BlogHer - Internet Fans Never Gonna Give Up Rick Astley - Comments

As it turns out, Astley's

EmpressCallipygos — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:17:48 -0600

As it turns out, Astley's appearance in the Macys parade was ITSELF a Rickroll. A Cartoon Network float paying tribute to one of their shows started out with adorable cartoon puppets singing something, and suddenly they stopped and Rick Astley stepped out and sang the first verse of "Never Gonna Give You Up," then stepped backstage and the puppets started up again.

I wanna know what the staff meeting explaining this to the powers that be was like.

You totally educated me here

Nordette — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 23:25:38 -0600

Yes, I know Astley song, but I didn't know it had turned into a Net phenomenon. The Barackroll was very clever. Had to share it with my son. And the pop-up had me smiling as well.

Dating myself here, when I first saw your title I thought, why is SJ talking about a Barry White song? LOL. Didn't connect the dots fast enough to Rick.

Nordette is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.com whose personal blog is hosted on another site at this link, Obama the Comedian: Rahm Emanuel's Roast plus Obama's Dating Advice.

Here's my favorite rickroll

Kim Pearson — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:57:47 -0600

My friend Kenyatta pulled off a real-life Rickroll (backstory here)

Kim
BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

I know, I know. I've been

Super Jive — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:50:38 -0600

I know, I know. I've been holding my breath all week. This is less of a story than I'd hoped, but I still had to cover it. I love him.

Blogher Pop Culture Editor | I, Asshole

I love that song.

Maria0305 — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:00:08 -0600

I've been rickrolling myself for a year now, and it never gets old.

I was disappointed that he didn't perform. I was really hoping that they'd have Rick present someone with an award and instead of handing it to them Rick would break out in "We're no strangers to loovvveeee...."

But no go. *sigh*

- Maria

http://immoralmatriarch.com

That's the spirit, Susan!!

Super Jive — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:57:45 -0600

That's the spirit, Susan!!

Blogher Pop Culture Editor | I, Asshole

Post worth it for the link

lilmommythatcould — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:27:35 -0600

Post worth it for the link to the "Pop-up" link alone. Pop-up video encouraged my addiction to useless trivia...Blah VH! bring it back. Now off to Rickroll someone

~Susan

http://lilmomthatcould.com/

Internet Fans Never Gonna Give Up Rick Astley

Super Jive — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:42:58 -0600

Have you been rickrolled? Better yet, have you rickrolled someone? For the better part of the year, people have been sending the unsuspecting off to a video of Britpop musician Rick Astley's most famous song, "Never Gonna Give You Up." The trend reached epic ubermeme proportions yesterday when Astley was declared the winner of the "Best Act Ever" category at the European MTV music awards.

In case you missed it, "rickrolling" is a bait-and-switch where a person is given a link to click on and told that it is one thing, when it is actually the video for "Never Gonna Give You Up." Hilariety ensues the first few times, after which point you want to kill the person who rickrolled you. Or perhaps you will be infected and will begin to rickroll others. URL-hiding applications are often used in aid of this prank, such as tinyurl.com, so the clicker can't see what's coming.

So how did it happen that an '80s pop singer become an internet phenomenon that beat out established acts such as U2 and Britney Spears? As usual, the blame can be placed squarely on the shoulders of the internet hordes. The MTVE website encouraged people to vote as much as they liked, so clever people behind the effort to get Rick voted in created the Rickvoter, a voting script that would ensure Rick's victory. Web Scout at the L.A. Times accidentally voted using this script 961 times.

The roots of this phenomenon are easy enough to follow. Rickrolling grew out of the message board and image site 4chan (not safe for work or those with delicate constitutions) and hit its height (or nadir, if you will) on April 1 of this year when Youtube made every link on its site a rickroll. In the spring of this year, rickrolling morphed into a disruptive public act as "Anonymous" took to the streets to protest Scientologists at their places of worship. A ton of video can be found on the web of Anonymous dancing to a rickroll.

In the end, fans were disappointed to see that their hero, Astley, did not make it to the MTVE awards. There is some controversy about whether Rick was kept away on purpose or if he simply declined to show because he felt that he had not properly earned the award. Disappointingly, the dreadful Katy Perry announced the award, and it was accepted by the ubiquitous and bottom-feeding internet gossip maven Perez Hilton.

This ultimate MTV rickroll will go down in history as more evidence of what the internet does best--infecting people with virusy memes that can result in epic lulz. In this case, it produced one of the oddest comebacks in pop music. Rick will be in New York at the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade at the end of this month, and is touring around a bit now, which has got to be fun after fifteen-plus years in obscurity.

A sweet acoustic version.

Rick Astley's official homepage

The Pop-up Video for "Never Gonna Give You Up" is amusing.

The Barackroll!

SJ has had "Never Gonna Give You Up" as her ringtone for nine months, an all-time record.

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