So far I’ve covered the bait ‘n switch tactic of online RickRolling, the original form in which the meme spread. What I haven’t addressed (which is integral to my Final Post and that is why I am posting this first.) is when RickRolling leaves the web and enters RL, as Jess would call it.
Sometimes RickRolling leaps off the computer screen and into baseball stadiums, classrooms, and department stores through a variety of media including loudspeakers, boom boxes, and even live singing telegrams. But is RickRolling the same when it leaves it’s comfortable home in cyber space?
In this video, a kid taps into the intercom system at his local Wal Mart, greets customers with the traditional “Attention All Wal Mart Shoppers…” and then plays Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” into the receiver. As it plays over the store’s sound system, you can see customers roaming around in the background, completely unaffected by the act.
After watching this video, and through extensive personal experience, I’ve decided that RickRolling an unsuspecting person online and RickRolling a general audience in a public venue are completely different. In Internet RickRolling, Rick Astley hijacks your computer screen, and dances and sings through your speakers and on your desktop as a direct result of you clicking a link that appealed specifically to you. So Internet RickRolling is a very personalized experience, in contrast to Offline RickRolling in which a RickRoll doesn’t target any one person looking for any one thing.
While the end result is always the same (that amazing video I’ve watched a bajillion times now), the means by which it gets to you, the environment in which you view it, and the response you have to it are all uniquely you. Who knew that one mainstream YouTube video could get so personal?
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.
Have you heard about this new video tape that kills you when you watch it? You start to play it and it’s like somebody’s nightmare. And as soon as it’s over, your phone rings… and what they say is.. you will die in seven days.
The New Media Embed Program
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