<![CDATA[Gawker: rick astley]]> http://cache.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: rick astley]]> http://gawker.com/tag/rick astley http://gawker.com/tag/rick astley <![CDATA[ Rick Astley Making Bank Off YouTube Prank ]]> Rick Astley's greatest hits collection is back in print thanks to the Rickroll phenomenon. When YouTube used the video for their April Fool's Day prank, they linked to an mp3 version of the album on Amazon. And Pepsi bought an ad on the Amazon page for the album. Winners: BMG, Astley, YouTube, Pepsi. Losers: You.

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Gawker-374927 Tue, 01 Apr 2008 23:02:49 EDT Nick Douglas http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=374927&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ The Inventors Of The Rickroll Respond To The Joke's Popularization ]]> Today all the "featured video" links on YouTube's front page actually link to this video of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up," and thus the Internet's weakest prank (OMG I sent you a blank music video instead of what you wanted) dies its thousandth death. I checked 4chan, birthplace of the Rickroll, to see how they were handling the popular acceptance of their joke.

Incidentally, "dickbutt" is 4chan's latest meme. That's all the meme is: writing "DICK BUTT." I hope it gets as popular as LOLcats and Rickrolls.

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Gawker-374904 Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:12:19 EDT Nick Douglas http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=374904&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Who Rickrolls the Rickrollers? ]]> giveyouup.jpgThe New York Times recently investigated the internet phenomenon known as Rickrolling—the fun-for-all-ages game of tricking people into clicking on a link that takes them to a Youtube clip of unlikely pop star Rick Astley singing his greatest hit, "Never Gonna Give You Up"—but they didn't do a very thorough job, considering that they were unable to track down Mr. Astley himself for comment (the LA Times found Rick and ran a lengthy, entertaining interview). They were also duped by a hoax clip of a "prankster" interrupting a college basketball game dressed as Astley and lip-synching the song. That performance, it turns out, happened before four different games, none of them the one the Times identified, and was not a halftime prank. And so, today, the Grey Lady runs a Rickrolling correction:

An article on Monday about a popular Internet video prank known as rickrolling referred incorrectly to its use during a March 8 women's basketball game at Eastern Washington University, based on information provided by Pawl Fisher, a student; Davin Perry, who shoots game videos for the university; and Dave Cook, its sports information director. The stunt, which involves a person lip-synching the 1980s hit song "Never Gonna Give You Up" while dressed as the British singer Rick Astley, was performed before the start of four separate basketball games, and the pranksters distilled the performances into a YouTube video. The March 8 game, between Eastern Washington and Montana State, was not interrupted by a performance. (Go to Article)

This is nearly as embarrassing as when the Times was forced to reveal in a lengthy editor's note that star reporter Judy Miller's investigation into whether or not it was a trap was heavily influenced by deceptive off-the-record quotes from the Bush administration's Supreme Commander of the Coalition of the Willing Fleet, Admiral Ackbar.

Corrections [NYT]

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Gawker-372861 Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:29:46 EDT Pareene http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=372861&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Rick Astley Most Likeable Singer With Most Annoying Song ]]> 77180357.jpgSinger Rick Astley finally commented on the stupidest prank on the Internet, Rickrolling. In an L.A. Times interview he says the song is lightweight, the trend is cute, and he's old and uncool. The man is determined to avoid any backlash whatsoever, as if he might be blamed for a million instances of minor annoyance. He even looks pretty cute lately. Rick Astley, pretty cool guy or just making up for an undeserved career?

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Gawker-372219 Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:06:32 EDT Nick Douglas http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=372219&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Behind Every Internet Meme Is A Better One You Never Saw ]]>
As I've mentioned, LOLcats is just a cuter version of Caturday, an old forum tradition of posting cat pictures with captions in broken English on Saturdays. Caturday itself is just a more formal version of the image macros that have floated around ever since the Internet found pictures. Every popular Internet meme is in fact a lamer version of a more obscure one, including Lazy Sunday, the Rickroll, Badger Badger Badger, Hot or Not, Ask a Ninja, and Chuck Norris Facts. I've traced them back to their edgier ancestors.

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Lazy Sunday < Lonely Island
Andy Samberg used to be funny, honest! Before Saturday Night Live had him recording "The Chronic(what?)cles of Narnia," his comedy group "The Lonely Island" made what is possibly the only truly funny white-man rap, "The Heist," which contains the epic line "Chamomile, motherfucker!" If you'd heard of Samberg before, it's probably because of The 'Bu, TLI's series for the indy comedy show Channel 101.


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Rickroll < Duckroll
Rickrolling, the practice of sending someone a link that unexpectedly leads to the music video for Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up,' is just bland; it's the Internet equivalent of saying "What? Chicken butt." It's Goatse for people too cowardly for shock sites and too unoriginal to find their own random red herring. But the Rickroll's predecessor, the duckroll — sending a link to a photo of a duck with wheels — was actually unexpected and maybe a little funny.


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Badger Badger Badger < Weebl and Bob
While the animation of badgers and mushrooms is cute, it's a simpler form of the absurd humor in the creator's Weebl and Bob series. The cartoons of these two egg-shaped characters with a pie fetish are an acquired taste, and by that I mean you can't complain that it's unfunny unless you waste nine hours watching every episode.


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Hot or Not < Am I Hot
Every popular social site is stolen from another. Friendster is a ripoff of Ryze.com; Facebook was ripped off from like fifty Harvard projects. Hot or Not changed its name from "Am I Hot or Not" because of threats from an older site called "Am I Hot," which the newer site's owners bought three years later, once they'd made tons of money through ads and a delicously shallow dating service. However "Am I Hot" was, the sheer volume of traffic, the reduction of every score to a 7.3, and the Facebook app make Hot or Not worse.


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Ask a Ninja < Real Ultimate Power and Homestar Runner
I like Ask a Ninja. I mean kudos to them for being more than the same joke over and over. But asking a ninja for advice is just a combo of the pure ninja-fetish fun of "Real Ultimate Power" and the Strong Bad E-mails from Homestar Runner. No comedy advice series comes anywhere close to Strong Bad's growly cartoons.


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Chuck Norris Facts < Vin Diesel Facts
The joke just makes more sense with Vin Diesel, because it's not so desperately ironic and catch-phrasey, so joke writers can revel in actual creativity. Compare:
"Apple pays Chuck Norris 99 cents every time he listens to a song."
"When Vin Diesel goes to donate blood, he declines the syringe, and instead requests a hand gun and a bucket."
If you've seen the gun-and-bucket joke as a Chuck Norris fact, that's because it was stolen.

The commenters on Gawker, who already knew all of the above, will now tell you all the fads I forgot.

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Gawker-346913 Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:10:23 EST Nick Douglas http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=346913&view=rss&microfeed=true