Game, set and match goes to Rocketboom producer Kenyatta Cheese: He paid to send a singing-telegram messenger to deliver Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up," live, to NextNewNetworks cofounder Timothy Shea. Rickrolling, a common online prank, normally involves tricking someone into following a link to the Astley video. Cheese's reward? A "golfclap" -- a petty form of nonpraise used online -- also delivered live, from Shea. And what have these far-seeing pioneers of a brave new medium proved? That Internet video can be used to provoke real-world action that results in yet more Internet video. Read More
Singing telegrams are getting a totally rad 80s makeover. New York-based singing telegram service Preppygrams is taking the Internet phenomenon of “Rick Rolling” - in which websites are spontaneously interrupted by red-haired crooner Rick Astley’s cheesy, 1987 video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” - to people’s front doors. Preppygrams owner Kerry Prep was recently asked to Rick Roll an office by busting in on a meeting and singing Astley’s song to a group of unsuspecting office workers. Despite having no knowledge of the Rick Rolling phenomenon, Prep gladly accepted the task and watched the 80s music video multiple times to perfect Astley’s signature arm-shaking dance moves. He says, “I couldn’t sleep the night before. The song was stuck in my head. I don’t look at all like Rick Astley, but by the end, everyone in the office was singing along.” Now that the footage of his live performance has hit YouTube.com, he’s offering singing “Rick-Roll-A-Grams” as a new service to anyone who wants to take the prank a step further. Prep explains, “I’m going to get a better trenchcoat, maybe a red-haired wig. I’d love to do it again, and get a fleet of messengers to do it also.”.

The Rickroll fad involves posting sites that claim to contain other topics, but when the site is actually opened - it instead plays Rick Astley's song "Never Gonna Give You Up" and sometimes shows pictures of Rick Astley. Hence the name "Rickroll".

The phenomenon has exploded and the Rick Roll has found its way into popular culture. The song found its way onto last season's finale of "Family Guy".

The one question that must be asked after all of this is: Why Rick Astley? Why did he get so lucky? Does he have a new record coming out or something? Is this a publicity stunt?

Even conspiracy theorists think that's doubtful -- Astley just got lucky. If "lucky" is defined as being the butt of 5 millions jokes. But, hey, without this, Rick Astley would've never showed up on the current pop culture radar screen.

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