Last night I was in a panic. I didn’t know where my travelogue was going. I felt like I hadn’t posted enough. I felt like I didn’t have enough information. Then I realized: the reason my travelogue didn’t scroll through words on a neo-dictionary or swagger into digital jazz clubs looking for love was because it couldn’t. I realized that the answer to my question was every modern college student’s nightmare- an answer that couldn’t be found online. How did I come to this point? It all began with an anteater.
“Fuck You I’m An Anteater.” It makes absolutely no sense. Why an anteater? Why “Fuck You.”? Probably a hybrid of the LOLCats, it’s merely text on an image that, I repeat (in Joe Biden fashion), makes absolutely no sense. Anteaters aren’t hostile in nature. Why not “Fuck You I’m a Cobra.”? “Fuck You I’m a Portuguese Man O War.”? I think I’ve pretty much covered it- this image has no point. To support my theory, I just showed the picture to a Stern student. His response was “What? I don’t get it.”
And while it has no point, “Fuck You I’m An Anteater” is a lesser known meme that I delight in. Why do I find the pointless meme and its’ offspring (see “Pleased to meet you, I’m an anteater.“) entertaining? Because it’s a meme that I share with my friend Steve. It’s something we enjoy sending back and forth to each other for fun. It’s kind of like an inside joke between us- a stupid online image that we associate with each other. To the Stern kid it might not mean anything, but to us it’s a dorky bonding point that’s ours.
The same can be said for the Dancing Baby meme of the early 90s. Perhaps you remember the computerized diaper-clad infant boogying to (of all songs) B.J. Thomas’ 1969 hit “Hooked On A Feeling.” Why that infant? Why that song? That’s not what’s important. What’s important is that I remember the first time I saw it… my little league coach gathered the team around and we all watched it on his laptop. I remember thinking that it was the most stupid thing I’ve ever seen. But that wasn’t the point… the point was that he shared it with us.
So when I asked myself “Why RickRolling?” I expected to find a concrete answer. Is it the salacious dancing? The cheese-fest lyrics? The ’80s synth pop? What about this video makes it a phenom, and why does it affect people the way it does? (See: death threats.) The answer is simple and anything but concrete. Like the other random memes, RickRolling doesn’t mean anything until we give it our own personal significance.
Earlier I described a meme as a unit of culture that moves through the sociosphere in a virus-like manner. In my travelogue I assumed that the birth and growth of a meme was primarily a digital phenomenon, due to the fact that it thrives online where human interaction is lessened into binary code. The computer mechanizes the human and reduces personal interaction into checkboxes and online quizzes (in fact, this sounds really familiar… perhaps I did my first travelogue on this). From online divorces to cyber sex, it really feels like anything that humans once shared is now simplified and streamlined for online use. Why would a meme be any different? This was my initial logic. To my dismay, I’ve discovered that human interaction is really the driving force behind the meme; so without human-to-human interaction, RickRolling can’t exist.
The other night I was explaining RickRolling to my friend. Once I brought up the video, her eyes lit up and she realized that she had been RickRolled before.. earlier that night, actually, when she tried to watch the newest SNL VP Debate skit. When it happened to her, she was confused and didn’t understand the video swap. When I explained the meme to her, however, she laughed and decided post-RickRoll that it was hilarious. We RickRoll each other as often as possible because it now has significance in her life: it’s something that she shares with me.
Jayme commented on my last post and brought up something similar: a story about a time when he was RickRoll’d at a bar, and he and his friends could laugh about it together because they understood and shared appreciation for the meme as a group.
The point is that RickRolling, in itself, doesn’t have a purpose. There’s nothing in the video text that makes it any more or less special than other ’80s music videos. What’s makes that video great is that it’s shared by people who make it into something meaningful. It’s a prank between friends. It’s a way of telling off dirty pervs. It’s a Wal Mart trip to entertain yourself on a boring Saturday night. It’s really what you make of it. It you want it to become a funny joke, it becomes a funny joke. If you want it to be a “white people thing,” it’s a white people thing. If you want it to be a cruel dastardly deterrence to your perverted enjoyment of Miley Cyrus porn, it’s just that. It’s completely up to you how you use and respond to a meme.
So although my final theory is disappointingly basic, it’s a pretty accurate response to my initial question. I wasn’t discovering answers online because they couldn’t be found there: they were in the reactions, feelings, and experiences of my classmates, my friends, and my professors. So why RickRolling? That’s a question you need to ask yourself 
.
