An Internet meme has gone missing (you can’t end a meme, but you can certainly eliminate its foundation). For a few years now, people would prank each other online by “Rickrolling” them. Being Rickrolled was annoying to many, yet oh-so-fun to do to others. If you aren’t familiar with what a Rickroll is, then you’ve obviously never been the victim of the video. It a famous Internet prank involving the music video for the old Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up”. Internet users typically send the URL of the video to another user and the practice results in the person being “Rickrolled”.

However, the video – which had racked up more than 30 million views – has been pulled by YouTube for an undisclosed Terms of Use violation. People from 4chan – where the meme originated – can be heard crying in angst, and are scrambling for their next venture. People in my chat room are likely breathing a sigh of relief. Over the past many months, we’ve had so many trolls come in and repeatedly paste that link that we set up an auto-kick for the URL. I personally have been Rickrolled more times than I can possibly count. I won’t miss it, that’s for sure.

What are your thoughts on Internet memes such as this? Are you one of those people who will send the links to every person you possibly can, or are you someone who shudders every time a new one pops up?

Update

Apparently, someone – somewhere – wanted the Rickroll to live on. It only stayed down for a few hours, and is now back in all its Rick Astley glory!

Is a meme takedown the new rickroll?

Rickroll No More

Pass it On

I haven’t heard any good technology podcasts by mimes lately. You know why? Because Gabe refuses to index mimed tech podcast feeds within TechMeme! Mr. Rivera must be afraid of mimes or something? He’s totally ignoring the mimetype community. Someone needs to develop a mimetracker and totally rule the market. I’m gesticulating wildly over here to fill space. I guess that would make my fingers… gesticles? Oh crap. I’m stuck in a TEXTAREA.

TechMeme vs. TechMime

Because I didn’t know how to effectively game the system, our TechMeme hacking efforts at Gnomedex fell on silent algorithms. I wrote about the new “Windows Live Writer” earlier, but I’m not showing up in TechMeme’s current list o’ Live links. Gabe might hate me for 0wning TechMeme in Google (currently #1). I haven’t visited TechMeme much lately, as I already subscribe to Arrington’s and Rubel’s blogs independently.

Memetracker Hacker

You won’t believe it – TechMeme has been hacked. I figured it was just a matter of time before something like this happened, and the Gnomedexers discovered it before anybody else did. If only Gabe was in the crowd, he might have stopped this from happening in the first place. Let’s just see how many people discover TechMeme (formerly Memeorandum) has been hacked this before Gabe does?

TechMeme Hacked!!!