351: Trolling

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Trolling
And I was really impressed with how they managed to shock the Goatse guy.
Title text: And I was really impressed with how they managed to shock the Goatse guy.

Explanation

The term Trolling is used to describe provoking, destructive or annoying behaviour on the Internet. Especially common are Internet pranks of the bait-and-switch type. One of these pranks is the so called Rickrolling. It involves placing a link that is supposed to contain interesting or funny material, but instead directs to the music video of the 1987 Rick Astley song Never Gonna Give You Up. The prank first occurred in May 2007 on the popular imageboard 4chan and has since become a widespread internet meme.

The comic has Black Hat and Cueball digging into the ground and splicing Black Hat's computer into the TV cables of Rick Astley's house. They are feeding the video of Never Gonna Give You Up into Astley's TV signal, who can be seen sitting in his living room and wondering why CNN has been replaced by his own video. The idea of Rickrolling Rick Astley himself is declared to be a "great moment in Trolling".

It should be noted that in the original prank, the victims voluntarily click on the link instead of having the video forced upon them. Therefore, the scene depicted in the comic is (arguably) no Rickrolling in the classical sense. Also, since Rick Astley is not the originator of the prank, this is no pay-back scenario.

The title text mentions Goatse.cx (prounced goat sex), a former shock website that was used in a similar prank. People clicking on the feigned link would instead see the disturbing picture of a man holding open his anus. The title text suggests that Black Hat and Cueball somehow made the (unknown) founder of the site click on an even more shocking link.

Transcript

[Black Hat and Cueball are in Rick Astley's yard, hacking into his cable TV connection and replacing the signal. Rick Astley is sitting in a chair in his house, watching TV.]
TV: CNN has obtained this exclusive footage of the riot-torn-- *CZZZHT* ♫ Never gonna give you up... ♪
Rick Astley: What the hell?
[Caption:]
GREAT MOMENTS in TROLLING:
Rick Astley is successfully Rickrolled


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Discussion

Removed from the explanation:

>> It should be noted that in the original prank, the victims voluntarily click on the link instead of having the video forced upon them. Therefore, the scene depicted in the comic is (arguably) no Rickrolling in the classical sense. Also, since Rick Astley is not the originator of the prank, this is no pay-back scenario.

Rick voluntarily chose to watch CNN, but was interrupted by an unexpected appearance of "never gonna give you up". Sounds a lot like rickrolling to me.

Also, I'm sure the 4chan trolls get trolled by other 4chan trolls all the time. And nobody knows who they are. Rick Astley is the ideal comic target for payback; what, you think he doesn't deserve it? Exactly. 108.162.219.223 18:59, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Would anyone consider it more payback if Astley was rolled by a cover of his song? 108.162.216.55 11:55, 19 July 2014 (UTC) 108.162.216.55 11:56, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I am looking at the comic on my iPhone and there is a different title text. It's simply a link leading to the Rick Roll'd video. CaptainJack (talk) 20:34, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

SOMEONE ACTUALLY DID IT: https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/hawahv/this_guy_just_rick_rolled_rick_astley_i_think_he/

What was the riot mentioned by the CNN?162.158.102.34