This morning my son sent me this link to a funny story about a group of fake protesters who interrupted and distracted attention from an angry protest in front of Twitter HQ in San Francisco. He said I'd better read up on rickrolling first.

The wiki article explains that "rickrolling" started out as an e-mail prank where a link that said anything else at all, lead instead to a music video of Rick Astley singing "Never Gonna Give You Up."

Apparently, the word "rickrolled" is now being applied to guerrilla spoof hijackings or interruptions of public events like the one above. I especially liked the one sign that said "I was promised doughnuts!"

I thought I'd seen a mention of rickrolling somewhere here a couple of years ago, but can't find it via search on the site. And probably I am one of the last people on earth to add this word to my vocabulary!

Wordmatic

I'm fairly certain it was one of our wordgame words.

You'll find the links here . I seem to recall the question about it.

It seems to have been used in the bluffing game. Here's a "Stats" post I made showing it was the second most active topic in July 2008. However, I can't find the topic by searching, only that reference to it. Weird.

Here is the thread.

Interesting, WM. I showed the article to my daughter who just moved back from SF and said, "That's so San Francisco."

My favorite sign was the "I have a sign."

Here is another relevant thread.

Hmm. Wonder why it wouldn't come up in a search for me? I'm certain I spelled it correctly. Thanks for the links everyone.

Wordmatic

I have been subjected to this evil practice. One of the worst fake links is that which takes you to a site that pops up a message box that says that your computer is infected with a virus and that you should download a patch. Clicking OK and accepting the download actually installs some malware and you then have to pay the site owner to get it removed. What is even worse is that you can't get out of the page, since, when you try to close the message box it simply reappears and you can't navigate away from the page whilst the box is there.

The way out is to get to the program manager by using control - alt - delete and closing your browser from that. What you should never do is click on OK in that fake message box!

Back in the fifties, I came home to find the phone wrapped in towels and my mother sitting in a chair keeping a wary eye on the bundle. I asked what she was doing and she said a man from the telephone company had called to warn that they were about to clean the wires. He advised her to cover the phone so static electricity wouldn't escape into the room. He said the entire process would take three hours and not to touch or move the phone during that period. I laughed heartily because I knew it only took 45 minutes to clean the wires.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
I have been subjected to this evil practice. One of the worst fake links is that which takes you to a site that pops up a message box that says that your computer is infected with a virus and that you should download a patch. Clicking OK and accepting the download actually installs some malware and you then have to pay the site owner to get it removed. What is even worse is that you can't get out of the page, since, when you try to close the message box it simply reappears and you can't navigate away from the page whilst the box is there.

The way out is to get to the program manager by using control - alt - delete and closing your browser from that. What you should never do is click on OK in that fake message box!

I would argue that that is not being "rickrolled" but something more insidious. "Rickrolling" at heart is harmless fun; your experience was not.
BTW, greta song and the video for it has an interesting back story for those willing to pursue it.