns up to EWU student prank". KHQ Right Now. WorldNow and KHQ. 2008-03-27. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Leahy, Brian (2008-03-28). "New York Times Gets Rick Roll'd". G4TV. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ "College Basketball Game Gets Rick Roll'd". PAWL TV. 2008-03-16. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Wortham, Jenna (2008-03-26). "New York Times Gets Pwnd by Fake 'Rickroll' Video". Wired. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Cerrone, Matthew (2008-04-04). "Note: Mets about to be Rickrolled". MetsBlog. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Cerrone, Matthew (2008-04-07). "News: Rick Astely Wins, For One Day". MetsBlog. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Rubin, Adam (2008-04-08). "Runoff to determine Mets' new 8th inning song". NY Daily News. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ DiComo, Anthony (2008-04-11). "Controversy surrounds song choice: Initial online voting was rigged by fans to pick Rick Astley tune". MLB.com. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Arrington, Michael (2008-03-31). "YouTube RickRolls Users". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ Feldblum, Eli (2008-04-01). "Risk Astley and More April Fools Day Goodness". Search Engine Watch. Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
^ "Hilarious Muppets Blooper reel". Fark. 2008-04-01. Retrieved 2008-04-04.
^ "Lost Muppets Bloopers". Digg. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Were you a Muppets fan?". Reddit. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Think Geek Betamax to HD-DVD Converter". Think Geek. 2008-04-06. Retrieved 2008-04-06.
^ Singel, Ryan (2008-04-19). "ISPs' Error Page Ads Let Hackers Hijack Entire Web, Researcher Discloses". Wired. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
^ Layne, Ken (2008-05-08). "Michelle Obama Shock Tape: 'God Damn You American Whitey'". Wonkette. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ Sullivan, Andrew (2008-05-08). "The Whitey Tape". Andrew Sullivan. The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ Cole, John (2008-05-08). "The Whitey Tape". Balloon Juice. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ ABC (2008). Unleashed. Retrieved 2 March 2008.
^ Atkin, Hugh (2008-08-09). "Barack Roll". YouTube. Archived from the original on November 11, 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-15.
^ Spiegelman, Ian (2008-09-07). "Barack Roll Becomes McCain's Worst Nightmare". Gawker Media. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ New York Times (2008). Laugh Lines – You’ve Been Barack-Rolled. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
^ Politico.com (2008). Sunday reading: Barackroll. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
^ Comedy Central (2008). BREAKING NEWS: The Footage Barack Obama Doesn't Want You to See – Do the Letters "RR" Mean Anything to You?. Retrieved 13 August 2008.
^ TheAtlantic.com (2008). The Daily Dish – Barack Roll. Retrieved 14 August 2008.
^ SI.com (2008). Hot Clicks: Braun shoots commercial with Marisa Miller. Retrieved 13 August 2008.
^ a b Astley, Rick (2009-04-30). "The 2009 Time 100: Builders and Titans: moot". Time.com (Time magazine). Retrieved 3 July 2009.
^ North, Jesse (2008-11-27). "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: Best and worst moments". Retrieved 2008-11-27.
^ http://uk.launch.yahoo.com/c/uk/single_charts.html
^ Arrington, Michael (2009-01-14). "Our Tax Dollars at Work: Nancy Pelosi RickRolls YouTube Viewers". Retrieved 2009-01-14.
^ Cluley, Graham (2009-11-08). "First iPhone worm discovered – ikee changes wallpaper to Rick Astley photo". Retrieved 2009-11-09.
^ "How one Oregon lawmaker convinced his colleagues to 'Rick Roll' the state legislature". Yahoo News. Retrieved 2011-04-08.
^ "White House rickrolls Twitter user who complains of 'dull' feed". The Guardian. 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2011-07-28.
More
^ "Astley fans' rush hour 'flashmob'". BBC News. 2008-04-11. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ Sanchez, Julian (2008-04-14). "The Dance, Dance Revolution will be televised after all". Ars Technica. Ars Technica, LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ "Prankdialer.com Go ahead... Pick up the phone". Über Systems. Retrieved 2008-11-27.
^ "Clickworthy Web sites – Features". The Connection. 2008-04-17. Retrieved 2008-11-08.
^ "MIT Tech". 2009-09-11.
^ "EA Rickrolls Yahtzee". Escapist Magazine. 2009-10-28. Retrieved 2009-10-28.
^ "DANTE'S INFERNO RICKROLLS CHUD.COM!". chud.com. 2009-10-26. Retrieved 2009-10-28.
^ Chester, Nick (2009-10-27). "What's in the Dante's Inferno box?". Destructoid. Retrieved 2009-10-29.
^ BitTorrent, traffic shaping and trusting users (David Connors, TechEd Backstage, 17 February 2010)
^ Never gonna give you up! (David Connors, TechEd Backstage, 18 February 2010)
^ Microsoft RickRolls WiFi Network Leechers (Samzenpus, Slashdot, 18 February 2010)
^ Rickroll prank comes to Baltimore!
^ "Google Labs Books NGram Viewer". Google Labs. 2011-02-05. Retrieved 2011-02-04.
^ Sarno, David (2008-03-25). "Web Scout exclusive! Rick Astley, king of the 'Rickroll,' talks about his song's second coming". Web Scout (Los Angeles Times). Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Astley shortlisted for MTV award". BBC News. 2008-10-02. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "WTF MTV?". Bestactever.com. 2008-10-10. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Rick Brands MTV win 'Ridiculous'". BBC News. 2008-11-07. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "German judge chides Google over YouTube freeloading". The Register. 2010-08-31.
Further reading
^ Sanchez, Julian (2008-04-14). "The Dance, Dance Revolution will be televised after all". Ars Technica. Ars Technica, LLC. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
^ "Prankdialer.com Go ahead... Pick up the phone". Über Systems. Retrieved 2008-11-27.
^ "Clickworthy Web sites – Features". The Connection. 2008-04-17. Retrieved 2008-11-08.
^ "MIT Tech". 2009-09-11.
^ "EA Rickrolls Yahtzee". Escapist Magazine. 2009-10-28. Retrieved 2009-10-28.
^ "DANTE'S INFERNO RICKROLLS CHUD.COM!". chud.com. 2009-10-26. Retrieved 2009-10-28.
^ Chester, Nick (2009-10-27). "What's in the Dante's Inferno box?". Destructoid. Retrieved 2009-10-29.
^ BitTorrent, traffic shaping and trusting users (David Connors, TechEd Backstage, 17 February 2010)
^ Never gonna give you up! (David Connors, TechEd Backstage, 18 February 2010)
^ Microsoft RickRolls WiFi Network Leechers (Samzenpus, Slashdot, 18 February 2010)
^ Rickroll prank comes to Baltimore!
^ "Google Labs Books NGram Viewer". Google Labs. 2011-02-05. Retrieved 2011-02-04.
^ Sarno, David (2008-03-25). "Web Scout exclusive! Rick Astley, king of the 'Rickroll,' talks about his song's second coming". Web Scout (Los Angeles Times). Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Astley shortlisted for MTV award". BBC News. 2008-10-02. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "WTF MTV?". Bestactever.com. 2008-10-10. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "Rick Brands MTV win 'Ridiculous'". BBC News. 2008-11-07. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ "German judge chides Google over YouTube freeloading". The Register. 2010-08-31.
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). Archived from the original on April 6, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
Savage, Marg (2008-04-01). "Rickrolling and the league of web fame". BBC News (BBC News). Retrieved 2008-04-22.
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; Ben Penn (2008-04-01). "Prank gives song new life". Diamondback Online (University of Maryland). Retrieved 2008-04-01.
Staff (2008-03-31). "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). Archived from the original on March 31, 2008. 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. Archived from the original on April 21, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-18.
[hide]v · d · eRick Astley
Studio albums
Whenever You Need Somebody · Hold Me in Your Arms · Free · Body & Soul · Keep It Turned On · Portrait
Compilations
Together Forever - Greatest Hits and More... · Greatest Hits · The Best of Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up · 3 Originals · Love Songs · The Platinum and Gold Collection - Rick Astley · Artist Collection: Rick Astley · Collections · Ultimate Collection · Playlist: The Very Best of Rick Astley
Remix albums
Dance Mixes · 12" Collection
Singles
"Never Gonna Give You Up" · "Whenever You Need Somebody" · "When I Fall in Love"/"My Arms Keep Missing You" · "Together Forever" · "It Would Take a Strong Strong Man" · "She Wants to Dance with Me" · "Take Me to Your Heart" · "Don't Say Goodbye" · "Hold Me in Your Arms" · "Giving Up on Love" · "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" · "Cry for Help" · "Move Right Out" · "Never Knew Love" · "The Ones You Love" · "Hopelessly" · "Sleeping" · "Lights Out"
Appeared on
"When You Gonna" · "Let It Be" · "Learning To Live (Without Your Love)" · "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"
Record labels
More
RCA Records · Cruz Music
Related articles
Discography · Rickrolling · Stock, Aitken & Waterman
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Rickrolling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Page semi-protected
A still photo of the YouTube video of "Never Gonna Give You Up", the song played when viewers are Rickrolled.
Rickrolling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Page semi-protected
A still photo of the YouTube video of "Never Gonna Give You Up", the song played when viewers are Rickrolled.
Rickrolling is an Internet meme[1][2] involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a bait and switch; a person provides a hyperlink seemingly relevant to the topic at hand, but actually leads to Astley's video. The link can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true destination of the link without clicking. Persons led to the music video are said to have been rickrolled. Rickrolling extended beyond web links to playing the video or song disruptively in other situations, including public places,[2] like a surprise appearance in the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,[1] a televised event with tens of millions of viewers.
Contents
[hide]
More
1 History
2 Examples
2.1 Scientology protests
2.2 EWU basketball games
2.3 New York Mets
2.4 April Fools' Day, 2008
2.5 Dan Kaminsky
2.6 Michelle Obama
2.7 Barack Roll
2.8 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
2.9 2008 Christmas Facebook campaign
2.10 Nancy Pelosi
2.11 iPhone worm
2.12 Oregon House of Representatives
2.13 White House Twitter Feed
2.14 Others
3 Effects on Astley and reaction
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
2 Examples
2.1 Scientology protests
2.2 EWU basketball games
2.3 New York Mets
2.4 April Fools' Day, 2008
2.5 Dan Kaminsky
2.6 Michelle Obama
2.7 Barack Roll
2.8 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
2.9 2008 Christmas Facebook campaign
2.10 Nancy Pelosi
2.11 iPhone worm
2.12 Oregon House of Representatives
2.13 White House Twitter Feed
2.14 Others
3 Effects on Astley and reaction
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
History
Main article: Never Gonna Give You Up
Astley recorded "Never Gonna Give You Up" on his 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody.[3] The song, his solo debut single, was a number one hit on several international charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and UK Singles Chart. As a means of promoting the song, it was also made into Astley's first music video, which features him performing the song while dancing.[4]
Rickrolling is said to have begun as a variant of an earlier prank from the imageboard 4chan known as duckrolling,[5] in which a link to somewhere (such as a specific picture or news item) would instead lead to a thread or site containing an edited picture of a duck with wheels. The user at that point is said to have been "duckrolled."
Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up
Problems listening to this file? See media help.
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The first known instance of a rickroll occurred in May 2007 on /v/, 4chan's video game board, 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). The joke was confined to 4chan for a very brief period.[5]
By May 2008,[6] the practice had spread beyond 4chan and became an Internet phenomenon, eventually attracting coverage in the mainstream media.[2][7][8] An April 2008 poll by SurveyUSA estimated that at least 18 million American adults had been rickrolled.[9] In September 2009, Wired magazine published a guide to modern hoaxes which listed rickrolling as one of the better known beginner-level hoaxes, alongside the fake e-mail chain letter.[10]
By May 2008,[6] the practice had spread beyond 4chan and became an Internet phenomenon, eventually attracting coverage in the mainstream media.[2][7][8] An April 2008 poll by SurveyUSA estimated that at least 18 million American adults had been rickrolled.[9] In September 2009, Wired magazine published a guide to modern hoaxes which listed rickrolling as one of the better known beginner-level hoaxes, alongside the fake e-mail chain letter.[10]
The original video on YouTube used for rickrolling was removed for terms of use violations in February 2010[11] but was reposted within a day.[12]
Examples
Scientology protests
In connection with the online meme, "Never Gonna Give You Up" was played and performed at most of the Project Chanology February 2008 protests against the Church of Scientology.[13][14] On February 10, 2008, protests in New York City, Washington, D.C., London, St. Louis, Detroit, 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".[8] 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".[8]
EWU basketball games
Four women's basketball games at Eastern Washington University were Rickrolled in March 2008,[2][15] in the first photo, Davin Perry, dressed as the singer Rick Astley, performed before a basketball game. The games were not actually interrupted.
More
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 real game break footage, was later released on YouTube.[2][16] It even showed a fan with a "Scientology Kills" sign and the EWU mascot, Swoop, holding a "Xenu.net" sign, both references to the aforementioned Anonymous protests.
The New York Times originally reported that a single game had actually been interrupted by the rickrolling. On March 27, 2008 it issued a correction clarifying the situation, and saying that the interruption never took place, but was rather a hoax by Pawl Fisher, a student; Davin Perry, who shoots game videos for the university; and Dave Cook, the university's sports information director.[2][16][17][18][19][20]
New York Mets
On April 4, 2008, many web communities, starting with Fark.com,[21] 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. The Mets organization announced On April 7, 2008 that "Never Gonna Give You Up" was the winner with more than five million votes.[22] The Mets decided not to commit to using Astley's song and subsequently announced a run-off among six songs that would be played at Shea Stadium for the next six games, starting with "Never Gonna Give You Up" on April 8, 2008.[23]
MLB.com later 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 was greeted with "