It’s been a long time since I was properly Rickrolled. What was once all the rage among the internet’s finest trolls has seemingly become an afterthought – a cultural reference. Seriously, is anybody getting Rickrolled anymore?
Even if the internet has lost interest in Rick Astley’s 1987 ode to constant companionship, the folks at Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce are never gonna let you down. I’m always impressed with these remixes that recreate entire songs using small snippets of dialogue from hours upon hours of content. I salute anyone with that kind of commitment to anything. And whoever spliced together dialogue from Mad Men to bring back the Rickroll has my vote of approval.
Here it is, a reminder of a bygone era when pranking your internet neighbor was as simple as directing him to a regrettably catchy 80’s song.
Today is the birthday of someone who has given so much to the interwebs and asked so little in return. A man whose music has led to one of the most enduring memes in history. Today, we celebrate the 46th birthday of Rick Astley.
Rick Astley, as you probably know, had a hit song in 1987 called “Never Gonna Give You Up.” This song, which was quite popular in its day, gained new life sometime around 2007 thanks you YouTube, 4chan, and a classic bait-and-switch prank.
The trick was pretty simple. Shorten a link to the Astley video to where it was unrecognizable, and pass it off as a link to whatever relevant topic is being discussed. For instance, one could post on Facebook “Check out this awesome salsa recipe http://tinyurl.com/28rdnbz.” And there you go. You’ve just Rickrolled your friends. Rickrolling became huge on the internet and eventually spread into mainstream pop culture. Last year, the White House even Rickrolled their Twitter followers. As of right now, the video sits at over 46 million views on YouTube.
Both YouTube’s Facebook and Google+ accounts have gotten in on the fun, Rickrolling an untold amount of people today.
Here’s the famous video for your viewing pleasure. And yes, I do mean pleasure because as one YouTuber put it, “after being rickrolled countless times. This song has sort of grown on me.”
I suggest that we all Rickroll our friends today. Just for old time’s sake. It might be an overused, nearly dead meme but damnit, who didn’t love this one? Good job, internets.
The White House began their “office hours” today at 2 p.m. EST. They asked Twitter followers to submit questions about the debt debate using the hashtag #WHChat. As their last response, they took the opportunity to play the internet’s oldest practical joke on a user (and catching the rest of us in the wake).
Financial discussion isn’t always the most riveting of subjects, everybody knows that. Twitter user @wiggsd decided to use the #WHChat hashtag to tweet his frustration with the lack of entertainment coming from the correspondence briefing.
In response to that, The White House decided to give him something a little more lively. They tweeted the following, and yes, the link leads directly to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
Of course it did. Yesterday’s nifty Les Paul-inspired Google Doodle was put to good, familiar use by an artist named Joe Sabia, who is very gifted at remixing web videos. While I’m sure there were many different attempts at various songs, check out Josh’s article for some examples, Sabia was wise enough to record his creation.
Sabia, as pointed out by Boing Boing, covers the unforgettable tune by Rick Astley, a song that was made even more famous by becoming an unforgettable meme. That’s right, you just got Rickrolled by a Google Doodle. Concerning the RickRolled phenomenon, KnowYourMeme.com has an extensive background:
The bait-and-switch phenomenon had its beginning on imageboard site 4chan as a spin-off of an earlier practical joke known as duckrolling, in which an external link with a sensational title (i.e., a specific picture or news item) would be redirected to an edited image of a duck with wooden wheels.
According to 4chan founder m00t, the “Rickroll” phenomenon began on /v/ (videogame board) circa May 2007[2], when someone posted a link to Rick Astley’s music video disguised as a sneak preview for the then newly released videogame Grand Theft Auto IV. Due to the the trailer’s high demand at that time, GTA fans on /v/ fell victim to the bait-and-switch prank and the joke became quite popular on 4chan. This account has been further corroborated by Wikipedia as well as Google Insights, which shows that search interest in “rickrolling” apparently began in April / May 2007.
So yeah, you can blame 4chan, but if you do, do it quietly, lest you become a victim of an Anonymous-style DDoS attack.
Here are a few other creative uses of the Les Paul Google Doodle, including “Stairway to Heaven” for all you Zeppelin fans out there.
The Star Spangled Banner:
Sad Song:
The Godfather Theme:
Imagine:
Did we leave any out you might have enjoyed? Let us know in the comments.
Is the Smithsonian Institute in the process of making themselves into a brick-and-mortar version of Internet Archive, or are they simply trying to produce an article that gets good pageviews? Considering their “Most Popular” articles section is nestled inside these articles, it’s unknown whether or not these posts will equate to live exhibits, but they are succeeding in the pageviews department.
The current most popular article concerns the archiving of famous Internet memes. The idea behind memes are really pretty simple. Think of viral marketing — that is, word of mouth passing word on from person to person — but instead of a product, the idea being forwarded is a humorous image, video, or other digital medium that becomes apart of our day-to-day usage. While the Smithsonian’s post was nowhere near as thorough as Know Your Meme’s database, it did do a good job of capturing some of the Internet’s more famous humor-related trends.
Presented in an 11-image slideshow, the Smithsonian’s article contains all the memes you know and love, like Keyboard Cat, Rick Astley and Chuck Norris, to name a few. I will say, however, the appearance of the dancing baby was a little odd. I, for one, still blame Ally McBeal for that dark period of Internet humor, because, let’s face it, the dancing baby is far more frightening than it is humorous.
Without McBeal’s bandwagon hop, perhaps the dancing baby doesn’t make it as far as it did, and yes, there’s actually some solace in that idea.
Other inclusions for the Smithsonian’s meme celebration include:
Jumping the Shark
Fail images
Flash mobs
LOLCats
Chuck Norris
Three-wolf T-shirt
“Boom Goes the Dynamite” (which, thankfully, was short-lived)
Keyboard Cat
And, of course, getting Rick-rolled.
In fact, over at Know Your Meme, there’s a little celebration going on for Rick Astley and the impact his song had on the culture of the Internet. Here’s an explanation of how the phenomenon started:
Rickrolling is a bait-and-switch practice that involves providing a web link supposedly relevant to the topic at hand, but actually re-directs the viewer to Rick Astley’s 1987 hit single “Never Gonna Give You Up.” The URL is often masked or obfuscated as a randomly-generated shortlink to conceal its true source from the experienced users. Whenever someone clicks the link and unintentionally summons Rick Astley’s song, he or she is said to have been rickrolled.
As for the Smithsonian’s article, their examples are only the tip of the iceberg in relation to Internet memes. Simply put, there are almost too many to keep track of. From the current (over?)use of the troll face — the apparent current champion of Internet memes — to the “heel it down the drain” story that shows up every so often in Fark threads, it’s as if each “corner” of the Internet has preferred memes they adhere to.
In fact, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to equate trending Twitter hashtags with Internet memes. Granted, these trends don’t anywhere near the shelf life an actual Internet meme does, but while they are popular, the Twitterverse certainly uses them like memes.
So, which one of your favorites did the Smithsonian’s article miss? Not enough “Afro Ninja?” Needs more dramatic chipmunk? No love for the hamster dance? Let us know what you think in the comments.
