Rickroll (2007)

About

Rickrolling is a bait and switch: a person provides a web link that he or she claims is relevant to the topic at hand (like this one), but the link actually takes the user to the 1987 Rick Astley video Never Gonna Give You Up. The URL can be masked or obfuscated so a future victim cannot determine the true source of the link without clicking (like this). If a dumb cluck does click and is led to a web page with the song, he or she is said to have been Rickrolled (also spelled Rickroll’d).

Unexpectedly Deep Voice

Many people have expressed the opinion that the most attention-getting aspect of the video, is Rick’s unexpectedly deep voice. According to VH1’s PopUp Video, record executives who heard his recordings didn’t believe it was his voice either at first.

• VH1 Popup video (Embedding disabled. Relevent bubble at 0:45)

Other young-looking singers with unexpectedly deep voices include:

• Tay Zonday – Chocolate Rain
• Eric Bourdan of The Animals – House of the Rising Sun

Rickrolling I.R.L.

Project Chanology

At most of the February 2008 Project Chanology protests on the Church of Scientology, Never Gonna Give You Up was played from boomboxes, performed, and shouted. UK Publication The Guardian called it “a live rick-rolling of the Church of Scientology.”

New York Mets

In April of 2008, the New York Mets posted a web poll to select the song for the 8th inning sing-along.

On April 4th, 2008, Farkers bombarded the poll voting for Never Gonna Give You Up. On April 7th, the Mets announced that the song had won, with over five million votes. Rather than using the song for the 8th inning, it was used during the home opener, much to the displeasure of Mets fans.

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

The Rickroll meme came full circle when Rick Astley himself appeared on a float during the 2008 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, lip synching to his classic hit. (via Entertainment Weekly)

Youtube: April Fool’s!

On April 1st, 2008 every featured video on Youtube’s front page redirected to the Rickroll. (story via TechCrunch)
See the Wikipedia page for more info

Best Act Ever

Rick Astley was nominated for the Best Act Ever award for the MTV Europe Music Awards in November of 2008 when the voting form was flooded by fans of the Rickrolling phenomenon. (via BBC) Asley has voiced his approval of the off-beat joke, stating “MTV was thoroughly Rickrolled.” (via bestactever.com)

Derivatives

Rickrolling has experienced such popularity that it is one of the most widely-used sources when it comes to mashups and meme-hybrids.

Barackroll

Nirvana vs. Rick Astley

8-Bit Rickroll

Rickroll (Fursuit Edition)

Hilarious Muppet Bloopers!

Family Guy did it.

Google Insights

According to google insights, the meme seemed to start gathering popularity on the web around April/May 2007. It’s corroborated by the wikipedia article, stating the following :

The first known instance of 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.

That wikipedia excerpt is also quoting a Foxnews article basically saying the same thing.
All of this seems confirmed by what is believed to be one of the first Rick roll Youtube videos, dating from May the 15th 2007 and having gathered more than 35 million views to date :

Can that meme be actually much older ?

On June the 5th 2010, a reddit user claimed to have founded the first RickRoll on Internet.
Using Google search and a date range, he wrote that the following website, named http://chodecircus.com/area51/ was created in January the 31th 2001.
However, a quick verification using Whois.sc showed the following :

Domain Name: CHODECIRCUS.COM
Created on: 26-Feb-09
Expires on: 26-Feb-11
Last Updated on: 19-Feb-10

The website was actually created in February 2009.
Google can be treacherous at times. Another site from the aforementioned google search, featuring a flash animation from clipal.com is marked by Google as being created in 2003. It turns out, by checking the initial animation on Newgrounds, that it has actually been submitted in 2008.

Many comments, either coming from 4chan, Encyclopedia Dramatica or other places, can describe RickRoll as an old meme. However, old meme here carries the “old-fashioned” meaning. It defines the point of view from people who have witnessed RickRoll as being overused/overexposed by both Internet and the mainstream media alike to the point of considering it as old and outdated, then losing its appeal because of the craze surrounding it, despite existing “only” for 3 years.