Rickroll
In 1987, Rick Astley released his debut single“ Never Gonna Give You Up.”( Fig. 41) The music video was uploaded to Youtube in 2007 and has become perhaps the most infamous bait and switch video to ever exist. In the early to mid 2000s, it was popular on 4chan to use the bait and switch format for comedy. The first ever meme of this was known as“ Duck Rolling.”( Fig. 42) People would post a link and create a desire for others to view it but it would link to a picture of a duck with wheels. This was the precursor to“ Rickrolling” which became popular in 2007.“ Rickrolling” was one of the most widely popular memes of the time, infiltrating popular culture and forever changing the landscape of meme culture on the internet. As an April Fool’ s Day prank, every featured video on the Youtube home page would redirect to the Rick Astley music video. Astley lipsynced to his own song in 2008 on a Macy’ s Thanksgiving Day Parade float. Not only was the“ Rickrolling” meme extremely popular, but the lyrics and Astley’ s face are tied to the video, which allowed for the abstraction and parody of the meme because they added another layer of visual content. Internet users lost interest in the meme in 2008 as the style of humor progressed and changed.
However, in 2015, there was a“ Rickroll” resurgence on Tumblr. For a couple months, this meme was again popular. Many cited the reason for it’ s popularity was that it was a completely innocent meme. There were no feelings to hurt and the the frustrated, yet funny feeling evoked from being“ Rickrolled” was completely innocent and never ill intended. In 20016, Melania Trump delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention which used some of the lyrics of“ Never Gonna Give You Up” leading many inernet users to believe that her speech writer was“ Rickrolling” the audience.
fig. 42
“ Trololo” also known as the“ Russian Rickroll” was a video of Eduard Khil singing the Sovietera pop song“ I am Glad,‘ cause I’ m Finally Returning Back Home.” The video gained popularity because the chorus sounds like the phrase“ troll lol lol” which combines the popular phrases‘ troll’ and‘ lol’ which were popular internet vernacular.( Fig. 43) Internet users often would say‘ trollolol’ to convey that it was funny to‘ troll’ or make fun of a person. This meme was another bait and switch meme. Other variants of the video included placing an image over Khil’ s face, such as the“ U Mad Bro” Rage Face. Unfortunately, Khil passed away in 2012.
fig. 43
24 | Part One: Early Memes