Mr Astley (Or, how I learned to stop worrying, and love the Rickroll)

Πολλές φορές τελευταία αναρωτηθήκατε για το λόγο ύπαρξης των λινκίων προς τον ανωτέρω κύριο που υποσχόταν ότι ποτέ δε θα μας παρατήσει, ότι δε θα μάς απογοητεύσει, κτλ…

Την Πρωτοχρονιάτικη επεξήγηση ανέλαβε στην αγγλική να μας παρουσιάσει η κόρη μου…

The cyberspace is one wide, wide canvas, made for every single person to spread his wings, and put his own bit of information inside.

But some people, break through the fence of small, restricted circles, and make their little part of the net stand out.

Those little things that become known over the internet are called “internet memes”.

The “meme” I will present to you, noble ladies and gentlemen of The Hut, is called “Rickroll”.

But before I begin, I should present you the very essence of the Rickroll.

Here we go, a page filled with information about memes, concentrating on the Rickroll. Please click before proceeding.

Link

Surprised?

Well, that is only natural. Because you just got RICKROLL’D!

Rickroll is basically the process of misguiding someone to click the link of this video clip, believing it is something else. Mostly, the person using this trick, will put pornographic material, latest hit songs, movie trailers, and other things that are most popular on the internet as bait. That is done in order for the innocent victim to click the link that leads to an unbelievable amount of humiliation and ridicule. In fact, the feeling can only be described by a mathematician that just divided by zero. Or in other cases, the link is supposed to be holding important information, even though it’s just placed there to create chaos and confusion.

In this case, the link will guide the unsuspecting victim to a music video of the well-known 80’s song Never Gonna Give You Up, by the artist known as Rick Astley.

Rick himself (not surprisingly) loved the meme (and the publicity it gave him), and took it to himself to actually Rickroll the entire USA, in a live broadcast during the 2008 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, where he started lip-singing the hit, emerging from the float of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.

This meme originated in the truly notorious video game board of the even more notorious site that is called 4chan. The creator of the abomination is not yet known, for everyone moves as an Anonymous in these boards.

But the creator doesn’t truly matter here. The thing that matters is the size the Rickroll has taken in just two years. In 2007, no one could think that a small inside joke could affect the internet, history, people, and even the foundations of the universe.

Rickroll soon got huge on the internet, and knew great recognition, even outside the cybernet bounds.

There are many examples of famous Rickrolls! We will examine them all in chronological order.

On February 10, of 2008, during “Project Chanalogy”, a movement against the Church of Scientology’s attempts to censor material from the internet, “Anonymous” protesters around the USA played and performed the song during a protest against the Church of Scientology, in what The Guardian named «a live rick-rolling of the Church of Scientology». The Church of Scientology created a website displaying an Anti-Anonymous video, in which the Anonymous replied with a similar link, leading to Never Gonna Give You Up.

During March 2008, four women’s basketball games were Rickrolled! Before the beginning of the games, an impersonator of Rick Astley appeared, and danced at the well-known song. A compilation of those was later shown on Youtube, accompanied by many other pictures, including a fan with a “Scientology Kills” banner.

April 1^st, or just April Fools’ Day, 2008, was truly a bombardment of Rickrolls, all around the internet.

Youtube, Livejournal, Fark, ThinkGeek, all of them mass-Rickrolled their visitors with great success.

Youtube actually hyperlinked all the videos in the front page to Never Gonna Give You Up, in probably the greatest Rickroll ever.

Also in April, computer security expert Dan Kaminsky Rickrolled Facebook and PayPal, demonstrating serious security vulnerabilities.

On June 7, 2008, a number of political blogs featured the link of a video of Michelle Obama ranting, filled with racist comments. It was actually a Rickroll.

Perhaps, one of the most successful uses of this meme was the Barack Roll.

Barack Roll

Barack Roll was a video generated by Hugh Atkin, an Australian lawyer. It featured the lyrics of Never Gonna Give You Up, pieced together out of fragments of Obama’s speeches. Another video, shows John McCain being Barack Rolled, at the Republican National Convention. The video ends with what looks like the delegation cheering while chanting Obama’s name. Unfortunately, the Barack Roll has been removed from Youtube due to copyright violation. (Of course, it was put up again. But the McCain one has disappeared.)

Nancy Pelosi, US Speaker of the House, uploaded a video to her Youtube Channel, describing it as «a behind the scenes view of the Speaker’s Office in the U.S. Capitol.». The video presents cats running around the office, and at about halfway, it cuts to a Rickroll.

Last, by not least, the MIT Great Dome has been hacked, showing a giant set of the first notes of Never Gonna Give You Up.

Amongst the many people that have been Rickrolled, you can find even Bill O’Reilly!

Bill O’Reilly Gets Rickrolled

Another important question, is why Rickroll is called that. Well, the answer to this is simple.

It is the paraphrasing of an older meme, originating in the same site. The idea is the same, although, the link actually leads you to this :

A duck with wheels was the original Rickroll. Or more correctly, Duckroll. The link meant to lead you to heaven, actually was a duck, with wheels photoshopped on it.

So the word Rickroll is a mix of Rick Astley’s first name, and the second part of the word Duckroll.

If you get Rickrolled, don’t be annoyed. It’s a lovely way to have fun on this big world called internet!

And you’ll learn that…

I hoped you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!