Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at 7:27 AM PT

 

YouTube Rickrolls the World

Ahhh, April Fools’ Day on the Internet. YouTube celebrated, capitalized and killed the meme of the moment by Rickrolling the planet. Click on any of the featured videos on the homepage and get swept up and away by Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

rick_roll_2.jpg

Too bad Rick probably isn’t seeing a dime from all these views. But there is some good news for the Richie Cunningham of rock and roll: His “Never Gonna Give You Up” is currently number 241 on Amazon’s MP3 best-seller list (Update: Rick’s jumped to number 153!) (right above Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker”).

Update: In other online video prankster news:

  • Blip.tv hops on the Astley bandwagon by offering the “rick-roll” ad format.
  • Moblogic has a fake 404 message on its homepage saying “In compliance with FCC guidelines, this site has been removed.”
  • Vimeo says its hosting a treasure hunt on its site.
  • Break a Leg said it was ending the series (maybe it was all the comments left on our story?)
  • The BBC makes fun of nature documentarians’ obsession with a certain bird (and plugs its iPlayer).

And it looks like Google and Virgin are teaming up to launch Virgle, the first human settlement on Mars. What’s funnier than the April Fool’s joke though, is watching Brin and Page try to get through their cue cards.

We’ll add to this list throughout the day. If you see a video April Fool’s joke, shoot us an email.

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Comments & Trackbacks

  1. The biggest joke is on the featured video’s authors. I would be PISSED if my video finally got featured and then to get my video covered by Rick Astley.

    SlickDealer on April 1st, 2008 at 8:27 am - Permalink

  2. Embeds disabled? What the!?!?

    Frank Sinton on April 1st, 2008 at 9:08 am - Permalink

  3. this is NOT A PRANK! I SWEARS!

    http://www.anchorcove.net

    only applicable to wacko lonelygirl15 fans.

    milowent on April 1st, 2008 at 10:01 am - Permalink

  4. Don’t forget http://urlrurl.com !

    Nate Westheimer on April 1st, 2008 at 11:36 am - Permalink

  5. [...] YouTube Rickrolls the World – I generally hate April Fool’s Day because it makes it impossible to read tech news for 12 – 24 hours. However, this is the best prank I’ve ever seen… [...]

    at Mr Chuckles dot net on April 1st, 2008 at 1:13 pm - Permalink

  6. [...] the hoaxes range from the desperately unfunny to the merely goofy to the silly-but-funny to the triumphantly hysterical, who can keep anything straight? Google’s various flavors alone account for more than a dozen fake [...]

    Best of April Fool’s Day online | PC and gadgets blog MyPCProblems.info on April 1st, 2008 at 1:19 pm - Permalink

  7. [...] the hoaxes range from the desperately unfunny to the merely goofy to the silly-but-funny to the triumphantly hysterical, who can keep anything straight? Google’s various flavors alone account for more than a dozen fake [...]

    Best of April Fool’s Day online on April 1st, 2008 at 1:33 pm - Permalink

  8. Lets just say I was first.

    http://www.ianschafer.com/2008/04/01/breaking-news-deep-focus-to-be-acquired/

    Ian Schafer on April 1st, 2008 at 2:23 pm - Permalink

  9. That is the BEST PRANK EVAR.

    oakling on April 1st, 2008 at 4:44 pm - Permalink

  10. I guess I’m just old and cranky, because I do not get it.

    Dave Zatz on April 1st, 2008 at 10:05 pm - Permalink

  11. [...] YouTube Rickrolls the World « NewTeeVee Nicely done! (tags: youtube rickroll funny video) [...]

    links for 2008-04-01 « andrew golis on April 2nd, 2008 at 4:28 am - Permalink

  12. CONGRATULATIONS from
    blogrank.info     for the hot post

    frmad on April 2nd, 2008 at 6:28 pm - Permalink

  13. [...] “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video actually increased on YouTube following the site pranking its visitors on April Fools Day this year by giving the video every slot on its [...]

    YouTube: We Didn’t Kill Rickrolling « NewTeeVee on July 10th, 2008 at 10:43 pm - Permalink

  14. [...] So I was hooked when I stumbled across a post in a german forum which was a request to help creating one of the biggest RickRolls in the world. Actually, this could be ever bigger than the RickRoll Youtube did. [...]

    How to RickRoll the MTV Europe Music Awards 2008 « Holzi’s Weblog on September 16th, 2008 at 12:56 pm - Permalink

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