Rickrolling

Origin

Rickrolling is the prank of setting up a link so that clicking it plays the music video for Rick Astley's 1987 song "Never Gonna Give You Up." It began in May 2007 on the video games board (/v/) of the imageboard 4chan.

Circumstances made the prank work. The official trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV had just been released, anticipation was at its peak, and traffic made the video hard to actually watch. Into that gap someone posted a link billed as the trailer that in fact led to Rick Astley's video, and game fans on the board fell for it in numbers. Know Your Meme's account dates the start to May 15th, 2007, when a 4chan user uploaded the music video to YouTube and linked it in the trailer's place.

The format itself is a variant of the earlier "duckrolling," in which a link with a sensational title led instead to an edited image of a duck on wooden wheels. Rickrolling keeps that bait-and-switch structure intact and simply swaps in the music video as the payoff.

Spread

It went mainstream in 2008. That April Fools' Day, YouTube redirected every featured video link on its homepage to the music video; Anonymous played the song at protests against the Church of Scientology; and the New York Mets pulled the same prank on the crowd during a game. Later that year Rick Astley himself appeared and performed at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

It has been revived regularly since. The Foo Fighters used it on the crowd at the 2008 Reading Festival, and in 2016 Adele played the song's intro at a concert.

The prank endures because it is harmless. Nothing is lost by falling for it and the payoff is a cheerful pop song, so the target can laugh it off. That is how the rickroll became the byword for bait links, and why it gets cited as the benchmark for a harmless internet joke.

How it is used

• As the classic bait: a link posted under a title that inflates expectations
• As a joke reply when asked for some much-discussed video or document
• As the safe prank official accounts and companies reach for on April Fools' Day
• As shorthand for bait links in general

Sources

• Know Your Meme, "Rickroll" — the May 2007 start on 4chan's /v/ board disguised as the GTA IV trailer, the lineage from duckrolling, and the 2008 YouTube April Fools', Anonymous and New York Mets instances
• Wikipedia, "Rickrolling" — cross-confirmation of the timeline and major incidents