To begin with, for anyone who’s somehow
managed to avoid the more than a decade old
phenomenon of Rickrolling, in a nutshell this
involves tricking someone into clicking on
a link that takes them to the video for the
relentlessly upbeat and infinitely cheesy
1980s anthem, usually by suggesting it’s
a link to something else which is a particularly
compelling click.
So how did the curious meme of Rickrolling
get its start?
For that, it’s necessary to start with its
much lesser known predecessor- duckrolling.
Duckrolling got its start indirectly thanks
to the founder of the occasionally infamous
internet message board 4chan, Christopher
Poole- better known online by his moniker
“moot”.
Not long before Rickrolling became the internet’s
go-to prank, moot decided to make it so that
anytime a user wrote the word “egg” on
the site, it would autocorrect to “duck”.
The prank was a big hit with 4chan users who
were particularly amused that the word eggroll
would automatically be stylised as duckroll
whenever it was typed.
As the joke evolved, some time in late 2006
one anonymous user Photoshopped and linked
to an image of a duck with wheels- a literal
interpretation of the word duckroll.
It soon became a common prank on the site
to to trick fellow users into clicking links
that led to the image of the duck, resulting
in the coining of the term “duckrolled”
to describe the act of being duped in this
way.
This all brings us to Rickrolling.
Some time in May of 2007 an unknown user on
4chan’s /v/ video game board posted a link
purported to be for the trailer for the game
Grand Theft Auto IV, but in reality took people
to a freebooted upload of the music video
for Never Gonna Give You Up.
Google caches and a bit of trolling through
the Wayback Machine reveals that this video,
along with being the first known video created
expressly to Rickroll internet denizens, is
one of the earliest known examples of that
music video being uploaded to YouTube.
It’s also worthy of note that the uploading
of this video predates an authorized upload
by some two years.
In any event, when linking Astley’s hit
song became the new en vogue prank, the term
Rickrolling, borrowing from Astley’s first
name and the aforementioned duckrolling meme,
was coined to describe it.
Arguably the apex of the Rickolling phenomenon
came on April 1st of 2008 when YouTube automatically
redirected every person who clicked on a video
on the site’s main page to the music video
for the song, which we guess is a lot better
than directing them to an alternate version
of this joke going around at the time involving
a couple of ladies and a cup…
As to Astley, he first learned about Rickrolling
via friends of his Rickrolling him.
Not getting why his friends were emailing
him links purported to be to other things,
but taking him to his hit song’s music video,
he would later reveal in an interview that
his teenage daughter let him in on the prank
that was sweeping the internet.
Which brings us to what the notoriously reclusive
Astley thinks of his most popular song being,
to put it bluntly, the punchline to a bad
joke.
After all, this once again thrust him in the
spotlight he so rapidly exited in his late
20s when he got sick of the life of a popstar
and decided he’d rather devote himself to
other things, most notably raising his new
daughter, Emilie, rather than being absent
from her life for large stretches of time
while on the road.
To begin with, Astley states he thinks the
whole thing is rather amusing and, to quote
the man himself,
I don’t see it as negative.
If someone had messed around with it and cut
it all up and made me look stupid – I mean
I look pretty stupid anyway in that video
– if it was nasty, then I’d be probably
a bit pissed off, but it’s not.
It’s like, “We’re choosing that video
because it’s a full-on Eighties, cheesy
video.”
There’s no getting away from it now and
I’ve got to own it because if I don’t,
it’s like being petty.
He goes on:
I suppose at first I was a little embarrassed
by it.
I always liken it to when people look through
their photo albums or home videos from 20
years ago and think, Gosh, did I really wear
that?
The difference is, thankfully on the one hand
and perhaps a bit scarily on the other, mine
are out there for the public to see whenever
they want.
I find some Rickrolls really funny.
Have you seen the one with President Barack
Obama?
Someone has cut up his speeches and put them
together so that he sings “Never Gonna Give
You Up.”
It’s totally amazing.
I find it bonkers, by the way!
This brings us to why Astley never really
tried to capitalize on Rick Rolling directly,
as so many former stars would have.
While he had a variety of reasons, including
not wanting to embarrass his teenage daughter
by milking the meme for extra exposure, he
also stated, “I’m not being an ageist,
but it’s almost a young person’s thing…
I think the artist themselves trying to remix
it is almost a bit sad.
No, I’m too old for that.”
That’s not to say he didn’t profit from
Rickrolling.
While you’ll often read on many an interesting
“fact” website more concerned with clicks
than getting information correct that Astley
only made $12 thanks to the meme, this isn’t
exactly accurate.
While Astley has alluded to making very little
off of his side of the YouTube revenue generated
from the music video, with to date the authorized
video on YouTube having almost a half a billion
views, he does explicitly state he’s greatly
profited from the fad, including seeing a
significant boost in sales of his records
following the phenomenon of Rickrolling.
Further, his first solo album following the
Rickrolling meme, 50, released in 2016, was
also by far his most successful album since
his glory days a couple decades before, managing
to debut at #1 on the UK Albums Chart and
ultimately going Platinum, despite his original
expectations that nobody would even notice
he’d released an album at all.
More directly in 2009, while he was actively
staying out of the spotlight during most of
the Rickrolling meme’s peak popularity,
he did make one exception- Astley himself
performed the world’s first live Rickroll
at the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade,
with the opening salvo of Never Gonna Give
You Up abruptly interrupting another song
as Astley waltzed around lip syncing the lyrics.
Of this event, he states, “[They] paid me
loads of money and my friends who live in
America said I should do it because everyone
watches it.
I took the family to New York for a week.
It’s good to be able to do things like that
because as you get older you realise life’s
short and you have to make the most of it.
I appreciate how lucky I am.”
Continuing on that line of thinking and more
or less summing up his thoughts on his early
career, Astley states,
I’ve learned to appreciate my old songs.
I quit for about 15 years, didn’t sing any
of them ever, and I’ve learned to realize
how lucky I was to have them.
I know that sounds a bit corny.
If I see [an artist] and they’re being a
bit shitty, I’m kind of like, “Just remember,
we were the lucky ones… we were all extremely
lucky.”
He also notes fame in his older years is much
nicer than at his peak, allowing him to tour
when and how he wants instead of having to
do whatever the recording studio wanted him
to do all the time.
And, despite his boost in popularity thanks
to Rickrolling and the success of his album
50, he states,
I don’t feel famous any more.
To some degree I am – when I’m on stage
in front of thousands of people singing Never
Gonna Give You Up – but in my day-to-day
life, no one really cares.
I don’t get recognised until I’m on stage
and then I can walk off and forget about it.
It’s great.
Ego dictates it would be nice to play Wembley
Arena on my own but it’s a fair trade, being
able to do what I do and also lead a quiet
life.
