Rickrolling

Rickrolling, alternatively Rick-rolling or Rickroll, is a prank and an Internet meme involving an unexpected appearance of the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a type of bait and switch using a disguised hyperlink that leads to the music video. When victims click on a seemingly unrelated link, the site with the music video loads instead of what was expected, and in doing so they are said to have been "Rickrolled". The meme has also extended to using the song's lyrics in unexpected places.

"Rick Roll" redirects here. It is not to be confused with Richard Roll.

A still frame from the music video of the song "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley on YouTube, taken in 2008.

The meme grew out from a similar bait-and-switch trick called "duckrolling" that was popular on the 4chan website in 2006. The video bait-and-switch trick grew popular on 4chan by the 2007 April Fools' Day, and spread to other Internet sites later that year. The meme gained mainstream attention in 2008 through several publicized events, particularly when YouTube used it on its 2008 April Fools' Day event.

Initially, Astley, who had only recently returned to performing after a ten-year hiatus, was hesitant about using his newfound popularity from the meme to further his career, but accepted the fame when he Rickrolled the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with a surprise performance of the song. Since then, Astley has seen his performance career revitalized by the meme's popularity. Astley himself has also been Rickrolled on several occasions.[1][2][3]

Most sources agree that the first ever person to get rickrolled was "Bryan" on YouTube.[4] According to famous Youtuber Timeworks' calculations, about 2 billion people had been tricked into watching Astley's video, as of January 11th, 2021.[5]

History

Origin

"Never Gonna Give You Up" appeared on Astley's 1987 debut album Whenever You Need Somebody.[6] 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 the UK Singles Chart. The accompanying music video, Astley's first, features him performing the song while dancing.[7] It since had become a popular song on the Internet, particularly after it was featured in the 2005 "Charlie Has Cancer" episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

The use of the song for rickrolling dates to 2006, originating from the 4chan imageboard from an early meme known as "duckrolling". Sometime in 2006, the site moderator, Christopher "m00t" Poole implemented a word filter replacing the word "egg" with "duck" as a gag. On one thread, where "eggroll" had become "duckroll", an anonymous user posted an edited image of a duck with wheels, calling it a "duckroll". The image caught on across 4chan; the image would be the target of a hyperlink with an otherwise interesting title, with a user clicking through having been said to be "duckrolled".[8]

In March 2007, the first trailer for the highly-anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV was released onto Rockstar Games website. Viewership was so high that it crashed Rockstar's site. Several users helped to post mirrors of the video on different sites, but one user on 4chan had linked to the "Never Gonna Give You Up" video claiming to be the trailer, tricking numerous readers into the bait-and-switch. This practice quickly replaced duckrolling for other alluring links, all generally pointing to Astley's video, and thus creating the practice of "rickrolling".[8] The bait-and-switch to the "Never Gonna Give You Up" greatly expanded on 4chan on April Fools' Day in 2007, and led to the trick expanding to other sites like Fark and Digg later that year, quickly gaining the name "rickrolling" based on the prior "duckrolling".[8]

An initial use of "rickrolling" was confirmed by the editors of Know Your Meme, where rural Michigan resident Erik Helwig had called into a local radio sports-talk show in 2006 and instead of conversing with the DJs, simply played "Never Gonna Give You Up", leaving the DJs speechless. While this occurred before the 4chan use, Know Your Meme editor-in-chief Don Caldwell said there was no direct confirmation if it had inspired the 4chan use of the video.[9]

Growth in 2008
A Rick Astley impersonator during one of the March 2008 rickrolls at a collegiate basketball game

Rickrolling started to appear in more mainstream sources during 2008, with a SurveyUSA April 2008 poll estimating that at least 18 million American adults had been rickrolled.[10]

One of the first public events involved the Church of Scientology which had been aggressively trying to censor videos critical of the church. The Internet group Anonymous as part of their Project Chanology to challenge this censoring, protested at the Church's various headquarters across the globe by chanting the song, among other activities.[11] A number of collegiate basketball games in March 2008 had people dressing up as Astley from the video and lip-syncing to the music as a prank before the start of the game.[12] YouTube's 2008 April Fools joke made featured video hyperlinks on the site's home page end up on the music video.[13][14] In April 2008, the New York Mets baseball team asked fans on the internet what song they should use for their eighth-inning rally song. "Never Gonna Give You Up" received a massive number of votes, driven by websites like 4chan.[15][14] At the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards, an online campaign led to Astley being named the "Best Act Ever" despite not being on the original shortlist of nominees, effectively rickrolling the awards.[16]

Astley performing the song during the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

By November 2008, the "Never Gonna Give You Up" video on YouTube had more than 20 million views and was considered a viral video, however Astley initially appeared indifferent to the newfound fame.[16] When Astley was asked about the trend of rickrolling during an interview in March 2008, he stated, "it's weird," since he had not performed much lately, but he found the interest funny.[17] However, at the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Astley made a surprise appearance on a float for Cartoon Network to lip-sync the song to the crowd and television audiences, making that performance the largest rickroll to date.[18] According to Astley, Cartoon Network had urged him to perform for the parade along with a large performance payment, and although he had been wary of trying to promote himself using the popularity of the meme, decided to go for it.[19]

Ongoing usage

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.[20] The term has been extended to simple hidden use of the song's lyrics.[21] Cover versions of "Never Gonna Give You Up" have also been used as part of rickrolling; in April 2018, the creators of TV's Westworld released a video that purported to be a spoiler guide for the entire second season in advance, but instead featured lead actress Evan Rachel Wood singing the song while accompanied by another main actress, Angela Sarafyan, playing the piano.[22]

The most popular upload of the music video[23] on YouTube from 2007 used for rickrolling, titled "RickRoll'D", was removed for terms-of-use violations in February 2010[24] but the takedown was revoked within a day.[25] It was taken down again on 18 July 2014.[26] It has since been unblocked again and has gained over 81 million views as of February 2020.[23] The Official Rick Astley channel uploaded another version[27] on 24 October 2009, which has over 760 million views as of September 2020.[28]

Its meme status led to the song's usage in the post-credits scene for Walt Disney Animation Studios's 2018 film Ralph Breaks the Internet, the sequel to 2012's Wreck-It Ralph, after a “sneak peek” of Frozen 2 had suddenly transitioned into Never Gonna Give You Up. The song also appears in the film Bumblebee, and was featured at the end of its initial teaser trailer.[29]

On 5 January 2018, Paul Fenwick announced that he had started several Rick Astley hotlines, which when called, would play "Never Gonna Give You Up" along with several other artist's adaptations of it. Paul Fenwick advertised it as "You are encouraged to use them for paperwork, loyalty schemes, and general joy."[30]

By 2019, the popularity of rickrolling had diminished, however on 25 August, a notable large-scale occurrence happened at Petco Park in San Diego during a Major League Baseball game between the Boston Red Sox and the San Diego Padres—the first game that the Red Sox played at Petco Park in six years. During a mid-inning break, the Padres' scoreboard began to play "Sweet Caroline"—a tradition at Red Sox home games in Fenway Park—but the Red Sox were the opposition in San Diego. As the Neil Diamond song was about to reach the chorus, however, the video-board suddenly switched to "Never Gonna Give You Up", much to the amusement of the crowd.[31]

On 13 October 2019, the Sunday night NFL game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Los Angeles Chargers at Dignity Health Sports Park featured a case of rickrolling when the PA announcers, after a Chargers touchdown brought the score to 24-10 Pittsburgh, decided to troll the partisan crowd by playing the beginning of the Styx song "Renegade" (which had been played at the Steelers home Heinz Field since 2001) only to transition into "Never Gonna Give You Up". The stunt caught fans and players from both teams by surprise (even being acknowledged by the Steelers official social media accounts), and some Chargers players were not happy about the Steelers anthem being played in their own home stadium. The Steelers won the game 24–17.[32][33]

Reaction
Astley performing in 2017

In an interview in March 2008, Astley said that he found the rickrolling of Scientology to be "hilarious"; he also said that he will not try to capitalise 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."[34] 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".[8]

In November 2008, Astley was nominated for "Best Act Ever" at the MTV Europe Music Awards after the online nomination form was flooded with votes.[35] The push to make Astley the winner of the award, as well as efforts to encourage MTV to personally invite Astley to the awards ceremony, continued after the announcement.[36] On 10 October, Astley's website confirmed that an invitation to the awards had been received. On 6 November 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.[37] In 2009, Astley wrote about 4chan founder moot for Time magazine's annual Time 100 issue, and thanked moot for the rickrolling phenomenon.[38]

According to The Register, as of 2010, Astley had only directly received $12 in performance royalties from YouTube. Although by that time the song had been played 39 million times, Astley did not compose the song and received only a performer's share of the sound recording copyright.[39] However, Astley denied those reports in 2016.[40]

Astley himself has been rickrolled a few times. In an interview with Larry King, Astley states that the first time he has fallen for the prank was through an email his friend sent him during the early 2000s.[41] More recently, on a Reddit post in June 2020, a user, u/theMalleableDuck, claimed to have met Rick Astley backstage when they were 12 years old, but posted a link to the song instead of a picture verifying the encounter. Astley later confirmed he had been tricked into clicking the link.[42][43]

See also

References
  1. "New Internet Legend Manages to Rick Roll Rick Astley". Time. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  2. Marcin, Tim. "A brilliant Redditor Rickrolled the real Rick Astley". Mashable. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  3. "Rick Astley got Rickrolled on Reddit". News. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  4. "Who Was The First Person To Get Rick Rolled?". Timeworks.
  5. "How Many Times Have People Been Rick Rolled?". Timeworks.
  6. Henderson, Alex. "Whenever You Need Somebody review". Allmusic. Retrieved 18 November 2008.
  7. Hasty, Katie (5 April 2008). "'80s singer Rick Astley latest Web phenomenon". Reuters. Archived from the original on 26 August 2012. Retrieved 19 November 2008.
  8. "The Biggest Little Internet Hoax on Wheels Hits Mainstream". Fox News Channel. Fox News Channel. 22 April 2008. Archived from the original on 1 May 2008. Retrieved 22 April 2008.
  9. "An Oral History of Rickrolling". Mel Magazine. 10 January 2020. Archived from the original on 18 February 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  10. "You Wouldn't Get This From Any Other Pollster". SurveyUSA. 9 April 2008. Archived from the original on 12 April 2008. Retrieved 10 April 2008.
  11. Michaels, Sean (19 March 2008). "Taking the Rick". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 27 July 2008. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  12. Nussenbaum, Evelyn (24 March 2008). "The '80s Video That Pops Up, Online and Off". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 4 January 2013. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  13. Wortham, Jenna (1 April 2008). "YouTube 'Rickrolls' Everyone". Wired. Archived from the original on 7 August 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  14. Friedman, Emily (30 April 2008). "'Rick Rolling' Ruins Mets Vote". ABC News. Archived from the original on 20 September 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  15. Peck, Sally (10 April 2008). "Rickrolled: New York Mets fall victim to Rick Astley online prank". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 18 February 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  16. Moore, Matthew (7 November 2008). "Rickrolling: Rick Astley named Best Act Ever at the MTV Europe Music Awards". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 18 October 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  17. van Buskirk, Eliot (26 March 2008). "Rick Astley Addresses the Rickroll Phenomenon". Wired. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  18. Moore, Matthew (28 November 2008). "Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade: Rick Astley performs his own Rickroll". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 18 February 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  19. Parker, Lindsay (27 November 2019). "Rick Astley talks Rickrolling the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, jamming with Dave Grohl, and why he never cared about being 'one of the cool kids'". Yahoo! News. Archived from the original on 18 February 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
  20. Leckart, Steven (September 2009). "The Official Prankonomy: From rickrolls to malware, a spectrum of stunts". Wired. 17 (9). pp. 91–93. Archived from the original on 5 January 2013. Retrieved 17 September 2009.
  21. Christopher, Hooton (17 January 2014). "Teacher Rickrolled by inspired quantum physics essay". The Independent. Archived from the original on 17 February 2014. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
  22. Whitbrook, James (10 April 2018). "The Stars of Westworld Make 25-Minute Long 'Spoiler' Video Just to Troll Fans". io9. Archived from the original on 26 April 2018. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
  23. cotter548 (15 May 2007). RickRoll'D. YouTube. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
  24. Silverman, Dwight. "Rickroll'd no more: Internet meme takedown! Archived 23 September 2010 at the Wayback Machine" Houston Chronicle. 24 February 2010. Retrieved on 24 February 2010.
  25. McCarthy, Caroline (24 February 2010). "YouTube gives up on original 'Rickroll'". CNET. Archived from the original on 26 April 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2010.
  26. Schneider, Marc (18 July 2014). "YouTube Blocks Original RickRoll Video". Billboard. Archived from the original on 27 August 2014. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
  27. RickAstleyVEVO (24 October 2009). Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up. YouTube. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  28. "YouTube". www.youtube.com. Archived from the original on 18 October 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  29. "Bumblebee movie trailer: Even Transformers get Rickrolled". CNET. 5 June 2018. Archived from the original on 15 October 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  30. "Man sets up Rick Astley hotline to rescue people from annoying salespeople". Newshub. Archived from the original on 9 June 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  31. Chesterston, Eric (26 August 2019). "The Padres owned Red Sox fans with a devastating Rick Roll during 'Sweet Caroline'". www.mlb.com. Archived from the original on 23 April 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  32. Schofield, Dave (14 October 2019). "The Chargers' attempted "Rick Roll" of the Steelers in Week 6 fails miserably". www.behindthesteelcurtain.com. Archived from the original on 3 January 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  33. "Chargers not happy that 'Renegade' played during Sunday's game". www.wpxi.com. 14 October 2019. Archived from the original on 15 February 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  34. Sarno, David (25 March 2008). "Web Scout exclusive! Rick Astley, king of the 'Rickroll,' talks about his song's second coming". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 4 November 2008. Retrieved 20 November 2008.
  35. "Astley shortlisted for MTV award". BBC News. 2 October 2008. Archived from the original on 23 December 2008. Retrieved 20 November 2008.
  36. "WTF MTV?". Bestactever.com. 10 October 2008. Archived from the original on 11 August 2016. Retrieved 20 November 2008.
  37. "Rick Brands MTV win 'Ridiculous'". BBC News. 7 November 2008. Archived from the original on 12 November 2008. Retrieved 20 November 2008.
  38. "The 2009 TIME 100: moot". 30 April 2009. Archived from the original on 19 April 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  39. "German judge chides Google over YouTube freeloading". The Register. 31 August 2010. Archived from the original on 30 March 2020. Retrieved 10 August 2017.
  40. "[AMA] I'm really Rick Astley. I swear. And to celebrate my first album since 1993, I'm here to let you Ask Me Anything!". Reddit. Archived from the original on 18 October 2020. Retrieved 8 October 2016.
  41. Has Rick Astley ever been "Rick-rolled"?. Larry King Now. 25 January 2017. Retrieved 29 September 2020 – via YouTube.
  42. "New Internet Legend Manages to Rick Roll Rick Astley". Archived from the original on 21 June 2020. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
  43. Melissa Locker (18 June 2020). "New Internet Legend Manages to Rick Roll Rick Astley". Time. Archived from the original on 18 June 2020. Retrieved 19 June 2020. The trick was so seamlessly perfect that Astley had no choice but to applaud it by posting a clap emoji, and then called out the clever user in his sign off post, saying, "u/theMalleableDuck I salute you!"

Further reading
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