Rickroll

We're no strangers to love. You know the rules, and so do I.

In the spring of 2007, on 4chan's /v/ board, someone committed a small act of trolling that would echo through eternity. The setup was simple: promise eager gamers a leaked Grand Theft Auto IV trailer, deliver instead a 1987 music video featuring a baby-faced redhead with an impossibly deep voice doing... whatever that dance is supposed to be.

The Rickroll was born—spiritual successor to the "duckroll," but infinitely more insidious. The format required nothing but a disguised link and human curiosity. Click. Wait. Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down...

By 2008, no link on the internet could be trusted. YouTube Rickrolled its entire homepage on April Fools' Day. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade got Rickrolled when the man himself emerged from a float to lip-sync for millions of confused Americans. Anonymous Rickrolled Scientology. The Oregon state legislature got Rickrolled during a floor speech. The U.S. House of Representatives. MTV Europe. The White House petition site.

The original video crossed one billion views. Then two. Then three.

Rick Astley, once a forgotten one-hit wonder from the Stock Aitken Waterman hit factory, became an internet deity. He didn't fight it. He leaned in. He Rickrolled Reddit. In 2022, he re-created the entire video for an insurance commercial, same moves, same energy, thirty-five years of wear.

Most memes die when they reach the mainstream. The Rickroll is different. It's the cockroach of internet culture—unkillable, adaptable, waiting in every suspicious link. QR codes brought it back. TikTok brought it back. Every April Fools' Day, it rises again like a pastel-suited phoenix.

You can't kill the Rickroll because the Rickroll isn't really a meme anymore. It's a ritual. A shared understanding. A promise: click a sketchy link, accept the consequences.

He's never gonna give us up. He's never gonna let us down. And apparently, we're never gonna say goodbye.