What Is Rickrolling? The Meme Explained, History and How to Rickroll
Rickrolling is the internet prank where you share a link that looks useful or exciting, but it actually opens Rick Astley’s 1987 music video for “Never Gonna Give You Up”. When we first wrote about it on 2 April 2008, the day after YouTube rickrolled its own visitors, we admitted we didn’t quite get the joke. Almost two decades later the meme is still alive. Here is what rickrolling means, where it came from, its most famous moments and how to rickroll someone in good fun.
Quick answer: Rickrolling means tricking someone into opening the music video of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” by disguising the link as something else. It started on 4chan in 2007, went mainstream when YouTube rickrolled its homepage on April Fools’ Day 2008, and the official video passed one billion YouTube views in July 2021.
Table of Contents
What does rickrolling mean?
In a rickroll, someone shares a link they claim is relevant, such as a movie trailer, leaked news or the answer to a question, but it leads to the official “Never Gonna Give You Up” video (external site). The victim has been “rickrolled”. The joke is the surprise, plus the catchy, cheesy 1980s song that most people then can’t get out of their heads.
The song was released as a single on 27 July 1987 from Rick Astley’s debut album Whenever You Need Somebody and became a worldwide number one. Learn more about Rick Astley (external site) and the history of rickrolling (external site) on Wikipedia.
Where rickrolling came from
- 2006, duckrolling: the joke began on 4chan as “duckrolling”, where links led to a picture of a duck on wheels.
- May 2007: a user posted a link claiming to be the new Grand Theft Auto IV trailer that opened the Rick Astley video instead. Rickrolling was born.
- 1 April 2008: YouTube made every featured video on its homepage link to the song for April Fools’ Day. It drew millions of views in a single day, and bloggers all over the web joined in.
- November 2008: Rick Astley himself rickrolled the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York by surprising viewers with a live performance on a float, often called the biggest rickroll of all.
Famous rickrolls
- 2008: fans voted the song as the New York Mets’ rally song with millions of write-in votes, and Astley won MTV Europe’s “Best Act Ever” award through an online campaign.
- 2011: the official White House Twitter account posted a rickroll link during a live chat.
- 2015: hacker group Anonymous flooded extremist hashtags with rickroll links.
- July 2021: the official music video passed one billion views on YouTube, and Astley called the milestone “mind-blowing”.
Google itself has a long history of jokes; see our list of the best Google April Fools pranks.
How to rickroll someone (kindly)
- Pick the moment: April Fools’ Day, a group chat or a friend who keeps asking for a spoiler.
- Disguise the link: share it with a believable description, or put it behind a button or QR code. Avoid using link shorteners that hide the destination in work or school settings.
- Keep it harmless: never use pop-ups that trap people, fake security warnings or links in emergency or support conversations.
- Be ready to be rickrolled back: it’s part of the fun.
Why rickrolling is still funny
Rickrolling works because it’s a harmless bait-and-switch with a song that is impossible to dislike for long. Rick Astley, who at first called the craze “bizarre”, has embraced it, and his daughter reportedly told him the joke wasn’t about him. In 2008 we got stuck in an aggressive rickroll on one blogger’s April Fools page that opened endless pop-up windows until we had to close the browser from Task Manager. That is exactly what not to do: the best rickrolls end with a laugh, not a frozen computer. If you like light pranks, try our harmless computer pranks.
What changed since 2008
When this post was written, rickrolling had just exploded across blogs on April Fools’ Day 2008 and many of us were new to it. Since then it has become one of the longest-lasting internet memes, moved from blogs to social media, QR codes and video games, and the official video has passed a billion views. The original embedded video link and the dead TechCrunch report have been replaced with the official video link.
FAQ
What does “rickrolled” mean?
It means you clicked a disguised link and ended up watching Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” video.
When did rickrolling start?
In May 2007 on 4chan, growing out of an earlier “duckroll” joke from 2006.
How many views does “Never Gonna Give You Up” have?
The official video passed one billion YouTube views in July 2021 and keeps growing.
Is rickrolling harmful?
No, as long as the link simply opens the video. Avoid tricks that trap people with pop-ups or look like security warnings.
Stuck on a gift? Try our free Gift Idea GeneratorIdeas for anyone by age, job, interests and budget, with Amazon.com and Amazon.in linksFind gifts →Get our free weekly email: new tech guides and tools, no spam.
New and updated tech guides, a free tool worth bookmarking and one useful pick, once a week. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
One email a week. Unsubscribe anytime. See our privacy policy.
No, it’s no good. It’s still not funny. And, as the saying goes, it isn’t particularly clever either. I can edit my website so that a link goes to a useless URL instead of a presumably less useless one – and if that useless URL hosts a particular video clip I can pretend I’ve achieved some turn of comedy genius?
And if I click on such a doctored link and get a video of some has-been flapping and gurning around the place, well, I’ll just click off it like the spam it is and find a more useful site.
For what it’s worth, I do actually have a sense of humour – but when I want jokes and comedy online there are plenty of places I can go to find them. I don’t need the hilarity brought to me.
This is a good piece, I was wondering if I could use this piece on my website, I will link it back to your website though. If this is a problem please let me know and I will take it down right away.
The rick roll showed in the video above is not the one I got. The one I received took you to a site that was nothing but the Astley video. Whenever you clicked on it the video moved. I have a iMac and it wouldn’t allow me to bring up the pop up menu. I think that site was much better but they took it down some time ago. A lot of people don’t get Rick rolling because they are doing it wrong. There are videos and articles telling people that all you have to do is send someone a mislabeled link to a Rick Astley video and that is not the case. There are only certain links that lead to a real Rick roll and personally I thought it was hilarious, then annoying, then hilarious again. I had to power off my computer to get out of it. lol
It’s funny in the same way that you dupe people giving them false information (when it’s harmless). I once told my friend in high school that tomorrow you have to come in in school uniform (private school) but in reality it’s a dress down day. He comes into class in uniform and has the “wtf” expression on his face and it was hilarious. It’s the same with rickrolls. You tell a guy a site or link for an effective weight loss program and it shows the music video instead and you just observe the funny (or imagine the guy’s face) as they go “wtf…?”
I just got RickRolled 5 minutes ago. It’s hard to explain, but I actually think it’s funny watching people follow a link they think goes to a place other than a Rick Astley music video!
Controversy gets the site more traffic. John Chow eventually got more RSS feed subscribers than he lost through that prank, so it was a successful prank that got him more visitors. Not too good for the visitors though, especially if you had to figure out how to get out of all those message boxes.
Though April fools day saw a high dose of Rickrolling, at least everyone got to know about what it was. That’s how a successful internet meme works.
Rickrolling has been going on for years, so I don’t think this year’s April Fools Day pranks are going to end it any time soon.
I ended up getting Rickrolled at JohnCow and thought it was funny until I couldn’t get out of it. It seems he did the same thing that Chow did and made it jump all over the place. The roll was funny, but I think that fact that people couldn’t get out of it really ticked some readers off.
Rick Rolling was actually a fairly old meme that I had never heard of until about a month or two ago. When I first saw a rick roll I didn’t really get it until I read the info on the right side of the video (on YouTube) and figured it all out.
After learning what the heck a Rick Roll was I found it to be pretty darn funny, and apparently a lot of other people did as well, considering the amount of Rick Rolling that was going on April Fools day.
It’s a shame that it had to end so quickly, Rick Rolling probably could have had another healthy month or two of life but it got played out to quickly, April Fools ruined Rick Rolling.
Well apparently, Rick Astley isn’t the only former singer celeb being rolled. MC Hammer has now fallen victim to the craze, as people are now getting HammerRolled.
A website located at explains this version of the good ‘ole Rick Roll.
I was rick rolled yesterday and while it may be annoying, it was all in fun. I think that’s the problem today, people don’t know how to have fun anymore. It was just a joke.
ROFL! I thought I was the only one who just “didn’t get it.” I’m not sure why it’s so funny either. Maybe it isn’t funny and people are just pretending to get it because all the cool kids are doing it. :-)