"Never give up on you / Never let you down / Never run around / Abandon you ..." Why can this song take the air?
Maybe a friend sent you a video link to a Stephen Curry three-pointer; maybe someone forwarded you a new trailer for the movie Dune; or maybe a friend really wanted you to watch a video of a puppy making friends with a duckling.
In short, those are all intriguing you and letting your guard down. You just click and completely forget about cybersecurity.
Then, the speakers make an inexplicable sound, and you'll see a rocking crowd of people wearing denim suits that evoke the nostalgic flair of the 80s, badly lip-synced: "Never give up on you / Never let you down / Never run around / Abandon you ..."
Congratulations, you've been Rickroll. Simply put, you're being played.
Screenshot of the MV of "Never Give Up on You", source YouTube
Since 2007, Rickrolling has been one of the most enduring pranks on the internet. The scam is simple: Someone sends a link that looks like news, video, or anything else, but when they click on it, they see MTV for Rick Astley's 1987 title song, Never Gonna Give You Up.
It's so popular. On April Fool's Day this year alone, the video was viewed more than 2.3 million times. At the end of July, the official version of the video was viewed more than 1 billion times on YouTube — a rare feat for MTV before the birth of the internet.
It was the fourth video to reach such rare views in the 1980s, the first three being Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child O'Mine and A-ha's Take on Me.
Like many Internet phenomena, Rickroll is also unlikely to go back to its origins. YouTuber Erik Helwig claimed to have performed the first Rickroll in 2006, albeit in an offline state. Allegedly, he called a local sports radio show and instead of speaking played the song.
"I chose this song only because I really liked it — it was a great '80s song that made people laugh in the best possible way." Helveg later told the online magazine Mel, "There is no other meaning. ”
Around the same time, Christopher Poole, the creator of the anonymous message board 4chan, wrote a program that changed the "egg" on the site to "duck." Every time someone writes "eggroll", it will appear as "duckroll". Later, someone created an image of a "duck on wheels". Soon the prank became popular, and by clicking on the induction link, the image of the "duck on the wheel" appeared on everyone's screen.
Combining these two ideas is Shawn Cotter. In 2007, the first trailer for the highly anticipated game Grand Theft Auto IV came out, and the traffic was too large to cause the system to crash. Kurt, who was stationed in South Korea with the Air Force at the time, posted a fake link claiming to be another version of the trailer, but it drew users to the current "infamous" MTV.
But why this song? In the 2011 Reddit AMA (i.e. "Ask Me Any Questions"), Cott said he chose Astri's song at random. He wrote: "At that time I was downloading a 1987 (my birth year) European and American song, which happened to be playing, and I thought it had an appealing element. ”
Rickrolling swept the internet at an alarming rate. Eventually, it broke through the virtual Internet and entered the real world.
In 2008, a video of Tom Cruise promoting Scientology appeared on YouTube, and days later, masked protesters gathered outside Scientology buildings in Seattle, Hollywood and London, holding up speakers and playing Astri's songs. In 2019, the San Diego Padres (an American professional baseball team) teased visiting Red Sox fans. At first they thought petco Stadium (home to the Padres) would play the Red Sox anthem "Sweet Caroline", but the stadium's digital billboard showed a video of "Never Give Up on You.".
Play Never Gonna Give You Up on the stadium electronic screen, image source Washington Post
But what exactly makes Rickrolling interesting? The humor of the Internet lies in its absurdity. Can't answer why it's interesting, it's its interesting charm.
For his part, Astelli seemed to be so calm about the prank that he pointed out to Rolling Stone magazine that the "memo"-like presence helped introduce him to future generations, while reminding the older generation of the glory he had had.
"It could be of great benefit to me. The whole thing has nothing to do with me, even though I know Rickrolling has my name in the title, that's the MV I'm in, that's my song. But it can also be anyone. If someone messed around with a re-edit that made me look silly — I mean, look silly in that video — I might have been angry if it was annoying, but it wasn't. ”
Astri, image source Washington Post
He was also involved in real-life Rickrolling. In 2008, during Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, a float with the theme of "Foster's Fictional Friend's House" stopped. The puppets began to sing, followed by the scraping of records. Dressed in a gorgeous costume and wearing black gloves, Astelli suddenly jumped out and began singing "Never Give Up on You.".
He has been consistently performing, performing his famous song with foo Fighters at the Summer Sonic Festival in Japan in 2017 and the skewers of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".
After the song's music video reached 1 billion views, he released a 7-inch limited edition of the song. He also posted a video on Twitter calling it a "shocking achievement."
"The world is a wonderful and beautiful place and I am very lucky," he added.