A Rickroll is a link that deceives users into clicking on it, leading them to a video of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” It originated from the image sharing community 4chan and has become a popular internet meme. While it is generally harmless, users should be cautious of malicious links. Rick Astley himself finds it amusing and it has even been used in an April Fool’s joke by YouTube.
A Rickroll is a link that supposedly leads to something interesting and relevant to the current conversation, but actually takes the unwary user to a video of Rick Astley singing his 1980s hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” . Someone who clicks on such a link is said to have been “Rickrolled” and there are numerous derivatives of Rickroll, all of which feature ridiculous songs. This internet meme exploded in 2007 and became big enough to be featured in the mainstream media on several occasions.
There is some debate about the origins of the Rickroll. Of course, Internet users have been pranking each other with bogus links since long before Rickroll became famous, and several Internet communities claim to have perfected Rickroll. The most likely culprit behind mainstream Rickroll is 4chan, an image sharing community that originally created duckroll, a link that sent users an animated picture of a rolling wooden duck or a Photoshopped picture of a duck with wheels.
In a well-executed Rickroll, a user will claim that they have found a great site, image or video, such as a leaked trailer for an upcoming movie, and provide the link. When users click on the link, instead of seeing the aforementioned amazing site, they come across the famous video of Rick Astley; when they complain again, the prankster will tease them for being Rickrolled.
In a more insidious version of the Rickroll, the link leads to a site with embedded scripts that wreak havoc on the user’s computer. For example, your browser may scale down and start bouncing around the screen to the beat, or you’ll see a series of error messages with song lyrics. This is usually more irritating than harmful, although users are usually forced to close their browser to deal with the problem.
Rick Astley himself has said he finds Rickroll amusing, and perhaps even pleased to see his song still on the air, courtesy of Rickroll. The reach of a Rickroll knows no bounds; In addition to being used on Internet message boards and instant messaging, the Rickroll was also used in an April Fool’s joke by popular video sharing service YouTube, which turned all of its hyperlinks into links to a video of “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
While a Rickroll is generally intended for harmless entertainment, Internet users should beware of bogus links. Creative hackers have been known to hijack sites with malicious code that could harm a computer. If a link doesn’t look familiar, you may want to run it through a search engine like Google, which will often be able to tell you whether or not it’s safe to click.
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