Looking back on 2008, my favourite meme in social media this year was the Rickroll. It was irreverent, silly, and such a viral success that, for example, YouTube turned their entire homepage into one big Rickroll on April 1st and an anchor on Fox News was Rickrolled live on air by a reporter.
If you haven’t heard of “Rickrolling” before, it started in May 2007 when the preview video of the video game “Grand Theft Auto IV” on the website 4chan led users to the video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” instead. The phenomenon really took off in 2008 and “Rickrolling” has become a part of dozens of offline events and has continued to spread online like wildfire.
The culmination for me was Rick Astley himself appearing at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade where he and the characters from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Rickrolled the crowd and millions of viewers on TV live. Within hours videos were up on YouTube, and so far two of the videos of that appearance have been viewed over 300,000 times each in less than 10 days.
I love that Rick Astley has been such an amazing sport about it all and got in his own before the year was out. Rickrolling is my very definition of “viral” in 2008 and has been good for quite a few laughs! Now if only I could get the song out of my head…
Tamera blogs at (3i). Her most popular post this year was 9 Ways to Get Involved in Social Media in 2009. Prancer is thinking of joining LinkedIn at Tamera's suggestion – always good to have connections in case this yearly gig gets old.
Personally I would have suggested Rickrolling as the WORST thing of 2008.
As soon as you start playing with trust by tricking people online – even in good fun like this – you instantly diminish your own goodwill.
Here’s an article I suggest anyone consider rickrolling read:
http://tinyurl.com/6gd2vj
(Or is it?)
See, trust diminished already. 🙂
Have to disagree on this one Ken, Rickrollin’ is all about good fun, and making light of our serious world. Millions of people have had a good laugh and fooled their friends. If it were brand related sure, but it’s about people… I’m never gonna give it up… 😉
I have never, ever, been Rickrolled. Perhaps the up, and down, side of not doing a lot of video watching online. However, I think it’s hilarious and just saw a photo on flickr thought of you Tamera. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/29058250@N04/3109114853/in/pool-988321@N22)
Friend don’t let friends rickroll friends. 🙂
Never leave a comment on a blog about not having been rickrolled. You will immediately get rickrolled. Nice one Kate.