this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2024
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It's been around 15 years and Astley did it as part of the Macy Day parade. It's the furthest thing from obscure.
I guess it would depend on where one's from then. I don't, as a northern European, have any clue what the Macy Day parade is. One needs to be a chronically online person to know what a rick roll is in my country, and I would call that phenomenon massively widespread in our online culture (well, back in the day). Someone being "very much not online" and at the same time being aware of Rick rolling is an oxymoron to me.
That's fair. It's well known in America as it's a big event for a big American holiday that's primarily watched by older, less online people and bored kids at a family members house which is why I bought it up. Local news was talking about the whole phenomenon because if it. But out of that American context you're right that it wouldn't be as meaningful.
I don't think you need to be chronically online in Australia to know about it either, and we don't watch the parade. We do share a language, and more importantly, most popular music with y'all though.
Most people here would definitely know the song. The song itself has become incredibly popular, of course. But the phenomenon of trolling someone with a rick-roll would be too obscure for someone described as "very-much-not-online".
So that's the context I made my comment in. Internet culture is huge here, but it lives on the internet. But hey, in no way am I the decider on what is normal elsewhere.
That's all really fair. But I also just assumed he was parroting what the mother had called it, and that she was just blissfully unaware that she'd mixed the memes.