The Allmusic Blog http://blog.allmusic.com Fri, 16 May 2008 23:00:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1 en Rick Astley: King of April Fool’s Day http://blog.allmusic.com/2008/04/01/rick-astley-king-of-april-fool%e2%80%99s-day/ http://blog.allmusic.com/2008/04/01/rick-astley-king-of-april-fool%e2%80%99s-day/#comments Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:00:11 +0000 Jason Lymangrover http://blog.allmusic.com/2008/04/01/rick-astley-king-of-april-fool%e2%80%99s-day/ Rick AstleyKids may be too transfixed by Super Smash Bros. Brawl to bother going outside to ding dong ditch a neighbor, and caller ID easily thwarts the idea of ordering 15 pizzas to a stranger’s house, but despite an abundance of laziness and an inherent lack of anonymity in the cyberage, there’s still a good ongoing gag. The “pull my finger” of 2008 is rickrolling. If you’re not familiar — and you’re fortuitous enough to have never been rickroll’d in the past year — essentially, it involves tricking someone to watch the music video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” by claiming that it’s something enticing. (Rocketboom gives the history of rickrolls here.) On this day of false hopes, you need to watch your back more than ever. Next time your pal sends you a link to an interview with Corey Worthington and his famous glasses or concert footage of Amy Winehouse singing jibberish on crazy sauce, you should be prepared for a surprise from a ginger-headed goon doing a terribly stiff dance.

For your protection, here are a couple safety measures:

1. If you’re e-mailed a URL and you’re unsure about its authenticity, test it at rickblock.com.

2. Stay away from YouTube’s featured videos on their homepage. All of them have been converted to rickrolls for April Fool’s Day. Also, beware of lyricwiki and isohunt today.

3. Protect your phone from rickrolls by adding yourself to the “Do Not Call List” here:

4. Don’t open your mail if the return address is from noisebot.com. It could be one of these.

5. Just because you’ve been roll’d once or twice, don’t think you’re off the hook. There are hundreds of variations, and your nemesis may be giving you a super rickroll or a rickroll Indian style.

If you’re wondering how Rick himself feels about the new craze, he actually seems to be a very good sport in this interview. Oh, and if you want to see the new Radiohead video, you can totally trust this link.

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