An oral history of Rickrolling

In 2006, Erik Helwig created the Rickroll. Maybe. Over at MEL Magazine, Brian VanHooker's "An Oral History of Rickrolling" takes us back to a time when the worst of the weaponized Internet memes were those created by advertising agencies, not corrupt politicians and warmongers. And if you're curious what I mean by that, watch the rather shocking video above. From MEL:

Erik Helwig, founder of Rickrolling (maybe)

: This was small-town, rural Michigan and there was this radio program called the Postgame Show that covered local sports. People would call in and say stuff like, My son Christopher played on the team tonight, and he did a real great job! Stuff like that, so my friends and I started pranking it and the calls started getting weirder and weirder. Wed call in and talk about our favorite Nicolas Cage movies and other weird stuff like that. Then one day I called them and just played Never Gonna Give You Up on the air. I didnt say anything, I just played the song. The host had absolutely no reaction to it, he didnt say, Im being Rickrolled or anything like that because it was before all that.

I dont know if I want to call myself the founder of Rickrolling. Thats difficult for me because it was something that I did on a whim and later realized that I did this six months before anyone else, which I thought was cool, but thats about it. I only picked that song because I really like the song its a great 1980s song thats fun to laugh at in the best way.