First off, know that he's never gonna give you up, and never gonna let you down. That said, to Rickroll someone is to intentionally misdirect them to a video of "Never Gonna Give You Up" from one two-hit-wonder 80's pop icon Rick Astley. For Example "Information On how to Rick Roll Somebody". Basically, it's one of the lamest and most insincere songs ever, and we can tell the difference. So can Rick, because he has recently called the song "naff" (Britslang for 'lame, insincere, and cheesy') in several interviews about the meme.
This concept of the Rickroll originated from the Duckroll troll and has the same intent of pissing off the sucker who falls for it after he or she is pwnt - for the 25th time. Linking to a video of "Never gonna give you up" or some variant thereupon has become the new Goatse, though after the The Power 5 being linked to a mildly popular song from the 80s really isn't that bad. Not to be confused with a Barrel Roll
Origin
Rick Astley is probably the greatest person. He's from England... most likely the (only) greatest thing out of that shitter.
Read below for moar informationz.
Belive it or not, the first people to be "rickrolled" were Scientologists. Says a lot, huh?
The roll part of the name has been apocryphally said to come from a 4chan favorite, the "Duckroll". This was used the same way as the Rickroll, claiming a link was actually interesting and actually linking to a page with an animated GIF of a toy duck rolling across the screen. "Roll" became a universal suffix for similar fake links like Leekspin, and with the advent of the Rickroll found its greatest success.
Rickrolling began on 4chan's /v/ image board on the day of Grand Theft Auto IV's official website premier. However, due to heavy traffic on the website, it was impossible to watch the trailer for quite some time, so Anonymous took it upon himself to link everyone to a supposedly leaked trailer hosted on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5S...layer_embedded
Rickrolling has become popular outside of 4chan. Many different website communities have claimed they invented Rickrolling, such as GameFAQs, who claim that the Rickroll started on their Halo 3 board. World of Warcraft gamers, (WoWfags), have also laid claim to inventing the Rickroll, and have beaten it to old meme death on their game forums twice as fast as 4chan ever could have done. The Washington hometown forum on AK47.net, filled with a bunch of old guys with guns, is also known for having links off to the Rickroll all over the place.
The motivation behind using this particular song as a troll is obscure. However, during a Rickroll phase on the World of Warcraft forums, it became clear that (as well as simply being lame) the song was believed to have homoerotic associations of some kind, and was thus used in order to try and induce disgust or revulsion in heterosexual viewers.
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