A Rickroll is a bait-and-switch prank where someone tricks you into clicking a link that leads to Rick Astley's 1987 music video "Never Gonna Give You Up" instead of whatever was promised[22].

Where did the Rickroll come from?

The Rickroll originated on 4chan's /v/ board in May 2007, when user Shawn Cotter posted a link to the Astley video disguised as a Grand Theft Auto IV trailer[3]. It evolved from an earlier 4chan prank called "duckrolling"[20].

What does Rickroll mean?

To Rickroll someone means to trick them into unexpectedly watching or hearing "Never Gonna Give You Up." The term combines Rick Astley's first name with "roll" from "duckroll," the predecessor prank[22].

How do you Rickroll someone?

Disguise a link to the "Never Gonna Give You Up" music video as something enticing and share it with your target. Common methods include URL shorteners, hyperlinked text, and QR codes[1].

Is the Rickroll still popular?

Yes. The official YouTube video passed 1.5 billion views[2] and the song crossed one billion Spotify streams[8]. The prank saw a major resurgence during the COVID-19 pandemic in the early 2020s[5], and brands like CSAA Insurance were still building campaigns around it as recently as 2022[18].

Who started the first Rickroll?

Shawn Cotter, a 4chan user, posted the first widely documented Rickroll on May 15, 2007, linking the Astley video in place of a GTA IV trailer[3]. He chose the song because it topped the charts in 1987, his birth year[3]. Erik Helwig claims he played the song on a Michigan radio show in August 2006, before the 4chan meme began[20].

Duckrolling was the predecessor prank on 4chan. After admin moot set up a word filter changing "egg" to "duck," "eggroll" became "duckroll," and users started linking to a Photoshopped image of a duck with wheels[20].

How did Rick Astley react to being a meme?

Astley was initially indifferent but gradually embraced it. He Rickrolled the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade live in November 2008[11], won the MTV Europe Music Awards "Best Act Ever" through an online campaign[13], and Rickrolled Reddit in 2015[21].

What is the canonical Rickroll URL?

The official YouTube upload since October 25, 2009, ends with "dQw4w9WgXcQ." Researchers Benoit Baudry and Martin Monperrus called it "the canonical rickroll URL" based on it being the top search result for the song[2].

Did the White House ever get Rickrolled?

On July 27, 2011, the official White House Twitter account replied to a user complaining about a boring briefing with a direct link to the music video[4].

How did the Foo Fighters use Rickrolling?

The Foo Fighters Rickrolled the Westboro Baptist Church by driving past their protest outside a Kansas City venue on a pickup truck blasting "Never Gonna Give You Up." Drummer Taylor Hawkins held a sign reading "You Got Rick Roll'd (Again)"[12].

How many views does the Rickroll video have?

The official YouTube upload passed one billion views in July 2021[6] and exceeded 1.5 billion views by 2025[2].

Did Rick Astley make money from Rickrolling?

Not much at first. Co-writer Pete Waterman said in 2009 that he earned less from a year of YouTube and Google revenue than exploited workers in Dubai[4]. The meme did revitalize Astley's touring career, and he partnered with CSAA Insurance for a commercial in 2022[18].

What happened to the original Rickroll video on YouTube?

The first upload by user Cotter548 was temporarily blocked due to copyright disputes[19]. The current official upload appeared on October 25, 2009[2].

Rickroll

1987video/prankclassic

Also known as: Rickroll Meme · Rickroll

Rickroll is a 2007 bait-and-switch prank featuring disguised links to Rick Astley's 1987 music video "Never Gonna Give You Up.

Rickrolling is a bait-and-switch internet prank where someone tricks another person into clicking a disguised link that leads to Rick Astley's 1987 music video for "Never Gonna Give You Up." Born on 4chan's /v/ board in May 2007 as an evolution of an earlier prank called "duckrolling," the Rickroll became one of the longest-running jokes in internet history. The official YouTube video passed 1.5 billion views2, driven by nearly two decades of people gleefully tricking each other.

80s music memes 80s nostalgia memes april fools memes youtube billion views memes trolling memes

TL;DR

A bait-and-switch prank where someone is tricked into clicking a disguised link that leads to Rick Astley's 1987 music video 'Never Gonna Give You Up.'

Overview

A Rickroll works like this: someone posts a hyperlink that looks relevant to whatever conversation is happening. Maybe it claims to be breaking news, a game trailer, or a leaked document. When an unsuspecting person clicks through, they're greeted instead by Rick Astley's deep baritone and distinctly 1980s dance moves in the music video for "Never Gonna Give You Up"1. The victim has been "Rickrolled."

The prank's power comes from its simplicity. All you need is a disguised link and a target who doesn't see it coming1. The song itself is the perfect vehicle: catchy, upbeat, and dripping with 1980s cheese. Astley's smooth voice sounds almost dubbed onto his skinny frame, which only adds to the comedy20. The opening drum riff and synth melody are instantly recognizable, and once they start playing, you know exactly what happened to you5.

What sets the Rickroll apart from other internet pranks is that it's completely harmless. Nobody gets hurt, nothing gets broken, and the "punishment" is hearing a genuinely catchy pop song1. That low-stakes quality made it easy to spread without guilt, and once you've been Rickrolled, you're almost guaranteed to pass it on to someone else.

"Never Gonna Give You Up" was released on July 27, 1987, as Rick Astley's debut single. Written and produced by Stock Aitken Waterman, the song topped charts in 25 countries, including the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart, and became Britain's best-selling single that year6. The music video, directed by Simon West, was shot in a single week in London and features a 21-year-old Astley dancing in a trenchcoat alongside backup dancers in spandex5. By the mid-1990s, the song had faded from rotation and VH1 named it one of the "50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs"20. Astley retired from music in 1994 at age 275.

The meme traces back to 4chan's bait-and-switch culture. In 2006, site administrator Christopher "moot" Poole set up a word filter that changed every instance of "egg" to "duck" across the site20. This turned "eggroll" into "duckroll," which inspired an anonymous user to Photoshop wheels onto a picture of a duck22. Users began posting misleading links to this duck image, and "getting duckrolled" became a running gag on the boards10.

A possible precursor occurred in August 2006, when rural Michigan resident Erik Helwig called in to a local sports radio show and, instead of talking, simply played "Never Gonna Give You Up" over the phone20. Helwig later described it as a spur-of-the-moment prank, saying he picked the song because "it's a great 1980s song that's fun to laugh at in the best way"20. Know Your Meme editor-in-chief Don Caldwell reviewed Helwig's claim and found it credible, though no direct connection to the 4chan meme was confirmed5.

In March 2007, the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV dropped and crashed Rockstar Games' website due to massive traffic5. On 4chan's /v/ board, a user named Shawn Cotter posted a link claiming to be a mirror of the trailer. It led instead to the "Never Gonna Give You Up" music video4. In a 2022 interview with Vice, Cotter explained he chose the song because he found a list of songs popular in 1987, his birth year, and Astley's track was at the top3. The prank caught on fast, replacing duckrolling entirely, and the practice of "Rickrolling" was born22.

Origin & Background

Platform

4chan

Key People

Shawn Cotter, Rick Astley, Stock Aitken Waterman

Date

2007

Year

1987

"Never Gonna Give You Up" was released on July 27, 1987, as Rick Astley's debut single. Written and produced by Stock Aitken Waterman, the song topped charts in 25 countries, including the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart, and became Britain's best-selling single that year. The music video, directed by Simon West, was shot in a single week in London and features a 21-year-old Astley dancing in a trenchcoat alongside backup dancers in spandex. By the mid-1990s, the song had faded from rotation and VH1 named it one of the "50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs". Astley retired from music in 1994 at age 27.

The meme traces back to 4chan's bait-and-switch culture. In 2006, site administrator Christopher "moot" Poole set up a word filter that changed every instance of "egg" to "duck" across the site. This turned "eggroll" into "duckroll," which inspired an anonymous user to Photoshop wheels onto a picture of a duck. Users began posting misleading links to this duck image, and "getting duckrolled" became a running gag on the boards.

A possible precursor occurred in August 2006, when rural Michigan resident Erik Helwig called in to a local sports radio show and, instead of talking, simply played "Never Gonna Give You Up" over the phone. Helwig later described it as a spur-of-the-moment prank, saying he picked the song because "it's a great 1980s song that's fun to laugh at in the best way". Know Your Meme editor-in-chief Don Caldwell reviewed Helwig's claim and found it credible, though no direct connection to the 4chan meme was confirmed.

In March 2007, the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV dropped and crashed Rockstar Games' website due to massive traffic. On 4chan's /v/ board, a user named Shawn Cotter posted a link claiming to be a mirror of the trailer. It led instead to the "Never Gonna Give You Up" music video. In a 2022 interview with Vice, Cotter explained he chose the song because he found a list of songs popular in 1987, his birth year, and Astley's track was at the top. The prank caught on fast, replacing duckrolling entirely, and the practice of "Rickrolling" was born.

How It Spread

On May 15, 2007, one of the earliest known uploads of the video appeared on YouTube under the title "Rickroll'D," posted by the user Cotter548. According to 4chan founder moot, Rickrolling began on the /v/ board around this time. Google Trends data confirms that search interest in "rickrolling" started climbing between April and May 2007.

The meme jumped from 4chan to the mainstream in early 2008. In February, members of the hacker group Anonymous protested the Church of Scientology as part of Project Chanology, playing "Never Gonna Give You Up" from boomboxes outside Scientology headquarters in cities including New York, Washington, London, and Seattle. The Guardian called it "a live rick-rolling of the Church of Scientology".

Things escalated fast in April 2008. On April 1st, YouTube redirected every featured video on its homepage to the Rickroll music video, pulling off what was arguably the largest single Rickroll in history. Around the same time, the New York Mets asked fans to vote on an eighth-inning rally song. Users from FARK.com bombarded the poll, and "Never Gonna Give You Up" won with over five million votes. A SurveyUSA poll that month estimated at least 18 million American adults had been Rickrolled.

At the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards, an online voting campaign got Astley nominated for "Best Act Ever" despite not being on the original shortlist. Astley declined to attend, saying "MTV was thoroughly Rickrolled". Then on Thanksgiving Day 2008, Astley appeared on a Cartoon Network float during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and broke into "Never Gonna Give You Up" live, Rickrolling the crowd and millions of TV viewers in what Entertainment Weekly called a parade highlight.

Platforms

4chanRedditYouTubeTwitterFacebookTwitch

Timeline

1987-07-27

"Never Gonna Give You Up" was released as Rick Astley's debut single, topping charts in 25 countries.

2006-08-01

An early proto-Rickroll occurred when rural Michigan resident Erik Helwig called in to a local sports radio show and, instead of talking, simply played "Never Gonna Give You Up" over the phone.

2008-04-01

YouTube redirected every featured video on its homepage to the Rickroll music video on April Fools' Day, pulling off what was arguably the largest single Rickroll in history.

2009-10-25

Rick Astley's official "Never Gonna Give You Up" video was reuploaded to YouTube at the now-famous URL ending in "dQw4w9WgXcQ," which became known as the canonical Rickroll URL.

2013-06-01

A 16-year-old developer named Will Smidlein decompiled the Vine app on its Android launch day and bypassed the six-second upload limit to post the full "Never Gonna Give You Up" video.

2021-07-01

The official YouTube video of "Never Gonna Give You Up" crossed one billion views.

2022-08-01

CSAA Insurance partnered with Rick Astley to recreate the original music video for a brand campaign, placing "Rickified" QR codes across 17 U.S. cities.

View on Google Trends

Video

The most famous link on the internet. You know the rules, and so do I.

How to Use This Meme

The classic Rickroll follows a simple formula:

Find or create a link that appears to lead somewhere interesting, relevant, or too good to be true

Disguise the URL so the target can't tell it leads to "Never Gonna Give You Up" (URL shorteners, hyperlinked text, and QR codes all work)

Share the link in a context where someone would naturally want to click it

Wait for the victim to click and hear that opening drum riff

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

A 2008 SurveyUSA poll estimated that at least 18 million American adults had been Rickrolled, making it one of the first internet memes to register in mainstream survey data. The prank crossed over into politics, sports, tech companies, and broadcast television within its first two years.

The song's revival brought real financial and career benefits to Astley. After retiring in 1994 and returning to touring in 2004 to mild success, the Rickroll gave his performance career new life. He went from a nostalgic curiosity to a globally recognized figure in internet culture. The original video's YouTube view count, driven largely by Rickrolling, passed 1.5 billion, and the song crossed one billion Spotify streams.

Brands adopted the Rickroll too. Apple hid references in product pages, Siri responses, and developer conference demos across multiple years. CSAA Insurance commissioned a full recreation of the original music video with Astley for a 2022 ad campaign. Yung Gravy's 2022 song "Betty (Get Money)" interpolated the song's synth riff and chorus, though Astley sued over the use of a voice impersonator. The case settled in September 2023.

Pete Waterman, co-writer of "Never Gonna Give You Up," took a less cheerful view. At a 2009 press conference, he compared himself to exploited foreign workers in Dubai, saying he earned less from a year of Google and YouTube revenue than they did from the Bahrain government.

Full History

The Rickroll hit its stride in 2008, but what happened next is what made it legendary: it refused to die. While most internet jokes flame out in months, the Rickroll kept finding new contexts and new victims year after year.

In January 2009, U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi published a YouTube video about the "Capitol Cat Cam" that cut to the Astley music video halfway through. A bipartisan group of Oregon state representatives pulled off a more elaborate stunt starting in February 2010: each member was assigned a chunk of "Never Gonna Give You Up" lyrics to slip into their legislative statements. The scheme was revealed on April Fools' Day 2011, when they edited the clips together into a proper lyric video. On July 27, 2011, the official White House Twitter account replied to a user's complaint about a boring briefing with a direct link to the Astley video.

The original Rickroll upload by Cotter548 was temporarily taken down due to a copyright dispute in 2012. A new official upload appeared on October 25, 2009, at the now-famous URL ending in "dQw4w9WgXcQ," which computer scientists Benoit Baudry and Martin Monperrus later called "the canonical rickroll URL". That string of characters became its own kind of inside knowledge: seasoned internet users learned to check URLs for "dQw4" before clicking.

In June 2013, a 16-year-old developer named Will Smidlein decompiled the Vine app on its Android launch day and bypassed the six-second upload limit to post the full "Never Gonna Give You Up" video. Twitter engineers asked him to take it down, but by then the Rickroll had already gone viral on the platform. "When a big engineer at Twitter asks you to take something down, you take it down," Smidlein told The Verge.

Apple proved to be a repeat offender. In 2013, Siri would pull up the Wikipedia page for the song when asked "What is today going to be like?". At WWDC 2015, a Safari demo bait-and-switched a video titled "How To Wow An Audience" into a Rickroll. That same year, Apple hid the message "NE VE RG ON NA GI VE YU UP" in the initials of contacts on an Apple Watch support page. In 2015, Anonymous used Rickrolling as a tactic against ISIS, flooding their social media channels and hashtags with the video.

The Foo Fighters turned Rickrolling into a live protest tool. In August 2011, they first confronted the Westboro Baptist Church with a flatbed truck concert outside a Kansas City venue. When the church showed up again in 2015, the band drove past on a pickup truck blasting "Never Gonna Give You Up," with drummer Taylor Hawkins holding a poster reading "You Got Rick Roll'd (Again)". The Westboro Baptist Church tweeted afterward: "Did @FooFighters just #rickroll us? Oh well!".

During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, the meme surfaced in unexpected ways. Melania Trump's convention speech included the line "He will never, ever give up. And, most importantly, he will never, ever let you down," prompting widespread speculation about an intentional Rickroll. When the New Yorker asked Astley whether it was deliberate, his response was simply: "Maybe". Separately, a pro-EU campaigner named Mario Van Poppel bought the domain voteleave.com before the official Vote Leave campaign could register it, redirecting an estimated 100,000 visitors to the Astley video.

The Rickroll surged again during the COVID-19 pandemic as people stuck at home found new ways to prank friends and coworkers over Zoom calls and Discord channels. By July 2021, the official YouTube video crossed one billion views. In August 2022, CSAA Insurance partnered with Astley to recreate the original music video for a brand campaign, placing "Rickified" QR codes across 17 U.S. markets. The song also reached one billion Spotify streams. As of 2025, the YouTube video had passed 1.5 billion views.

Astley himself evolved from reluctant meme to active participant. After initially seeming indifferent to the joke in 2008, he leaned into it over time. He told interviewers he found the whole thing "a bit weird" but wasn't going to complain. In 2015, he Rickrolled Reddit with an acoustic version of the song. His willingness to play along, rather than fight the meme or try to monetize it aggressively, is a major reason the joke kept working.

Fun Facts

The canonical Rickroll URL on YouTube ends in "dQw4w9WgXcQ," and experienced internet users learned to spot those characters to avoid being tricked.

"Never Gonna Give You Up" was reportedly played as part of Operation Nifty Package, a psychological warfare campaign to convince Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega to surrender during the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia featured the song in a 2005 episode before the Rickroll existed. The show's creators later incorrectly claimed they invented the trend in a 2021 podcast.

In 2013, a 16-year-old hacked Vine on its Android launch day to post the full-length music video, bypassing the app's six-second limit.

The word "Rickroll" comes from combining "Rick" (Astley) with "roll" from "duckroll," the predecessor prank on 4chan.

Derivatives & Variations

QR Code Rickroll

QR codes that link to the video, printed on shirts, stickers, etc.

(2020)

Rickroll Remix

Mashups and remixes of Never Gonna Give You Up

(2008)

Merchandise

🛒

Never Gonna Give You Up Vinyl

$24.99Amazon

🛒

Rickroll QR Code T-Shirt

$22.99Redbubble

Frequently Asked Questions

References (29)

1
Rickrolling Explained: How Rick Astley Became the King of Internet Pranksarticle
2
Rickrolling Explainedarticle
3
How Rick Astley's "RickRoll" Actually Started - That Eric Alperarticle
4
Rickroll - Know Your Memeencyclopedia
5
Rickrolling - Wikipediaencyclopedia
6
Never Gonna Give You Up - Wikipediaencyclopedia
7
The Rickroll Effect - Study Breaksarticle
8
The Rickroll Renaissance: When Internet Jokes Turn Into Cultural Milestonesarticle
9
The Anatomy of a Rickroll: Unpacking the Internet's Most Enduring Meme - SoftHandTecharticle
10
Mad genius Rickrolls and crashes Vine with full-length music video embed | The Vergearticle
11
Taking the Rick | Music | The Guardianarticle
12
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: Best and worst momentsarticle
13
Watch Foo Fighters Rickroll Westboro Baptist Churcharticle
14
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Astley shortlisted for MTV awardarticle
15
How Vote Leave got rickrolled | Internet | The Guardianarticle
16
People Think The "Rickroll" In Melania Trump's Speech Was Intentional Sabotagearticle
17
Apple Rick Rolls Apple Watch page | Fortunearticle
18
MetsBlog.com » Note: Mets about to be Rickrolledarticle
19
CSAA Insurance and Deloitte Digital Look to 'Rickroll' America with Remake of 'Never Gonna Give You Up' | LBBOnlinearticle
20
The original Rickroll video has been deleted from YouTubearticle
21
Rickrolling: The Definitive Oral History of the Classic Memearticle
22
History of the Rick Roll | The #1 Best Historical Accountarticle
23
The Complete History and Origin of the Rickrollarticle
24
What is the Rickroll Meme Called? 10 Iconic Moments Explained! 🎤 [2025] - Synth Poparticle
25
The History of the RickRoll Memearticle
26
What Is Rickrolling? (For the Confused) – Rickroll Safety & Awareness Institutearticle
27
rickrolling | Slang | Dictionary.comarticle
28
Unlock the Rickroll: The Enduring Link That Still Sparks Surprise Routes - Saint Augustines Universityarticle
29
Unveiling the Viral Resurgence: The Remarkable Rise of Rickrolling in 2021 - Treendly Blogarticle

Rickroll

1987video/prankclassic

Also known as: Rickroll Meme · Rickroll

Rickroll is a 2007 bait-and-switch prank featuring disguised links to Rick Astley's 1987 music video "Never Gonna Give You Up.

Rickrolling is a bait-and-switch internet prank where someone tricks another person into clicking a disguised link that leads to Rick Astley's 1987 music video for "Never Gonna Give You Up." Born on 4chan's /v/ board in May 2007 as an evolution of an earlier prank called "duckrolling," the Rickroll became one of the longest-running jokes in internet history. The official YouTube video passed 1.5 billion views, driven by nearly two decades of people gleefully tricking each other.

80s music memes 80s nostalgia memes april fools memes youtube billion views memes trolling memes

TL;DR

A bait-and-switch prank where someone is tricked into clicking a disguised link that leads to Rick Astley's 1987 music video 'Never Gonna Give You Up.'

Overview

The prank's power comes from its simplicity. All you need is a disguised link and a target who doesn't see it coming. The song itself is the perfect vehicle: catchy, upbeat, and dripping with 1980s cheese. Astley's smooth voice sounds almost dubbed onto his skinny frame, which only adds to the comedy. The opening drum riff and synth melody are instantly recognizable, and once they start playing, you know exactly what happened to you.

What sets the Rickroll apart from other internet pranks is that it's completely harmless. Nobody gets hurt, nothing gets broken, and the "punishment" is hearing a genuinely catchy pop song. That low-stakes quality made it easy to spread without guilt, and once you've been Rickrolled, you're almost guaranteed to pass it on to someone else.

"Never Gonna Give You Up" was released on July 27, 1987, as Rick Astley's debut single. Written and produced by Stock Aitken Waterman, the song topped charts in 25 countries, including the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart, and became Britain's best-selling single that year. The music video, directed by Simon West, was shot in a single week in London and features a 21-year-old Astley dancing in a trenchcoat alongside backup dancers in spandex. By the mid-1990s, the song had faded from rotation and VH1 named it one of the "50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs". Astley retired from music in 1994 at age 27.

The meme traces back to 4chan's bait-and-switch culture. In 2006, site administrator Christopher "moot" Poole set up a word filter that changed every instance of "egg" to "duck" across the site. This turned "eggroll" into "duckroll," which inspired an anonymous user to Photoshop wheels onto a picture of a duck. Users began posting misleading links to this duck image, and "getting duckrolled" became a running gag on the boards.

A possible precursor occurred in August 2006, when rural Michigan resident Erik Helwig called in to a local sports radio show and, instead of talking, simply played "Never Gonna Give You Up" over the phone. Helwig later described it as a spur-of-the-moment prank, saying he picked the song because "it's a great 1980s song that's fun to laugh at in the best way". Know Your Meme editor-in-chief Don Caldwell reviewed Helwig's claim and found it credible, though no direct connection to the 4chan meme was confirmed.

Origin & Background

Platform

4chan

Key People

Shawn Cotter, Rick Astley, Stock Aitken Waterman

Date

2007

Year

1987

"Never Gonna Give You Up" was released on July 27, 1987, as Rick Astley's debut single. Written and produced by Stock Aitken Waterman, the song topped charts in 25 countries, including the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart, and became Britain's best-selling single that year. The music video, directed by Simon West, was shot in a single week in London and features a 21-year-old Astley dancing in a trenchcoat alongside backup dancers in spandex. By the mid-1990s, the song had faded from rotation and VH1 named it one of the "50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs". Astley retired from music in 1994 at age 27.

The meme traces back to 4chan's bait-and-switch culture. In 2006, site administrator Christopher "moot" Poole set up a word filter that changed every instance of "egg" to "duck" across the site. This turned "eggroll" into "duckroll," which inspired an anonymous user to Photoshop wheels onto a picture of a duck. Users began posting misleading links to this duck image, and "getting duckrolled" became a running gag on the boards.

A possible precursor occurred in August 2006, when rural Michigan resident Erik Helwig called in to a local sports radio show and, instead of talking, simply played "Never Gonna Give You Up" over the phone. Helwig later described it as a spur-of-the-moment prank, saying he picked the song because "it's a great 1980s song that's fun to laugh at in the best way". Know Your Meme editor-in-chief Don Caldwell reviewed Helwig's claim and found it credible, though no direct connection to the 4chan meme was confirmed.

How It Spread

Platforms

4chanRedditYouTubeTwitterFacebookTwitch

Timeline

1987-07-27

"Never Gonna Give You Up" was released as Rick Astley's debut single, topping charts in 25 countries.

2006-08-01

An early proto-Rickroll occurred when rural Michigan resident Erik Helwig called in to a local sports radio show and, instead of talking, simply played "Never Gonna Give You Up" over the phone.

2008-04-01

YouTube redirected every featured video on its homepage to the Rickroll music video on April Fools' Day, pulling off what was arguably the largest single Rickroll in history.

2009-10-25

Rick Astley's official "Never Gonna Give You Up" video was reuploaded to YouTube at the now-famous URL ending in "dQw4w9WgXcQ," which became known as the canonical Rickroll URL.

2013-06-01

A 16-year-old developer named Will Smidlein decompiled the Vine app on its Android launch day and bypassed the six-second upload limit to post the full "Never Gonna Give You Up" video.

2021-07-01

The official YouTube video of "Never Gonna Give You Up" crossed one billion views.

2022-08-01

CSAA Insurance partnered with Rick Astley to recreate the original music video for a brand campaign, placing "Rickified" QR codes across 17 U.S. cities.

View on Google Trends

Video

The most famous link on the internet. You know the rules, and so do I.

How to Use This Meme

The classic Rickroll follows a simple formula:

Find or create a link that appears to lead somewhere interesting, relevant, or too good to be true

Disguise the URL so the target can't tell it leads to "Never Gonna Give You Up" (URL shorteners, hyperlinked text, and QR codes all work)

Share the link in a context where someone would naturally want to click it

Wait for the victim to click and hear that opening drum riff

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

Full History

Fun Facts

The canonical Rickroll URL on YouTube ends in "dQw4w9WgXcQ," and experienced internet users learned to spot those characters to avoid being tricked.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia featured the song in a 2005 episode before the Rickroll existed. The show's creators later incorrectly claimed they invented the trend in a 2021 podcast.

In 2013, a 16-year-old hacked Vine on its Android launch day to post the full-length music video, bypassing the app's six-second limit.

The word "Rickroll" comes from combining "Rick" (Astley) with "roll" from "duckroll," the predecessor prank on 4chan.