Internet. Serious Business.

Have you ever been Rickrolled?

Hopefully, you have never heard of Rick Astley. He’s a terrible musician and has some very bad songs. Rick Astley was “popular” way back in the 80’s. In fact, 2007 marks the 20 year anniversary of the song that will get you Rickrolled. Never Gonna Give you Up. This song is terrible, but back then people used to fall in love with shitty pop tunes just like they still do today. IF you have never heard this song you are going to have to hear it to know why I think it sucks so bad, but let me explain what a Rickroll is first and then you yourself can get Rickrolled.

A Rickroll is another great internet fad. How it works is the same as many other message board fads do. Trickery. Unsuspecting forum readers will see a topic, or even request an image, Youtube video, or story about whatever. Since people on the internet are jerks and like to enjoy a laugh at the expense of other users they will trick them by giving them false information just to waste their time.

So let’s assume that Johnny Internet User wants some videos from Youtube. Other “nice” internet users will pop links to the videos of Little Johnny’s request into their posts so that Little Johnny is happy with the results. What if you don’t like Little Johnny? What if you aren’t a “nice” internet user? You may as well just Rickroll the little bastard then.

Since Youtube videos don’t have any explanation in their links it is always quite easy to throw in a shocking, or tasteless video when someone asks. Rickrolling isn’t really shocking, or tasteless, but it is annoying. I find it funny. So when you feel like screwing with someone, Little Johnny in this case, you just go to Youtube and search “Rick Astley”, or “Never Gonna Give you Up”, and post a link to a video such as this:

Oh the humanity! You just got Rickrolled.

If you want to avoid getting Rickroll’d you can install this anti-Rickroll Firefox extension. Good Luck!

Here is another extremely annoying Rickroll. Click at your own risk. muwahaha!

CTRL+ALT+DELETE will soon be your friend.

UPDATE! The Major League Baseball New York Mets and their fans were Rickroll’d! After a contest that began on March 31st to vote for a song to be played during the 8th inning of games. Fans and Mets were treated to an organized effort by Diggers and other message board users to a massive Rickroll. Well done internet. HEre is a fan video of the Met’s Rickroll:

Filed under: Firefox Extensions, Message Board Fads, Things to Post

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