Eighties Pop Star Rick Astley's Web Sensation

Eighties Pop Star Rick Astley's Web Sensation

80s British popstar Rick Astley is experiencing a career resurgence thanks to an internet phenomenon called 'RickRolling', in which internet browsers are duped into clicking a headline that re-directs them to a music video of Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up'.

The practice of 'RickRolling' got a boost in the past week after gossip blogger Perez Hilton posted a message on his website under the ficticious heading 'Whitney Smoking Crack... Caught On Tape!!!', with the link leading straight to Astley's video.

'Never Gonna Give You Up' has now become one of the most streamed video's on YouTube, racking up an astonishing 14 million views.

"It's abit spooky innit?" Astley told the LA Time's Web Scout.

“I think it’s just one of those odd things where something gets picked up and people run with it. But that’s what's brilliant about the internet.

"If this had happened around some kind of rock song, with a lyric that really meant something - a Bruce Springsteen, 'God bless America'... or an anti-something kind of song, I could kind of understand that. But for something as, and I don’t mean to belittle it, because I still think it’s a great pop song, but it’s [just] a pop song... It doesn’t have any kind of weight behind it, as such. But maybe that’s the irony of it.”

Rick Astley: RickRolls The Internet

Rick Astley: RickRoll's The Internet
Robert Paul Reyes

April 08, 2008
"Rickrolling is a prank involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". In a rickroll, a person provides a link they claim is relevant to the topic at hand which actually takes the user to the Astley video.

On April 1, 2008 (April Fools' Day), the featured videos on You Tube's front page hyperlinked to the Rickroll."

Quotation from Wikipedia.

I'm a fan of YouTube and every day I check out the featured videos. Imagine my surprise on April 1, when I clicked the first featured piece and I'm hijacked to Rick Astley's quintessentially 80's video.

I clicked every featured clip, spending hours watching Astley's video -- days later I still can't get Astley's spastic dancing and booming voice out of my mind.

The "Never Gonna Give You Up" video is minimalist, it features Astley singing and dancing with two hot blond chicks dancing in the background. These are not your typical video vixens all slutted up and ready to hit Da Club. The blond babes are modestly dressed, and one of them looks up to the heavens as she gyrates. It's as if she isn't dancing for the great unwashed -- she has an angelic audience. The blond goddess must be 40-something by now; i wonder if time has humbled her and she now deigns to look mere mortals in the eye. Maybe I could even hook up with her...

When my friends ask me why I spent a whole day watching Astley's video I tell them I'm obsessed with that heavenly bombshell. I don't want them to think I'm a homosexual infatuated with Astley's fey dance moves, not that there's anything wrong with being gay.


When an unsuspecting person gets "rick roll'd" outwardly he exclaims, "Oh expletive-deleted", but inwardly he's delighted that he has an excuse to groove to Astley's video. So why is the "Never Gonna Give You Up" clip so addictive? Its genius is in its simplicity: Minimum production values and simple lyrics that are easy to remember. It also has a good beat and you can dance to it!

Rick Astley has been a good sport about the "Never Gonna Give You UP" phenomenon:

"In a March 2008 interview, Astley said that he found rickrolling to be "hilarious"; he also said that he will not try to capitalize on the rickroll phenomenon with a new recording orremix of his own, but that he'd be happy to have other artists remix it. Overall, Astley is fine with the phenomenon, although he finds it a little "bizarre" and only hopes that his daughter receives no embarrassment over it."

Quotation from Wikipedia

I'm proud of my essays, even the fluff pieces, I don't think I would be as forgiving as Astley if one of my essays was Rick Roll'd all over the Internet.

Excuse the abrupt ending, but I can't continue to write, all of a sudden these are the only words that come to mind:

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.