I just did this to my non-Internet savvy friend. It baffled him and I had to spend five minutes explaining the whole thing and why it’s funny. Kinda ruins the joke, but if you know people who are hip to the Rickrolling phenomenon (I don’t know why it never stops being funny. It just doesn’t.), here you go.
And here is a bonus link - a recent interview with Rick Astley discussing the meme. He seems genuinely cool about the whole thing.
I have 131 people in my contact list. They’re all about to find out just how dedicated Rick Astley is to them.
Oh my god, I so wanted this to work- but I’m only getting a 404 after i give it a number.
Could you please spend five minutes explaining to me why this is funny?
Huh. Worked for me when I did it a couple hours ago. I used it to call the phone here at work, then asked a co-worker to answer it for me. 
Well, it shouldn’t take five minutes to explain it to someone who isn’t so ignorant about the Internet that he needs to be shown what a hyperlink is.
The idea goes something like this: say you’re posting on a message board or sending someone an email and you say “Whoah! Somebody leaked a really hot video of Scarlett Johansson having sex! Just follow this link to check it out!”
And the link leads not to what was promised, but to the ultra-cheesy video for Rick Astley’s 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
I don’t blame you if you think this is kind of stupid and juvenile and not funny, but a lot of us get a kick out of it of some reason.
Has anyone considered the possibility that some people might not take this very well?
Does anyone have even the foggiest idea how this started?
Am I the only one who finds it strange that there’s seems to be no criticism of this phenomenon whatsoever?
Can anyone see this getting old really, really quickly?
Does anyone else have the tiniest problem with blatantly lying to ones friends for a cheap laugh? (Not even money?)
Does anyone have the tiniest fear of repercussions, possibly violent?
Does everyone blithely believe that there will never be any violent repercussions?
Is anyone the slightest bit concerned about never being trusted by any of his/her friends again and utterly loathed (to say nothing of possible revenge)?
Has anyone given this any damn thought whatsoever??
(Yes, I’m paranoid. How the hell can I not be?)
It got old months ago.
How’s it supposed to work over the phone, anyway? IMO, it’s only a Rickroll if you trick someone into clicking a link.
Good lord. If you’re worried about your friends getting violent for being rickroll’d, I’d hate to see how your enemies would react.
FTR, I haven’t tried the site out, because of the 404 error coming up. But, I’ll try to tackle your questions anyway. 
Of course. I certainly won’t rickroll my boss during business hours, or confuse an elderly woman at a nursing home.
Duckrolling, I imagine.
What’s there to criticize, really? It’s a joke.
Of course; most would say it has, already. But with 300 million in the US alone, it’s new to someone.
Of course I do. Playing a joke like this, though? No problems here. I think you’re missing the point – the idea of rickrolling, as I understand it, is to make a blatantly wild assertation that will make most people go “wha!!!” and, behold, rickroll. To me, it’s not even funny, unless your “victim” is laughing along with you in the end.
No? I’ve never rickrolled someone in real life, but I imagine that if I did, I’d only be doing it to someone I knew and trusted not to be violent.
Maybe. Maybe not. Crystal ball is acting funny today.
I just have to ask, based solely on the questions you’ve presented so far… what kind of people are you hanging around with?
Clearly someone has given it enough thought to make it mobile!
Because it’s rickrolling, not kiddiepornrolling.
Unless this was a whoosh, you should just follow the first law of the internet as taught to you on day 1: don’t click on crap when you don’t know what it is.
Nope, never.
Probably.
Well, it’s already been around for about a year now, so some would argue that its shelf life has long since expired. Those people are wrong.
Not particularly. It’s not like it’s hurting anyone.
According to this news story, Astley-related beatings are up a shocking 480%.
If my friends were that lame, they probably wouldn’t be my friends.
Nope. That’s part of the fun of it!
Valium?
It just plays a clip of the song. Instead of getting tricked into clicking a link, your friends get tricked into answering their phones. At least that’s the way I look at it.
Strange you don’t seem to like this, considering your paranoia. Wouldn’t this be a safe way to drive home the point that you shouldn’t always trust what you click, a good lesson considering that it’s a huge way spam and scams get so big online? I mean, it’s not like you’re being redirected to tubgirl or something…
And how, pray tell, are you supposed to know one youtube link from another, since there is nothing to identify it in the link itself? If someone tells me that a link is relevant to a topic under discussion, and the fact that it’s a youtube link is not unreasonable (such as in CS, when it could be a clip someone posted), why should I have to consider that they might be playing an infantile prank?
If I wanted to be paranoid about something, it would be that the site is doing something with those phone numbers - selling them to telemarketers? using them for the purposes of telephone slamming (changing the service provider without your concert)? I know that they say “We do not keep a record of any numbers dialed!”, but the dullest person will realize that if the site was keeping track of all the numbers dialed, it would hardly admit to it.
BTW, at the link presented by the OP, it’s also said “[P]lease do not annoy people or abuse this service.” Don’t rickroll the President during a state of the union address - he might get annoyed!
This thread was the first I ever heard of it, and it’s already old to me. Though, to be fair, I haven’t actually watched the video yet. I’ll go do so and see if that makes it younger.
…
Nope, still old. That’s not even the campiest 80s video I’ve seen.
I could be wrong, but I kind of doubt they’re up to anything nefarious. It’s run by some random Something Awful goon. Here’s his thread from the forums there where I found out about the site.
I did it to my wife and she thought it was funny. If it’s worth a laugh why not go for it?
I would be thoughtful about who/what number I sent it to. My kids and their friends would probably find it very funny. People who use their phones for business? Not so much. I personally would be more than annoyed if I was disturbed during work hours for a silly prank. Feel free to dial my sons’ friends all you want. In other words, rickroll with care. 
I love this meme. I can’t explain why, but I find Rickrolling absolutely hilarious. It’s just so…random.
I never thought it was all that funny, but my wife thinks it’s hilarious. We’ll see if she still feels that way now that I’ve rickrolled her cell phone.
Hmm…I hope she wasn’t in a meeting.
