First, the complete history of rickrolling, via Wikipedia:
British pop star Rick Astley recorded “Never Gonna Give You Up” on his 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody.[3] The song, his solo debut single, was a number one hit on several international charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and UK Singles Chart. As a means of promoting the song, it was also made into Astley’s first music video, which features him performing the song while dancing.[4]
Rickrolling was reported to have begun as a variant of an earlier prank from the imageboard 4chan known as duckrolling. The director of the site, who went by the name “moot”, started replacing occurrences of the word “egg” on the site with the word “duck”. When the word “eggroll” was turned into “duckroll”, other users started changing innocent looking links going somewhere (such as to a specific picture or news item) to redirect readers to a thread or site containing an edited picture of a duck with wheels. The user at that point is said to have been “duckrolled”.[1][5]
The first known instance of a rickroll occurred in May 2007 on /v/, 4chan‘s video game board, where a link to the Rick Astley video was claimed to be a mirror of the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV (which was unavailable due to heavy traffic). The joke was confined to 4chan for a very brief period.[1]
By May 2008,[6] the practice had spread beyond 4chan and became an Internet phenomenon,[7] eventually attracting coverage in the mainstream media.[8] An April 2008 poll by SurveyUSA estimated that at least 18 million American adults had been rickrolled.[9] In September 2009, Wired magazine published a guide to modern hoaxes which listed rickrolling as one of the better known beginner-level hoaxes, alongside the fake e-mail chain letter.[10] The term has been extended to simple hidden use of the song’s lyrics.[11]
The original video[12] on YouTube from 2007 used for rickrolling was removed for terms of use violations in February 2010[13] but the takedown was revoked within a day.[14] It was taken down again on 18 July 2014.[15] It has since been unblocked again and has now (December 2016) gained over 75 million views.[12] The RickAstleyVEVO‘s channel on YouTube uploaded another version[16] sometime October 24, 2009 which had over 261 million views on December 2, 2016.
The term rickrolling was in the news again in July 2016, after presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump‘s wife Melania Trump gave a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention that had verbiage similar to the lyrics of the Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up'”, suggesting that the speechwriter had rickrolled the audience.[17]
We have a pair of tickets to see Rick Astley at the Electric Factory on Saturday. To qualify to win them, all you have to do is sign up for our mailing list (see right, below the masthead). Trust us, this is something you want to do. In addition to breaking news alerts and Phawker updates, you also get advanced warning about groovy concert ticket giveaways, advance movie screenings and other free swag opportunities like this one! After signing up, send us an email at PHAWKER66@gmail.com telling us a much, with the words Rikki-Tikki-Tavi in the subject line. If you are already on our mailing list, just send us an email saying as much. Either way, please include your full name and a mobile number for confirmation. First come, first serve. Good luck and godspeed!