Yes, I'm going to give you up, let you down, run around and desert you. I'm going to make you cry, say goodbye, and tell a lie and hurt you.

March 6, 2008 8:49 PM

Finally, eliminate the rickroll from your online life.I know, you're hesitant to click on that because you think that in moments, you'll find yourself on a YouTube page seeing Rick Astley doing the white-boy-80s-groove dance. (Have no idea what a rickroll is? First, consider yourself lucky, and then wiki it, or, more amusingly, Rocketboom.) But thanks to Adblock Plus, subscription filters, and collaborative flagging, you can banish Astley back to the '80s where he belongs.
posted by WCityMike (66 comments total)

It's far too late for this. The damage has already been done.
posted by contraption at 8:52 PM on March 6, 2008

Wait, I thought Rickrolling was a beautiful surprise that other online citizens bestowed upon you.
You make it sound like it's bad.
posted by mrnutty at 8:54 PM on March 6, 2008 [9 favorites has favorites]

By the way, here is the best place to download the adblock software.
posted by mrnutty at 8:56 PM on March 6, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

Hey, I think I'm 10 again. And I'm liking it.

Actually, I'm more like 11 or 12, because I was always a couple of years behind in songs. But it's like I've been plunged back into another world, one in which romance is at once naive and yet fraught, filled with inchoate yearning to, you know, sit beside that special someone on the bus, and maybe even talk to them. Back then, romance songs like this spoke directly to my heart, and I longed for the day when I could share one with someone else, and it would be "our song".

Now I'm married. And our favorite song is the breakup classic I will survive.
posted by jb at 9:01 PM on March 6, 2008

This is a better way to avoid RickRolling.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:03 PM on March 6, 2008

Also in the news recently: Rick Astley tells youtube to remove the 'Never Gonna Give You Up' videos because of copyright infringement.
posted by tylermoody at 9:05 PM on March 6, 2008

I'm just glad that it was rickrolling that caught on as opposed to, say, tubgirlrolling.
posted by danb at 9:08 PM on March 6, 2008

danb: The first trick-link I remember becoming really prominent was goatse, so in a way, tubgirl and her ilk were there first.
posted by tylermoody at 9:12 PM on March 6, 2008

I for one am looking forward to the various and creative ways people will manage to insert links to Rick Astley in this thread. Wow me, people!

(As you might be able to tell, I certainly won't be blocking out the Rickroll.)
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 9:15 PM on March 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I actually like Mr. Astley's one-hit wonder. Is this wrong?
posted by flatluigi at 9:20 PM on March 6, 2008

Hey now, no blocking until the xkcd comic comes true.
posted by stevis23 at 9:20 PM on March 6, 2008

I'm genuinely impressed by the use of the Adblock subscription feature for this project and surprised that there haven't been other niche uses of the feature. Well done, rickunrollers.
posted by VulcanMike at 9:22 PM on March 6, 2008

Good thing this lives on.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:25 PM on March 6, 2008

LOL WHUT
posted by zenzizi at 9:27 PM on March 6, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

MeTa
posted by mrnutty at 9:28 PM on March 6, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

dude fuck you rickrolling will live forever
posted by Mikey-San at 9:46 PM on March 6, 2008

I am so not clicking on ANY of the links in this thread. So why do I now have that damn song stuck in my head?
posted by gingerbeer at 9:46 PM on March 6, 2008

Why couldn't it have been FrankRolling instead?
posted by not_on_display at 9:50 PM on March 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

This whole thing was horribly stupid and tired literally five minutes after it first appeared. I hate being the cranky old man, I really do, but why in the name of popehatted doubledildo cheesefuckery is this idiot meme still circling the goddamned toilet bowl?

Flush already, kids. FLUSH! Send it down the 15-minutes-of-fame 4chan stinkhole with the Leave Brittney Alone Kid, icanhasdouchebag image macros, Chocolate Rain, and this year's other 75 mildly-amusing-for-a-few-seconds bandwagon net-tribe identifiers that the dim and dullwitted seem to crave so avidly.

*pants, squints, glares*

Right, lawn cleared. Carry on.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:02 PM on March 6, 2008 [5 favorites has favorites]

Listen Stav, you're great fun to play TF2 with, but I just don't think you see how great this song is.

*goes to make a Rick Astley TF2 spray*
posted by mrnutty at 10:09 PM on March 6, 2008

Oh, I've got nothing against the song itself -- it brings back warm and slightly embarrassing hairspray and shoulderpad memories, actually. It's the INTERNET MEME OK element that brought on my mock-apoplectic rantiness.

*goes to make a Rick Astley TF2 spray*

*shakes fist, howls*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:12 PM on March 6, 2008

This Adblock Plus may offer a temporary sanctuary, but scaryroll will eat all of our souls eventually.
posted by tula at 10:13 PM on March 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I rickroll'd all my co-workers the other day, and now we all wander around the restaurant randomly singing parts of the song and people join in!

I would never, ever, use anti-rickroll software...i'm never gonna give it up, i'm never gonna let it down, run around on it or desert it....
posted by schyler523 at 10:16 PM on March 6, 2008

We're okay as long as nobody links to this.
posted by neuron at 10:18 PM on March 6, 2008

My favorite Tay Zonday song is "Internet Dream"

I swear on my hot mom's life that this is not a rickroll
posted by 1 at 10:39 PM on March 6, 2008

LOL, TEXTRICKROLLED, CANNOT ADBLOCK:

We're no strangers to love
You know the rules and so do I
A full commitment's what I'm thinking of
You wouldn't get this from any other guy

I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you understand

Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

We've know each other for so long
Your heart's been aching
But you're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on
We know the game and we're gonna play it

And if you ask me how I'm feeling
Don't tell me you're too blind to see

Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

give you up. give you up
give you up, give you up
never gonna give
never gonna give, give you up
never gonna give
never gonna give, fgve you up

I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you understand

Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 10:55 PM on March 6, 2008

Is RickRolling really that much of an annoyance, unless you hang around places like 4Chan? The only times I've even seen it done is by people referencing/making fun of the practice, like in this thread.
posted by DecemberBoy at 10:59 PM on March 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Also, the comments on that Tay Zonday video make the baby Jesus cry. Especially the ones to the effect of "this 'faggot' is 'ruining' the song!". Yes, how dare a "faggot" "ruin" a gay club disco single.

I wish there was some sort of Stylish plugin or something to disable comments based on the predicted average intelligence of people watching the video. You could just disable them, but I had a pretty interesting short conversation about Death In June's use of Nazi iconography not too long ago on YouTube. Like, only disable them for Internet memes, people falling down, etc. Maybe anything with over 500,000 views?
posted by DecemberBoy at 11:08 PM on March 6, 2008

You know what my favorite part of that video is?

HOTPANTS BARTENDER!

Face it, you dance to that song, and look at least as dorky as Mr. Astley.

But maybe not as dorky as hotpants bartender.
posted by dirigibleman at 11:22 PM on March 6, 2008

Tay Zonday will eat your fucking soul.
posted by ruddhist at 11:31 PM on March 6, 2008

We're no badgers to love
You mushroom the badgers and so do I
A full snake's what I'm thinking of
You wouldn't get this from any other badger

I just wanna badger you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you snake snake oh it's a snake.

Never gonna badger you up
Never gonna mushroom you down
Never gonna mushroom and snake you
Never gonna snake you cry
Never gonna say mushroom-mushroom
Never gonna tell a badger badger badger badger badger badger.
posted by loquacious at 12:04 AM on March 7, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

It is 3 ought six here. No one has eaten my soul. Must say I am looking for ruddhist to be seen in some natural light.
posted by LiveLurker at 12:06 AM on March 7, 2008

May I suggest an alternative to RickRolling?
posted by Bookhouse at 12:07 AM on March 7, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Goatse did it better.

Other than that, I agree with Stavros. The only meme that had staying power in my mind is AYBABTU.
posted by m0nm0n at 12:49 AM on March 7, 2008

somewhere bill hicks is screaming
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:56 AM on March 7, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.

Oh, you meant a different Rick?
posted by orthogonality at 1:24 AM on March 7, 2008

xkcd comes through with the most sophisticated rickroll ever. First read this comic, it's the recent one about marching band kids falling over when you pause the background music: comic

Now imagine you're a musician and you see the music he's written in the comic and wonder, hmm, I wonder if that's actually a song? You sit down at the piano and start to peck through it, until gradually realization dawns... aargh!
mp3 of the music
posted by PercussivePaul at 1:38 AM on March 7, 2008 [11 favorites has favorites]

The only meme that had staying power in my mind is AYBABTU.

I like aybabtu a bit more than the rest because the content of the meme actually contains instructions for its propagation. "All your base are belong to us," read as: each and every one of your poor little internet addled heads must be possessed by us (the meme). There's something cute about that. Ditto the pokemon slogan "gotta catch 'em all" in just how transparently that translates to their marketing team's desires (gotta catch all the kids' pocket money) as well as what the kids want (gotta own each and every single pokemon product).

As far as rickrolling goes. This is a pretty annoying variant for a victim that has javascript enabled (you have been warned)
posted by juv3nal at 2:05 AM on March 7, 2008

This rickrolling thing always reminds me of KLF's "The Manual" (worthwhile reading, even though I can be a bit obsessed by it...), to quote:


Stock, Aitkin and Waterman, however, are kings of writing chorus lyrics that go straight to the emotional heart of the 7" single buying girls in this country. Their most successful records will kick into the chorus with a line which encapsulates the entire emotional meaning of the song. This will obviously be used as the title. As soon as Rick Astley hit the first line of the chorus on his debut single it was all over - the Number One position was guaranteed:

"I'm never going to give you up"

It says it all. It's what every girl in the land whatever her age wants to hear her dream man tell her. Then to follow that line with:

"I'm never gonna let you down I'm never going to fool around or upset you"

GENIUS.

posted by phax at 2:22 AM on March 7, 2008

Stavros : "Enough with the Whipping and the Snapping!"

Face it, you're no longer a wonder chicken. You're a wonder dinosaur.
posted by Dave Faris at 3:44 AM on March 7, 2008

For the longest time, I thought "rickrolled" was some kind of bad-ass wrestling move, like "clotheslined" or something.
posted by so_necessary at 3:50 AM on March 7, 2008

Will Adblock help block it when I'm walking home? Just last night, I'm walking down a major thoroughfare - a beat-up old Honda, stopped at a red light, all windows down, blaring music. The slow dawning realization that it is, indeed, 'Never Gonna Give You Up.'

Adblock can do nothing. It's jumped from the internet to real life. It will find you.
posted by cobaltnine at 4:18 AM on March 7, 2008

Face it, you're no longer a wonder chicken. You're a wonder dinosaur.

Aye, it's true. But get too close and these mossy tyrannosaurian scimitar teeth'll...

Well, OK, they're dentures.

So? You got a problem with geriatric paleolithic dental augmentation or something, whippersnapper?

Crush my Kentucky Blue with those newfangled memetic basketball shoes of yours and I'll gum you little bastards to death minor bruising with some serious skullmuscle newtonian action, by golly. Just see if I don't!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:43 AM on March 7, 2008

If you hobble along fast enough, you might still have time to catch the 4:30 autogyro to Siam.
posted by Dave Faris at 5:25 AM on March 7, 2008

Pie chart of Rick.

It's not the video, I promise.
posted by triv at 5:40 AM on March 7, 2008

This whole thing was horribly stupid and tired literally five minutes after it first appeared.

And that's precisely what makes it funny - it is horribly stupid and tired, and dumb, and childish, and that's the thing - it's not the rickrolling itself that's funny per se, it's the becoming aware of the meme, followed by the oh noes, I can't believe I got rickrolled when it happens to you, and after that, it becomes the oh noes, I can't believe I got rickrolled again, and it just gets funnier and funnier.

Until, of course, it doesn't.
posted by kcds at 6:03 AM on March 7, 2008

I've already weighed in on the wonderous glory that is the RickRoll here, but just to quickly reiterate, Rick Astley is awesome, that video is awesome, and Rickrolling is an evolutionary step towards the light that restores my hope for humanity. Think about it.

You're either with us, or you're with the tubgirl goatse harlequin-baby terrorists.
posted by BeerFilter at 6:08 AM on March 7, 2008

Also in the news recently: Rick Astley tells youtube to remove the 'Never Gonna Give You Up' videos because of copyright infringement.

This one was pretty brilliant.
posted by smackfu at 6:21 AM on March 7, 2008

I actually like Mr. Astley's one-hit wonder.

Exflippingscuse me? ONE hit? You didn't forget a magical little number called "Together Forever", did you? Oh no you didn't.
posted by dirtdirt at 6:23 AM on March 7, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Am I old? Because I just don't get rickrolling. It's not funny. It's not even upsetting. You tricked me into... seing Rick Astley? I didn't even realize this was a game until I saw the reddit post. I just figured people were getting the links wrong. Where's the punchline here?

And are you kid son my lawn out there?
posted by GuyZero at 6:38 AM on March 7, 2008

The game is in the trickery.
posted by smackfu at 6:41 AM on March 7, 2008

DWYCK-Roll.
posted by Divine_Wino at 7:33 AM on March 7, 2008

A post like this makes me long for Nick Lowe:

All Men, All Men are liars their words ain’t worth no more than worn out tires.
Hey Girls, bring rusty pliers to pull this tooth, all men are liars and that’s the truth.

Well, do you remember Rick Astley?
He had a big fat hit; it was ghastly.
He said "I’m never gonna give you up or let you down."
Well I’m here to tell ya that 'Dick’s a clown!'
Though he was just a boy when he made that vow.
I’d bet it all that he knows by now.
posted by deejay jaydee at 7:34 AM on March 7, 2008

I'm young and I'm dumb and I love rickrolling in theory and practice.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 8:20 AM on March 7, 2008

this post could have simply been a long comment under this FPP.
posted by gman at 9:08 AM on March 7, 2008

Haha the Rick Astley pie chart is good stuff..
posted by jockc at 9:47 AM on March 7, 2008

The urge to slip in a link to Last Measure here is overpowering. Somebody talk me down
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 10:19 AM on March 7, 2008

In A.D. 2007, Rickroll was beginning.
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the link.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
RICK: Never gonna give you up !!
RICK: Never gonna let you down.
RICK: Never gonna run around and hurt you.
Captain: What you say !!
RICK: Never gonna make you cry.
RICK: Never gonna say goodbye.
RICK: Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.
RICK: Ha Ha Ha Ha ....
Operator: Captain !!
Captain: Take off every 'GOATSE' !!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move 'TUBGIRL'.
Captain: For great justice.
posted by Eideteker at 10:35 AM on March 7, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Seriously, if some internet punk kid things he's clever "rickrolling" you, show him how we did things back before the y2k. Goatse, tubgirl, lemonparty and the rest. Give no quarter.
posted by Eideteker at 10:36 AM on March 7, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Post is worth it for the The Corey Haim Video. Thank you. I missed that.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:15 AM on March 7, 2008

OMG you guys it's a totally awesome rick astley video! "Never Gonna Give You Up."
posted by Hat Maui at 11:23 AM on March 7, 2008

somewhere bill hicks is screaming

Rick Astley may have a renewed wave of popularity, but he also still has a vagina.

Diet coooooke, foreeeevah...
posted by DecemberBoy at 11:54 AM on March 7, 2008

On second thought, that should have been:
In A.D. 2007, meme was beginning.
posted by Eideteker at 12:47 PM on March 7, 2008

MetaFilter: popehatted doubledildo cheesefuckery
posted by Parannoyed at 4:19 PM on March 7, 2008

I seriously love rickrolling. It actually brings a smile to my face when I realize that I've been rickrolled. The best is when the tab just starts playing.
posted by frecklefaerie at 8:29 PM on March 7, 2008

Post is worth it for the The Corey Haim Video. Thank you. I missed that.

As you are new to my longstanding Haim rickroll-replacement movement, fyi the official name is "Haimburgling." Learn it. Love it. Live it. Because nothing says "I'm a superior Rickroll" like that cool japanese funk...

Well, unless it's my man, Jack Tripper.
posted by miss lynnster at 10:27 PM on March 7, 2008