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

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So the unboxing of my phenomenal new keyboard is complete, and it’s time to play. I turned off the lights in my office so all of you could see a bit better. I did this to show you a feature even better. The images that display on the OLED screens under the keys can be modal.

For instance, right now I don’t have an image programmed for my space bar. I set the software up so that when I’m in the Finder, there are different layers that will show up automatically. See? I can use the space bar for “quick view” at this moment. It also will light up keys, corresponding to different layers of things that I can do and open. If Caps Lock is turned on with Finder in the foreground, the color swatch across the entire keyboard changes.

Now that you’ve seen the functionality of what the Optimus Maximus can do, you’re about to find a World’s First… are you ready for it? Do you see the little icon? You’ve officially been RickRolled from a keyboard. See him dancing?

Yeah, baby, that’s what I’m talking about. That’s the Optimus Maximus from ThinkGeek. Tell em Chris sent you when you go to get one for yourself. You, too, can program a dancing Rick into your keyboard, and map the key so that when you push it… the YouTube video will open on your screen automatically. How’s that for bragging rights?

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nvTLmRIJbNg"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nvTLmRIJbNg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://chris.pirillo.com/">Chris</a> | <a href="http://live.pirillo.com/">Live Tech Support</a> | <a href="http://media.pirillo.com/">Video Help</a> | <a href="http://feeds.pirillo.com/ChrisPirilloShow">Add to iTunes</a>

Optimus Maximus Keyboard Control Fun