What is a Rick Roll?

If you spend any time on the internet at all, the odds are that you have been rick roll'd at least once. More likely, you have felt the bite of the Rick Astley rick roll on multiple occasions. Maybe you even got rick roll'd by Astley at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and you didn't even know it.

Are you confused? Don't know what a rick roll is? That may be because you have thus far missed out on the Internet meme known as a "rick roll." This Internet inside joke has been spreading like wildfire, and shows no signs of stopping any time soon. The rick roll is taking over the Internet site by site.

What is a rick roll?
A rick roll uses the art of deception (of which users of the Internet are masters) to dupe a person into watching a video of Rick Astley's 1987 song "Never Gonna Give You Up."

The joke amounts to nothing more than your typical bait and switch: a site or user baits a person into clicking a link, thinking that they will acquire something of importance to them, only to find that their potentially useful link was actually a ploy to herd one into being rick roll'd by Astley's music video. This joke results in frustration for the person who receives the rick roll due to the precious moments and patience they have lost as the words hit the screen, "You've been rick roll'd!"

Where did the rick roll get its start?
While the jury is still out on just who started the massive deception, most point to the image hosting website 4chan. In the 4chan boards, the rick roll began as a variant on what is known on 4chan as "duckrolling" where a person replaces a pertinent image with a picture of duck on wheels. This eventually dovetailed, or "duck"tailed, into the rick roll as we know it.

4chan could not contain the rick roll for long, and eventually the practice of rick rolling poured out into the rest of the Internet, taking over image hosting sites, and, most prominently, YouTube.

Today users of YouTube find their hopes of finding the video that they are searching for regularly foiled by videos that get rick roll'd halfway through as well as links to Rick Astley's website or picture.

Major incidents of rick roll
The rick roll has appeared a number of prominent places in pop culture over the past two years, and continues to gain steam. The rick roll has been used as a joke against millions. Targets of the rick roll include the Church of Scientology, Mets fans at Shea Stadium, viewers of "Last Call with Carson Daly," and even a flashmob in the Liverpool train station as reported by the BBC.

In November of 2008 the rick roll reached its peak when Rick Astley made a surprise performance at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade singing "Never Gonna Give You Up, with Astley thereby giving the rick roll to tens of millions of viewers worldwide.

Now one can expect to find the rick roll everywhere on the Internet, along with variations involving Barack Obama and others. Even Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has gotten into the action on her official YouTube page by rick rolling viewers with a video that is purportedly her cats' view of Washington.

There is no end in sight to the rick roll.

Sources:

Nancy Pelosi rick roll: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/14/our-tax-dollars-at-work-nancy-pelosi-rickrolls-youtube-viewers/

Rick roll with a flash mob: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7343833.stm

Rick roll for America: http://www.surveyusa.com/index.php/2008/04/09/you-wouldnt-get-this-from-any-other-pollster/