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Rickroll
An easy prank, based on an awesome 1987 pop song
- Date Discovered: 06/2007
- Discovered On: 4chan
Summary
Rickrolling is a prank meme started on 4chan's /v/. Rockstar Games had just released the trailer to Grand Theft Auto IV, and /v/ was going nuts. Unfortunately, the overwhelming traffic knocked the website down. This is when one enterprising Anonymous took it upon himself to hand out a link to the music video for Rick Astley's 1987 hit Never Gonna Give You Up, an awesome pop song, considered horribly annoying and insincere by anyone under 30.
Rickrolling is a spinoff of the older, lesser known duckroll, believed to have originated on 4chan. Rickrolling incorporates music, video, and youtube.com though, so it became much wider known as it could appeal to a non 4chan audience. The song was used in a Family Guy episode at the height of the memes popularity. Wikipedia disputes that this was a Rickroll, because they are a bunch of wet blankets. On April Fool's Day in 2008, YouTube Rickrolled millions when every featured video on their front page linked to the video for Never Gonna Give You Up.
Since Rickrolling got big about the same time as Project Chanology, Scientologists were some of the first people outside of 4chan to be Rickrolled. Since then, Rickrolling has made irl appearances at college basketball games, New York Mets games, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and the MTV Europe music awards. Yeah, Rick Astley won MTV Europe's award for Best Act Ever. Internet.
Origins
Never Gonna Give You Up was released in 1987 by Rick Astley. The single reached #1 in the United States, U.K., and many other countries. This goes to show the high quality of 1980's popular music. The song even won the 1988 award for Best British single. England has previously been known for the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones.
Current status
Rickrolling peaked in 2008. Nancy Pelosi, United States Speaker of the House, utilized it in January 2009, forever branding it horribly uncool. The meme was killed by becoming overused by every form of media. Now it is a dead meme.
Some of the better Rickrolls are below, for some of the less good ones, see Rickroll/Variations.
Facts
- Rickrolling is a great way to annoy someone
- Now that it's a dead meme, formerly an overused meme, it's even more annoying.
Images
 Sarah Palin rick roll |
 Bitches don't know that they got rickrolled |
Videos
Related Pages
External Links
You can find additional memes here.
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