The Story of the Best Meme EVER: "Never Gonna Give You Up" & Rickrolling

[Music] I'm gonna guess that if you've been on the internet within the past 12 years or so there's a good chance that you've seen and heard this before what you're watching is the music video for Rick Astley's 1987 song and never gonna give you up and it's a part of what is in my opinion the greatest meme of all time in this video I'm gonna tell you about the origin of the song itself it's return to popularity and the revolution of Rick rollin and its impact on the man behind the song mr. Rick Astley in the early 1980s Rick and a few of his friends started a band called FBI in their native language ringlets they were doing very small nearby gigs and even as a teenager Rick had a truly one-of-a-kind voice that made him sound like a grown man one night FBI was performing at a local club and Pete Waterman of the songwriting production trio stock Aitken Waterman was in attendance Waterman wasn't exactly intrigued by FBI as a whole but he loved Rick Astley's voice he talked to him after the show and within a few days Rick had a record deal however it came at a strange time for the production trio after a year in the business together they finally got their first number one hit song with dead or alive as you spin me round' [Music] with their newfound success and some big names fighting to work with them the teenage kid from Lancashire with the manly voice had to wait but with that being said Pete Waterman did have a lot of faith in the potential of Rick Astley Waterman didn't want Rick to get thrown on the back burner too much so he had Rick come and stay with him in his apartment Rick would go to the studio every day to make tea and sandwiches for the production trio while they were working on their next hit singles eventually Rick got his first opportunity in the music industry with the single when you gonna a duet with him and Lisa Carter as Rick and Lisa well that single did absolutely nothing but a little bit down the road Rick's next opportunity came in the form of a song called and never gonna give you what as Rick made tea for everybody in the studio stock Aitken Waterman went to work with a Fairlight CMI for sampling a yamaha dx7 for the bass lines and a linn 9000 for the drums Rick got in the booth did his vocals and while everybody in the studio didn't really want to jinx anything they were pretty sure that they had a hit soon after they shot the music video in an old church in London there was no stylist to Rick just packed his own clothes in a bag and he did his little dance moves by the end of 1987 the song was the number one single of the year in the UK and in March of 88 it hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US too as time out wrote about the track in their top 50 best songs of the 80s list those synthesized strings that thumping boots and pants beats Astley's weirdly robust croon and his romantic wooing as a used car salesman pitch you wouldn't get this from any other guy it all adds up to three and a half of the most effervescent minutes in the 80's Canon from 87 to around 1993 Rick Astley would go on to have a pretty illustrious career tens of millions of records sold a Grammy nomination collaborations with L and John and he was a millionaire by the age of 24 in 1994 Rick retired from the music industry at 27 because he started getting sick of the business side of things he was having a bit of an existential crisis and he wanted to properly raise his daughter and while Rick came back in 2001 to release new music and start touring again that's not why I'm making this video I'm making this video because years later around 2005 to 2008 we saw a resurgence in the popularity of never gonna give you up and the creation of a beautiful confusing meme there are approximately four things that serve as the building blocks for this meme in 2005 an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia called Charlie has cancer premiered never gonna give you up was featured in the episode and the song grew in popularity on the internet because of it in 2006 a Michigan native named Erik halwa get called in on his local radio sports talk show and instead of talking to the deejays about sports he just played and never gonna give you up while they sat there speechless also in 2006 the creator of the internet forum fortune Christopher Poole aka moots implemented a word filter that would replace the word egg with the word as a joke somebody tried posting about an eggroll the word filter changed it to duct roll somebody made an image of a duck on wheels with the caption duck roll and this image became a popular gag on the site people would use a hyperlink to pretend that they were sharing something interesting somebody would click on it only to find the duck roll picture and that process was called duck rolling and finally in March of 2007 the first trailer for grand theft auto 4 was released there was so much traffic on their site that it crashed and so someone on 4chan used the same bait-and-switch duck roll method by saying hey here's a link to the grand theft auto 4 trailer only for it to link to the music video for Rick Astley's never gonna give you up this my friends was the birth of Rick rolling on April Fool's Day a couple weeks later everybody on 4chan was using that hyperlink bait-and-switch was never gonna give you up Rick rolling was catching on by 2008 a survey USA poll showed that 18 million American adults had been Rick Rolled and this is around the time when the very public Rick rolling began in February the online group Anonymous went to several of the headquarters of the Church of Scientology and protested by singing the song and blasting it through loudspeakers in March there was Rick rolling at college basketball games with Rick Astley impersonators that April Fool's Day saw YouTube Rick rolling everybody by using their entire homepage as links to the video leading up to the November 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards there was an online campaign for Rick Astley to win Best Actor even though he wasn't one of the nominees and though he did not appear at the awards Rick beat out the likes of Green Day Britney Spears and u2 after receiving millions of votes online this was obviously a shock to mr. Astley himself who had previously retired from music due to the fame being overwhelming for him he was rightfully confused but appreciated that people were enjoying his old music once he understood the process and execution of Rick rollin he found it to be pretty funny later that month he even agreed to help Rick roll the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Darren performance by characters from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends the music stops and suddenly rick astley above the Cartoon Network flow appeared and sang along to never gonna give you what ends while the peak usage of rickrolling was in 2008 its legacy will never be forgotten in April of 2018 the creators of HBO's Westworld released a video that was supposed to include spoilers for the next season but it was just the lead actress singing never gonna give you what it's been featured in movies there are quote Rick Astley hotlines where you call a number and you can hear the song being played in August of 2019 there was an amazing rickroll by the San Diego Padres the team was hosting the Boston Red Sox and at one point the Padres scoreboard started to play Neil Diamond Sweet Caroline which is basically the anthem of the Red Sox but right when the big sing-along chorus was about to hit it switched over to never gonna give you up and the Padres fans went wild and just a couple of months ago a generation of kids that might not even know what rickrolling is was introduced to a never gonna give you up emotes in fortnight so in the grand scheme of things how did this nationwide and even worldwide phenomenon of a meme affect the man behind the song how does Rick Astley feel about this remarkably weird situation to be in I'm happy to say that I don't think this could have happened to a better more down-to-earth person in 2008 when Rick rollin really blew up Rick was cool about it years go by and people are mentioning it he's cool about it as recently as 2018 when an interviewer asks for the millionth time hey that Rick rollin thing sure was crazy right he's cool about it when Cartoon Network asked him to perform at the Thanksgiving Day Parade he did it when anonymous was rickrolling Scientology Rick said it was hilarious when he got voted best act ever at the EMAs he said the mtv were thoroughly rick rolled and thanked everyone that voted for him sure he's gotten a little bit tired of it every now and then but who wouldn't there's a funny quote from the LA Times where he said there have definitely been times when I've thoughts can't we have a Dave role or a Mary role but one of the more comforting aspects of this that Rick didn't even try to capitalize off of the meme he didn't record a new version of it he didn't release a remix though he did welcome anyone to remix it he accepted his newfound fame quietly and with an amount of grace that is almost shocking rickrolling isn't exactly making fun of Rick and never gonna give you up but with anything like this I always assume the worst I'd hate for Rick to think that everyone was making fun of him as you can tell from his early retirements and his eventual return he's a relatively quiet simple guy that just enjoys making music and I wouldn't blame him if he pulled an Old Town Road and made 10 remixes of never gonna give you up during the peak of the meme but he didn't and I think there's something kind of beautiful about that I want to close this out with an excerpt from an interview Rick did with Rolling Stone in 2016 after being questioned about how he feels about Rick rollin he said I have no problem with it it's done me a lot of good probably the thing is it's not personal to me even though I know it is me and it's my name and the title of Rick rollin it's that video that I'm in it's that song that's mine but it could have been anybody so thank you to Rick Astley for not only making a great song thank you for being an amazing sport too we really appreciate it hey thank you for watching that video be sure to check out Rick never gonna give you up his new music - if you want to support the channel feel free to like comment and subscribe you can follow me on social media at Renshaw HS you can buy my merch support my patreon and thank you again I'll see you soon you

Channel: Alfo Media

Views: 4,556,953

Keywords: Never Gonna Give You up, Rickrolling, Rickroll, Rick Astley, Meme, Live, Music Video, Review, Reaction, Video Essay, Performance, Together Forever, It's Always Sunny, Meaning, Origin, Story, Duckroll, Thanksgiving Day Parade, Anonymous, Best, Compilation, Red Sox, Padres, EMA's, Best Act Ever, Funny

Id: QMW4AqbuSGg

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 19 2020