OK, what does rickrolled mean and where does it come from?

I have been wandering unattended through the Dope this evening and twice now I have come across a term with which I am unfamiliar: rickrolled.

Here it is, used in a sentence: rickrolled Scientology?
What exactly does that mean and what is its origin (as in slang etc–not Latin, Greek etc)?

If this belongs in GQ, despite its mundanity, please to move it. Ta.

This explains it pretty well.

In short - it misleads you into thinking a link goes to something you’re interested (free porn, winning lotto numbers, the latest scandal) and instead gives you Rick Astley.

Do I feel a WHOOSH over my head?

Seriously, that cannot be it, can it? <looks to either side of her for somebody, anybody to verify this>

Really?

Yes, that’s it. It really is that stupid.

Really. Never Gonna Give You Up - Wikipedia

[Mr. Burns] Excellent![/MB]

OK then, what does it mean when I read that someone’s cellphone was rickrolled?

Glad I’m in the boonies right now!

Wow. Learned my something new today. Um. It was a good song when it came out. Looking at it now, the video is incredibly lame, but MTV was a new-ish thing then and every rock and pop star had to make a video (on low budgets, clearly).
I kinda like rickrolling the Scientologists. I’d like to rickroll any number of people in my RL, too…

Thanks for the info, all!

Yes, it was. :smiley:

What message board did that come from? I don’t recall ever following a dopelink to a duck on wheels. I feel so left out!

Making their cellphone play the song.

I don’t know, but I like the play on themes with blind links leading to ducks (like duck blinds…–never mind).
I hate those java scripted things, though, where you can just back out of the site. Drive me nuts, those do.

Someone set up a web site where you enter a phone number, and the site calls them with that stupid song.

Ah! That’s not quite as bad as I’d imagined. I envisaged your entire address book being changed to call a site where you listen to it. That would really ruin my week…

Rick Astley is a “Stock, Aitken, and Waterman” alumni, along with Kylie Minogue, and Mel & Kim, and a couple of others I’ve mercifully forgotten, and all their music videos were equally as lame as each other.

Where does the ‘rolled’ come from?

I’ve hear the term “rolled” used to describe an assault or mugging. Perhaps it’s used in that sense.

More here.

Why does it tell me “This video not available in your country”?

Before rickrolling there was duckrolling, which was linking to a picture of a duck on wheels. This is a total guess, but “duckrolling” might have been so named because you link to a picture of a “rolling duck”.

No freakin’ clue. It’s now unavailable for me.