Fridays Hokey Music - The Rick Rollers

Once upon a time, in a land very far away, everything was rosy. The kids still kind of listened to their parents, their teachers and figures of authority. It was a time of excess, money and power was held up in high esteem and music videos were starting to have a real impact on the sales of music.

It was a fresh medium, and although music videos had existed for decades they were not the principle form of spreading the message. In the late 1980's, this all changed. Music video became an entertainment form entirely of it's own merits.

Now, in the new millennium, another new shift in entertainment has also occurred - whoooo-hoooo the internet had arrived in it's infancy. An interactive medium where the users could control the programming and also the schedule - create their own content, share it and watch it whenever they want. This has just skyrocketed as more and more folks have cottoned on to the fact that, in this current form (only just), the internet is truly free. Can you imagine decades ago that anything such as a rickroll would ever exist?

Now the content creator is king, and there is nothing really stopping anyone from beginning powerful on social media.
It is increasingly becoming harder due to the share clatter of noise out there to be noticed, but if you have the right research, tools and skills at your fingers, (and happening to know the right people certainly helps now), then you to can potentially be the next big thing.

How simple was this concept - start a joke by sending unsuspecting friends and family to a cheesy retro video clip as a funny moment of cringe from the past.
Now the RickRoll has taken on a new form - the mashup!

Check this out, we think it is brilliant.

Clever isn't it. Take an established part of the internet and make it new again. Add your own spin.
Just another example of the limitless creativity one can apply to guerrilla marketing, and create your own viral campaigns.

By now most of us will have been "rick rolled" at least once on youtube. Imagine if your own viral marketing (subtle or not) picks up that kind of momentum. Some of the most view youtube clips are really quite odd, and fall into several easily defined categories, which gives you pointers if ever there were any!

The victims of these internet meme's - how do they feel?
Rick Astley, the original Rick Roller, has got quite a philosophical approach to it all.

It is amazing that a song that had a little bit of impact in it's original time slot in history can become morphed into an entirely different piece of media, and turn up in the strangest of places.
Here is the Rick Roll making into popular primetime culture with the insertion of the Rick Roll onto fan posted clips that have got quite impressive traffic:

The mainstream news even gets the treatment.

Take these kids for example. This is a school project - it is actually pretty good. Nice attempt, and just another one of those random things if you start wandering through youtube on a quest!

What is going to be next?
Will the RickRoll just fade away, or keep popping up and the worse possible time?