Rickrolling

History:

Rickrolling stands as one of the internet's most enduring and influential pranks, transforming a 1987 pop song into a global phenomenon that redefined online humor and established the template for bait-and-switch internet culture that continues to this day.

The meme evolved from an earlier 4chan prank called "duckrolling," which emerged in 2006 when site moderator Christopher "m00t" Poole implemented a word filter that automatically replaced "egg" with "duck" as a gag. This created the amusing term "duckroll" from "eggroll," inspiring an anonymous user to post an edited image of a duck with wheels. Users began using this image as the target of misleading hyperlinks, with victims being "duck rolled" when they clicked expecting something else (Wikipedia, 2025).

The transformation to "rickrolling" occurred in March 2007 when anticipation was building for the first trailer of the highly anticipated video game "Grand Theft Auto IV." When the original trailer link crashed due to excessive traffic, a 4chan user named Shawn Cotter, then a 19-year-old airman stationed in Korea with the U.S. Air Force, posted what claimed to be an alternative link to the trailer (Washington Post, 2021).

Instead of the game footage, users were directed to Rick Astley's 1987 music video for "Never Gonna Give You Up." Cotter later explained his choice: "I was downloading hits from 1987 (my birth year) from America and Britain. This one was currently playing and I decided it had the wow-factor to pull people in" (Washington Post, 2021). In a 2022 interview with Vice Media, Cotter revealed he had been looking up songs popular in his birth year and found Astley's hit at the top of the 1987 charts.

The bait-and-switch to "Never Gonna Give You Up" greatly expanded on 4chan during April Fools' Day 2007, creating the practice of "rickrolling" based on the prior "duck rolling" format. The meme's appeal lay partly in the unexpected contrast between Astley's youthful appearance and his surprisingly deep voice, which had initially surprised even record executives (Know Your Meme, 2008).

Rickrolling achieved remarkable mainstream penetration throughout 2008. YouTube's April Fools' Day joke that year redirected all featured video hyperlinks on the site's homepage to the music video, effectively rickrolling millions of users simultaneously. The New York Mets baseball team inadvertently participated when they asked fans to vote online for their eighth-inning rally song - "Never Gonna Give You Up" received massive vote manipulation from internet users, ultimately winning with over five million votes (Know Your Meme, 2008).

The meme's cultural impact expanded beyond digital spaces when it was incorporated into real-world protests. During Anonymous' Project Chanology protests against the Church of Scientology in February 2008, participants played the song from boomboxes and performed it as "a live rick-rolling of the Church of Scientology" (Know Your Meme, 2008).

Rick Astley himself eventually embraced the phenomenon, culminating in his appearance during the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Emerging from a Cartoon Network float themed after "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends," Astley performed a live rickroll, singing his famous song to surprised viewers (Wikipedia, 2025). He later acknowledged the financial benefits: "I got paid a bunch of money to do it. I'm honest enough to admit that... there have been times when people have just offered me so much money" (Washington Post, 2021).

The meme's influence reached the highest levels of government when the White House's official Twitter handle rickrolled users in 2011, and Nancy Pelosi published a video in 2009 featuring the song to celebrate the launch of the HouseHub YouTube channel (Know Your Meme, 2008). Even more remarkably, Oregon state legislators collaborated on an elaborate rickroll in 2011, with various representatives incorporating lyrics from the song into their legislative statements, later editing them together in proper order for an April Fools' Day reveal.

The official YouTube upload of "Never Gonna Give You Up" reached the milestone of 1 billion views in July 2021, making it only the fourth 1980s music video to achieve this status alongside Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean," Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine," and A-ha's "Take on Me" (Washington Post, 2021). The video's meme status contributed significantly to these numbers, with April Fools' Day alone generating over 2.3 million views.