Rickrolling has somehow come full circle.
Beloved ‘80s pop star Rick Astley, who rose to fame for his 1987 hit song Never Gonna Give You Up, took to Reddit earlier this week to share an old picture of himself he came across while quarantining at home. Taken in Las Vegas in 1989, the throwback photo shows the singer riding around on a bicycle backstage on his very first world tour.
I’ve found a few funny memories during lockdown. This is from my 1st tour in 89, backstage in Vegas. from r/pics
Astley, who posts stuff on Reddit every so often under the name u/ReallyRickAstley, stuck around on the discussion website after uploading the pic to chat with his fellow Redditors. And while a lot of fans tried to get Astley’s attention by sharing famous lyrics from his songs, it was user u/theMalleableDuck that Astley would probably never forget that day.
In a comment to Astley’s post, u/theMalleableDuck claimed that they had met the British crooner backstage when they were 12. “I think I might cry!!! It’s actually you. I met you at a backstage event when I was 12. Seriously a big fan. I’ve seen you in concert five times,” read the user’s comment that came with a link to a supposed photo of the two meeting each other. Astley opened the link only to find out that he got rickrolled.
For those who are not familiar with the term, Rickrolling is when a link to a relevant site or information is replaced with a link to Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up track. So when the artist clicked on the link provided by u/theMalleableDuck, what he actually saw was a portion of his song’s music video.
To acknowledge the fact that he got rickrolled, Astley replied to u/theMalleableDuck’s comment with a clap emoji and gave the user a special shoutout in his last comment before logging out of the website. “Thanks all for the love, comments, DMs etc! And finally, u/theMalleableDuck I salute you! Rick x,” the singer wrote. u/theMalleableDuck answered back, writing, “Thanks for not giving it away with your reply.”
Rickrolling, which spread like wildfire in 2008, originated in 4chan’s /v/ (videogame) board during the time the official trailer for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas trailer was supposed to premiere on the game’s website but couldn’t be watched due to heavy traffic. Since then, rickrolling has become an Internet staple, and clearly, Astley doesn’t mind it at all.