BREAKING ROLL: OREGON WON'T GIVE UP ON RICK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZi4JxbTwPo

Yes, you have just been the subject of the infamous Rickroll.   This internet meme has gained cult status, and has been featured in classrooms, newsrooms and even a baseball stadium.

The meme features a music video of Rick Astley singing his 80s hit "Never Gonna Give You Up".  The song was a pop hit internationally and reached number 1 in the UK singles chart among others.  Astley's career peaked with 'Never Gonna Give You Up' and he disappeared into obscurity until the famed internet meme was born on mass bulletin site 4chan's video game board in 2007.   Users on 4chan's video game board were anticipating the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, a popular game, and one crafty user posted a link redirecting to 'Never Gonna Give You Up'.

Since then, the meme has grown in popularity and has been used to humorous effect.  The term for the meme's purpose is bait-and-switch.  The idea of the Rickroll is to refer someone to a link intended for serious purposes and redirect the user to the video of Astley.

The Rickroll has since become the bait-and-switch link of choice, and has been used to lighten moods and play pranks the world over.  The significance of this meme is its various spinoffs and use in real life situations.   Rarely do internet memes reach out beyond the realms of web entertainment, but the Rickroll has highlighted how a good internet meme can spread as a marketing tool across different media.

For the record, the baseball team that got Rickrolled was the New York Mets in April 2008.  They played the song during the home opener to loud boos.

http://youtu.be/N8ErbVOfvqw

The Rickroll has decreased in popularity since its heyday in 2008, but when it was in its prime, it was the meme to beat, and even found its way to Congress.  Here is a video of a spinoff featuring John McCain in his unsuccessful campaign for president in 2008.  The Rickroll video was imposed on the screen and didn't actually play, but the spinoff became so popular, it won the Favorite User Generated Video Award at the 35th People's Choice Awards in 2009.

Despite the huge success of Astley's song, rumors are that Astley has made a mere $12 in royalties from YouTube despite acquiring over 40 million hits on the official video.  However, he has found a way to make big money out of the meme, and here's how he did it!

What People Think I Do / What I Really Do

People who have been on any form of social media in the last month have most likely encountered this catchy meme gone viral. The basis of the meme is the ironic comparative perceptions of people, jobs, things or just about anything.

According to KnowYourMeme, a website dedicated to logging and tracing memes, the What People Think I Do / What I Really Do meme can be traced back to contemporary artist Garnet Hertz via his Facebook page where he posted this meme on February 2nd 2012.

The meme has since reached millions of people via Facebook with users creating their own versions of the meme.

The What People Think I Do / What I Really Do meme is a great example of the basic formula of an internet meme.

The process begins with the creation of one prototype meme. The meme would typically entertain or inform in a humorous manner and lead people who see the meme to create their own, mimicking the prototype but changing it in subtle ways. The basic structure remains in place, in this case, the blank formula of:



Users who create their own memes take this basic structure and create their own. The comparison here between genes and memes is obvious. The memes created after the original are mutations of the first much like a gene mutates to create a unique characteristic.

The What People think I Do / What I Really Do meme has really exploded, and it's cool to think it was created just 3 weeks ago. Here's a sample meme created for people like me.

The Birth of Internet Memes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw

Yes, it's really that shocking, a new blog on the web phenomenon that is internet memes! The above video is of an extremely popular internet meme called Dramatic Chipmunk. The footage of the video was taken from a Japanese TV Show Hello! Morning which featured a bright eyed prairie dog. Youtube user magnets99 proceeded to cut the video footage to a short 5 seconds and put the music from Young Frankenstein over it. The result was a viral video which spread all over the world and has accumulated over 5 million hits. The bacteria-like spread of internet memes has fascinated and entertained users the world over, but where did it all begin?

The term meme was first used by scientist Richard Dawkins in his publication on evolution: The Selfish Gene, 1976. Dawkins referred to memes as a unit of human cultural evolution analogous to the gene. This defines memes as building blocks with variation much like the gene does for human characteristics.

Internet Memes have existed since the world wide web was launched, and has no defined roots, much like the internet itself. One of the earliest internet memes was the emoticon.

: - )

Coined by Scott E. Fahlman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in 1982, the emoticon has since evolved to include the tongue face :P and the sad smiley. :-(

Emoticons have since taken off in cyber space, and have graphic representations such as the ones above. They are the quintessential internet meme because of how they have evolved from the basic concept of symbolizing a smiling face to representing various facial features. Now, emoticons are ubiquitous and most people wouldn't have guessed that the simplicity of a smiley kicked started an internet revolution.

Here is a timeline of internet memes for reference.

http://www.dipity.com/tatercakes/Internet_Memes/