Fridays Are Funny: Viral Phenomenons
Fresh for 2012, we will be running a Fridays Are Funny series, jam-packed full of amusing videos, articles and things we have seen around the tinterweb. If its FAF approved, you know its funny.
For todays FAF post, I want to talk about something that I actually would quite enjoy, having happily hummed along to ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ for the last twenty five years and gone to a festival to see him sing it in the flesh. Bang goes any street cred I might have. For the shame!
When I first started working in agencies I was informed of the online tradition that is Rick Rolling, and laughed at when I pointed out that I didn’t actually see this as a bad thing at all. Apparently the rest of the world do! So, rest of the world, this one is for you.
Rickrolling (definition from Wikipedia): An Internet meme involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up”. A person provides a link to ‘something awesome’ but in actual fact it takes you to a YouTube page with the video. If you click through, you have officially been Rickrolled. Sucks to be you.
The joke become widespread on 1st April 2008 when companies such as Digg, YouTube and Live Journal played a trick on their customers and directed them all to a rickrolled link. It became known to Sony who demanded that the content be taken down, but so many people protested that the video was reinstated within hours.
The Internet joke gained traction until Thanksgiving 2008 when during a Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, Rick Astley himself got up on a stand and performed the song. The Macys Parade had too been rickrolled. Since this time lots of offline gatherings have been targeted by rickrolling including sports games, protests and other very public places.
Rickrolling has since lost some popularity, but it remains one if the biggest online pranks that have ever happened. Rickrolling, we’re never going to give you up!
Check out the full infographic at Nowsourcing.
