What is Digg?386 Comments
- scuvball, on 04/22/2008, -8/+342Front page of Fox News. Does. Not. Compute.
- UnFriendlyFire, on 04/22/2008, -11/+211"thanks to wise-guy Web sites like Fark and Digg" Their talkin' about us!
- Viend, on 04/22/2008, -5/+196We're no strangers to love
- ChronoMojo, on 04/22/2008, -4/+130So... Fox news is better at fact finding that CNN. At least Fox doesn't cite Family Guy as the source of Rick Rolling. I welcome your digg downs, hippies.
- CarnivalOfDust, on 04/22/2008, -3/+123I just wanna tell uuiU how I'm feeling
- Soriven, on 04/22/2008, -34/+152So Faux doesn't get any ad revenue:
It's the little Web hoax that got huge.
On April 1, thousands of Internet users clicked links to what they thought would be videos of preening supermodels or cute, tumbling puppies — only to find themselves watching a painfully awkward, decades-old music video by British pop singer Rick Astley.
They'd been "rickrolled" — fooled into watching Astley's 1987 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up." Click here and you can be, too.
On April Fool's Day, anyone who clicked onto any of YouTube's "featured videos" got rickrolled. Several other sites that day also redirected their links to the video. Over 25 million people to date have clicked onto the half-dozen YouTube copies of Astley's video.
One week later, rickrolling went beyond just the virtual world.
The New York Mets announced that "Never Gonna Give You Up" had received 5 million online votes to become the team's new eighth-inning sing-along song — thanks to wise-guy Web sites like Fark and Digg that stumbled upon the vote and urged users to pick the Astley croon.
"We've probably not gotten that many votes for anything before," Mets spokesman Jay Horwitz said in a telephone interview.
It's all just a bit of harmless geek rebellion, say Web pranksters.
"It's just one of those things we do at Fark," founder Drew Curtis said by phone. "Just something silly. The moment we saw the possibility of voting for Rick Astley, they just started going for it."
Once the Mets realized what was happening, they quickly invalidated the results of the poll and decided that on Opening Day, April 8, they'd take the vote to the people.
When Astley's song was played, it was greeted with boos. The Mets had finally overcome rickrolling.
"We're not talking about a nuclear bomb here: It's a fun thing, it's in good fun, and we're not offended," Horwitz said. "But it wasn't a true indicator of our fan base."
The origin of rickrolling goes back three years and involves an egg, a duck without feet and the video game "Grand Theft Auto."
In keeping with silly Internet humor, the director of the image-sharing Web site 4chan, who goes by the handle "moot," decided he'd play a joke and change the word "egg" to "duck" every time a user posted a message.
In time the phenomenon spread, and the word "eggroll" was replaced by "duckroll." When someone came up with the idea to redirect Internet links to an image of a duck on wheels, rickrolling's forebear, "duckrolling," was born.
Then in March 2007 came the release of the eagerly awaited first trailer for the still-upcoming video game "Grand Theft Auto IV."
So popular was the response that it immediately crashed game publisher Rockstar Games' Web site.
In what was to become a pivotal moment in Internet hoax history, someone at 4chan took the now-useless Web link for the "Grand Theft Auto IV" trailer and duckrolled it.
But instead of linking to the image of a duck on wheels, he or she linked to the Rick Astley video on YouTube.
Rickrolling was born.
When interviewed by the Los Angeles Times last month, Astley himself said he was OK with rickrolling and had no plans to capitalize on it, but he found it "bizarre."
Even 4chan's "moot" was underwhelmed at first.
"When I first saw it, I thought it was silly, stupid," he said in a telephone interview. "After hundreds of times, it got really catchy, I knew all the words. But on April 1, it really blew up. I was frankly very surprised when I saw a certain number of Web sites outside of Internet-culture sites running rickrolling as a prank."
It was April Fool's Day, and in an apparently uncoordinated move, Web sites everywhere rickrolled their readers.
Then came the Mets incident. Rickrolling had truly hit the mainstream.
"I was actually getting gas at a gas station, and the song was coming on, and I had to look around at everyone else like, 'Is this for real?' " Curtis said.
Now that rickrolling has officially entered the popular consciousness, it's doomed to go the way of other Internet phenomena like "All Your Base," the "Hamster Dance," or "Prison Thriller," both Curtis and "moot" said.
"It's gone from silly Internet prank to entering the mainstream, so a lot of people are being elitist about it, saying it's beating a dead horse, and it has kind of lost its appeal," moot said. "At the end of the day, it's just a link where you get a guy singing an '80s pop song. There's only so far you can delve into the intricacies."
Even Astley, who goes on tour in the U.K. in May with other '80s chart-toppers, seems to have wearied of his newfound Internet fame.
In response to a request for comment, a spokesman for his record label wrote back a single line:
"I'm sorry, but he's done talking about rickrolling." - AugustZephyr, on 04/22/2008, -7/+118Direct Link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU
- inactive, on 04/22/2008, -13/+121This is the type of story FOX should be covering and leave the real news to BBC and such.
- thcobbs, on 04/22/2008, -4/+106Best paragraph of the article for any "elitists" that won't read it:
"Now that rickrolling has officially entered the popular consciousness, it's doomed to go the way of other Internet phenomena like "All Your Base," the "Hamster Dance," or "2 Girls, 1 Cup," both Curtis and "moot" said." - RustyJ, on 04/22/2008, -3/+87you know the rules, and so do I.....
- RealmDown, on 04/22/2008, -0/+75My face is red
I was Rickrolled too
So All My Base
Are Belong To You. - Jeffler, on 04/22/2008, -0/+73"Click here and you can be, too."
Obvious rick roll is obvious - sovereign3, on 04/22/2008, -2/+71they're*
- barney74, on 04/22/2008, -0/+65But if the Mets won't play it.. will there be a Curse of the RickRolled?
- jun2san, on 04/22/2008, -2/+66What??? When I read it, it says
"Now that rickrolling has officially entered the popular consciousness, it's doomed to go the way of other Internet phenomena like "All Your Base," the "Hamster Dance," or "Prison Thriller," both Curtis and "moot" said."
Looks like they changed 2girls1cup. - simplistics06, on 04/22/2008, -6/+66Fox news on the front page of digg. Does. Not. Compute.
- zosoIV, on 04/22/2008, -2/+61I love how clicking the "2 girls 1 cup" link is a Rickroll.
- gingerboy, on 04/22/2008, -3/+60A full commitment's what I'm thinking of........
- celkin, on 04/22/2008, -19/+74C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER
- w3v3, on 04/22/2008, -2/+40Fox news, where internet memes go to die.
- H2Glitch2007, on 04/22/2008, -2/+40At least their report was better than CNN's.
- quomen, on 04/22/2008, -2/+38Do you really care that much?
- SpaceMonkeyZero, on 04/22/2008, -4/+38WHat???? Hamster Dance isn't cool anymore?
- blahtastic, on 04/22/2008, -0/+34It's really unfortunate that Rickrolling has pretty much run it's course, cause I just found this one a few days ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqp9xmYtulM
I think I'll have to get a couple uses out of it first before I completely surrender. - RcHer, on 04/22/2008, -3/+36There's Fox in my Digg!
Also: They linked uuiU, what nerds. - c0baltfish, on 04/22/2008, -4/+36You wouldn't get this from any other guy.
- DanBoodro, on 04/22/2008, -0/+31haha, they edited it out and replaced it with Prison Thriller
- yojiffyskippy, on 04/22/2008, -2/+32They finally get an article correct and you deny them their ad-crack?
- jun2san, on 04/22/2008, -1/+31To be honest, I never knew the story behind the RickRoll. This information in this article surprised me almost as much as being redirected to uuiU. Almost.
- ChairShot83, on 04/22/2008, -0/+30Once Rick is the musical guest on SNL, then I'll be done with it.
- Philip1569, on 04/22/2008, -1/+29does anyone know what they changed it to?
- s0nniez, on 04/22/2008, -1/+29They'd been "rickrolled" — fooled into watching Astley's 1987 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up." Click 'here' and you can be, too. HA.
- chw944, on 04/22/2008, -4/+31moot has officially become a little girl
- xxgigavirusxx, on 04/22/2008, -0/+26Gotta make you understand
- bgmowen, on 04/22/2008, -2/+28He was always a little girl
- dn11, on 04/22/2008, -2/+28digg mentioned on Fox News story front paged by digg - world explodes?
- sexybobo, on 04/22/2008, -0/+25a hell of alot better then the article that CNN did on it
- DeFex, on 04/22/2008, -5/+29Now its been on fox it is officially lame. stop doing it.
- fakekevinrose, on 04/22/2008, -1/+25rickroll is an offshoot from duckroll
theres your history lesson - bstew22, on 04/22/2008, -2/+25i believe they may have replaced it with Prison Thriller... let me check..ummm. yep they did.
- plytheman, on 04/22/2008, -2/+24He'll be a lot more popular on /b/ then if that's the case.
- purzzzell, on 04/22/2008, -0/+22never gonna give you up
- phantom_mullet, on 04/22/2008, -0/+21LOL...sucks for the FOX employee who probably found out what that was the hard way...
- farfromsubtl, on 04/22/2008, -3/+24They removed that and replaced it with Prison Thriller.
- benjorino, on 04/22/2008, -1/+22***** u[uiU]
- ChairShot83, on 04/22/2008, -5/+26Surprisingly adequate article. At least by their standards.
- Lasereth, on 04/22/2008, -2/+22Wow, me clicking Never Gonna Give You Up actually made a difference in the vote. That's pretty amazing (the power of Digg, Fark, etc.).
FTA: ""We've probably not gotten that many votes for anything before," Mets spokesman Jay Horwitz said in a telephone interview." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha - unicronband, on 04/22/2008, -1/+21I think it's Prison Thriller now.
- AbdullahAbuDawu, on 09/12/2008, -2/+21prisonthillerprisonthillerprisonthillerprisonthillerprisonthillerprisonthillerprisonthriprisonthillerprisonthiller
- jamwil87, on 04/22/2008, -2/+21I think they replaced it with prison thriller.
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