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I heard a rumor about the origins of the "Rickroll"
As a well-informed follower of pop culture (after all, you're reading AfterElton), you're probably familiar with the Rickroll, where a link to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" video is sprung on an unsuspecting clicker. You might get an e-mail promising footage of the Nuke kisses taken out of the Valentine's and Christmas episodes of As the World Turns and instead you get a Stock Aitken Waterman single stuck in your head for the rest of the day. The internet prank reached new levels of prominence recently when YouTube redirected all the videos featured on its front page to the Rickroll video for April Fool's Day. Even The Soup got into the action last weekend, playing a clip from the video after setting the audience up for a LA Ink clip. Now, a contributor at Pam's House Blend is saying that the origin of the Rickroll is based on homophobic humor. According to the entry, the meme started after a Family Guy episode introduced the song with the words, "Here's a song by a gay guy." Family Guy fans repeated the introduction until it morphed into the Rickroll video. He explains his first encounter with the Rickroll: I was introducted to Rickrolling by my teenage nephew about a year or so ago. My nephew told me that he and his friends amuse themselves by sending music and video clips of Rick Astley via e-mail, and cellphone. When my nephew showed me the video of Rick Astley singing Never gonna Give You Up on YouTube, he laughed out loud uncontrolably. Then, I asked him, "Why do you think this is so funny?" Silence. Uh, oh. I'd seen that silent response before. My nephew suddenly remembered that his favorite uncle is gay. He was at a loss for words as to how to explain why he finds Rick Astley to be funny. I had to press him for the truth, "Is it because he looks gay?" "Uh, it isn't that he looks so gay, Uncle Fritz. It is because, uh, his voice doesn't fit the way he looks." "Gay?" Silence. He suggests a counter-meme, the Bananaramaroll, which would trade Astley's tune with Bananarama's "I Heard a Rumor". The idea of Bananarama going viral makes me pretty happy, particularly since the video has some memorable choreography, hunky guys and has Siobhan, Sara and Keren looking like this:
Still, that makes me look at the Rickroll in a different light. The point of a joke is in the eye of the beholder and while I laugh at the Rickroll for the bland catchiness of "Never Gonna Give You Up" and Astley's hypnotic, cheeseball dance moves, I can see how some people probably do see the joke as "He's so gay." Not because Astley is openly gay (as far as I know he isn't) but because they don't find him sufficiently manly. What do you think? Is there a homophobia at the root of the joke? (And as a side note, after looking for the images for this post I'll be spending the rest of the day submerged in a world of Stock Aitken Waterman, I can't help it. Submitted by on Tue, 2008-04-08 15:19. |
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stock, aitken, waterman
Oh, yes...
Oh, for the love of Pete...
Of all the possible phenomena in the world that might merit one taking offense, why choose to put the focus on something like rickrolling?
Hint: Not everything that other people find humor in ridiculing has to stem from anti-gay sentiment.
I remember the first time I saw Rick Astley singing "Never Gonna Give You Up". It was on a show called "Top of the Pops", and I'm pretty sure I probably laughed as I stared in wonderment. He was cute (I have a thing for redheads/ginger types). And he had an amazing voice.
Having been a student of music from age 7, I certainly knew that one's appearance and the power/quality of one's voice weren't necessarily linked. But understanding something on an intellectual level doesn't necessarily prevent one from having a gut reaction to the juxtaposition of things that appear incongruous on the surface. Those kinds of reactions are based on expectations, and while I can't adequately explain why, I just wasn't expecting Rick Astley to sound the way he did.
I like the work that Astley did with Stock/Aitken/Waterman, but I don't consider his orientation to be my or the general public's business. I don't think it's wise to presume either way - just like one shouldn't presume that every incidence of rickrolling is an anti-gay thing.
Sometimes it's the silly things that other people decide to find anit-gay, offensive and a 'big deal' that wind up offending me more.
Rick=Kylie
Totally off-topic here, but this always made me laugh... Did you know that if you slow down a Kylie track, it sounds exactly like Rick?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVDogmtajKI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEkc4wKmKeI
I'm like a superhero, with no powers or motivation...
That reminded me
That reminded me of this old skit from the UK back in the late 80s.
You want the bit at about 1:20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8aLERapwiU
Now this was strange. Another poster recenlty claimed that "Nature Boy" was the number one straight song about a gay man. Learned tonight that Rick Astley has done cover album, with you guessed it, Nature Boy as one of the songs.
http://www.afterelton.com/blog/snicks/ten-straight-songs-about-gay-men
Rickrolling predates that
Rickrolling predates that 'Family Guy' episode IIRC. It is, hence, impossible for it to be the origin of Rickrolling.
The fact that it might not have had a name or that no one had just named it yet 'til after the episode aired is inconsequential. 4Channers had been Rickrolling people for a while when that episode aired last years according to what I hear. It's consensus that the episode did not originate the meme (why would it? It was just Brian singing a song).
Could someone with an account on Pam's House Blend post this in the comments? I don't feel like creating yet another account on a site I'll never visit again just to post a comment.
Proof please
I'm the one who wrote the article at Pam's and I have read many rebuttals claiming that Rickrolling predates the Family Guy episode.
While you attempt a good counterpoint, it falls flat without proof. All you need to do is provide links to forum comments and blog posts that reference the Rickroll that are older than May 20, 2007 -- the day the Family Guy episode aired.
Some claim that Rickrolling first apeared on March 29, 2007 on the 4channel's /v/ imageboard. However, I have not found any instance of actual widespread use of the word "Rickroll" until after May 28, 2007 -- the day the original "Rick Roll" video was posted on YouTube.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU
If you look at the historical remnants online, the vital impetus of the Rickroll is the Family Guy episode Meet the Quagemires. Until that time, something similar to the Rickroll may have had a limited existence on a single, obscure forum. But, that is really not what created the Rickroll phenomenon. It was created by a homophobic joke on a popular TV show.
Shortly after the Family Guy episode aired, the forums and blogosphere were flooded with the line from the show, "Here's a song by a gay guy."
Rickrollers still use variations of that line, as described in the L.A. Times article I referenced. The phrase used in the article was "Here's a song by a dead guy" (although I assume Rick Astley would rather be gay than dead).
I've done quite a bit of research. If you can prove me wrong, I'm more than willing to admit error.
However, it doesn't do anyone any good to claim knowledge of the Rickroll's origin and not provide proof to support your claims. What is required is for you to demonstrate exactly what caused a meme on an Internet forum with a very limited audience to suddenly gain worldwide popularity. Oh, wait. I already did that. It was due to the homophobic gag on Family Guy.
*sigh* Okay, yeah, it may
*sigh* Okay, yeah, it may have been obscure, but it was in pretty heavy use on the internet sometime before Family Guy. Hell, the night that episode aired, there were threads all over 4chan about "HOLY CRAP, RICKROLL ON FAMILY GUY".
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Rickroll
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_RollObviously, not hardcore proof that you're asking for, but just to give you an idea of what's what and how it supposedly originated.
The theory I heard about the Family Guy rickroll was that supposedly, the beginning of the song was supposed to fool you into thinking it was going to be a Johnny B. Goode reference and then it turned into Rickroll gag. The guy in the crowd laughing and clapping his hands is SUPPOSEDLY meant to represent the fans that "got" the joke.
At least that's what some of the folks on 4chan said. Whether or not it was really meant to be a rickroll is up to debate. I'm just annoyed that so many folks think that Family Guy came up with it like the Peanut Butter Jelly Time song.
It was in wide use already
It was in wide use already before the Family Guy episode... if you hung out on forums a lot. Heck, I only frequent a few boards and Smashboards (a board for the videogame series Super Smash Bros. (since I play it competitively) is one of them.
And unless I'm going quite senile, I recall being rickrolled before may last year. I clicked on what I thought was a tournament video of some people playing Smash and landed on a music video of "Never Gonna Give You Up".
I can't say for certain but I'm pretty sure the term "Rickrolling" was actually used in the thread as well.
Yes, that Family Guy-episode I have yet to watch probably somehow spread made it more mainstream and spread its use more, but it was most certainly not the originator of Rickrolling.
Someone saw the episode and went "Hey, I start tricking people by post links to that Rick Astley long on forums now!"? Hardly. Some people probably heard the song for the first time and then Googled it and stumbled onto rickrolling, hence spreading its use (through convoluted means).
The "joke" "This is a song by a guy gay" isn't Rickroll-connected. The Rickroll did not originate nor get spread nor is it even today spread because of some perceived gayness in the music video. It's just a non-sequitor.
Rick Astley video before Family Guy episode
An earlier Rick Astley video with the title "RickRoll'D" was posted 15 May, 2007. This is 5 days before the episode aired on 20th May, 2007. on the 28th a more search engine friendly version titled "Rick Roll" was posted to youtube. The Rick Roll term was around before the episode aired.
The fact that Family Guy had the same song is a pure coincedence. It was really popular when Seth MacFarlane was young. The show is written by him and mainly is just pop culture references from his youth.
Did ANY British musician in the 80's NOT look "gay"?
My big sister's walls were absolutely wallpapered in magazine pages of male pop stars wearing more makeup than she did! It was the 80's. One of the bigger ironies of the decade was hearing men wearing eye shadow call other men "fags".
Even more bizarre, most of those androgynous dudes really were straight!
Most people even through college age weren't even born until that fashion phenomenon died off in the late 80's. I wonder how many kids have a horrifying surprise hidden somewhere in their family homes: pictures of Dad wearing lipstick and blush?
I can only imagine what they would think if they could be sent back in time to like 1983 or so. Any self-respecting gay uncle should probably regale them with tales of the days when the best way for a guy to score a girl was to wear the same clothes and makeup she did.
Not that it matters...
...but Rick Astley is married with children (by the way, did you know he provided backing vocals to Elton John's recordings for The Lion King soundtrack).
And, yes, j'adore Stock/Aitken/Waterman: Rick's "Never Gonna Give You Up," Banarama's "Venus" and "I Heard a Rumour," Kylie's "I Should Be So Lucky," and my own personal favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5xTAZhNKqc
Check out my blog: http://radicalsexy.blogspot.com/
First off, I usually take
First off, I usually take offense at gay jokes or because something is suppose to be funny just because it's "gay." But I don't really see the humor in the video, so I don't take offense. I will forego a rant and just say that I never liked 80s music or styles but I think that's the joke. I might find a work out video from the era funny if it seemed to unconsciously self-ridicule a bonehead weight lifter. Because I think machismo is funny. Still, even that is disturbing because of how fewer roles boys have these days.
People in 80's drag are funny now, because the styles are coming back, especially for young girls. I relate rickrolling to making fun of Lucile Ball in the 70s when 50s, retro fashion was in vogue.
But in defense of Ricks gayness, or the humor in the gayness of the video, he has a coiffe which reminds me dead on of my gay little brother he still wears his hear like that and could never pass even when he was married to a woman. And about 15 years ago I was shopping with a clueless, younger, straight friend. I mean he was clueless about shopping for clothes. When I asked him about how a pair of jeans I tried on looked with my t-shirt tucked in, he asked why on earth I would wear jeans with a t-shirt tucked in. "Because I'm gay, and maybe I want to wear a belt with my jeans one day." He couldn't stop laughing until he realized I was serious.
There's a much better candidate..
...for a Rick Astley video with stereotypically gay attributes. And it happens to be my favorite song by him (for the lyrics, not the video), even though it didn't get a lot of airplay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqQRN5OWgBw
Note the numerous hands on hips poses. Probably all done tongue-in-cheek. But still, a much better choice for rickrolling than the more popular "Never Gonna Give You Up".
It was 4chan /b/
Is that you, Anonymous? Just