Is Rickrolling Devaluing Your Social Currency?

from the welcome-to-the-life-of-a-griefer dept

Thu, Dec 11th 2008 2:26am — Mike Masnick

If you're reading this site, you probably know what Rickrolling means. However, did you ever think that people would be discussing how Rickrolling devalues your online currency? Yes, according to the Guardian, it's important to realize that Rickrolling is bad for you. The argument is pretty straightforward. Online, links are a form of "currency." If you provide good links, it increases your value to a community, but if you provide bad links... well then you lose a lot of value. And what kind of link could be worse than one that tricks you into watching a Rick Astley video (don't answer that)? Of course, I would think that's all rather obvious. Being a jerk and tricking people into clicking on bad links isn't likely to gain you many friends... except this ignores the context by which Rickrolling first came to prominence.

When it first came around, it was actually a way of gaining social currency within a specific community, where tricking others was seen as a part of the game. So, yes, in normal, polite company, being a jerk via Rickrolling might get people pissed off at you. And, these days, the meme is so played out that it might just get people to wonder why you're still living in 2007. However, to automatically assume that it "devalues" your social currency ignores the context in which it's used.

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Filed Under: rickrolling, social currency

18 Comments

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dragunkat, 11 Dec 2008 @ 3:31am

cartoon network rick rolled the macy's day parade. granted, they used the real rick astley, but it was still a rick roll.
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- Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased), 11 Dec 2008 @ 6:32am
  
  Re: Macy's Day Parade
  I remember watching that with my family...20 or so people. Nobody knew what was going on except me. I explained it, and of course, wasn't too funny to them.
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Cornettheory, 11 Dec 2008 @ 3:31am

Well, at least it is a music video. People who have been around the internet block a few times remember when goatse was popular.
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- Ed, 11 Dec 2008 @ 4:24am
  
  Re: goatse on /.
  I remember my first goatse on /. Same for tubgirl and lemonparty. These were much much much worse than rickrolling. I sorta like the rickroll.
  
  Anyway, goatse forced /. to put in explicit URL listings next to the link so you could have some clue if it looked legit (assuming you did not check your browser URL preview).
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- Anonymous Coward, 11 Dec 2008 @ 7:48am
  
  Re:
  you know, It always surprised me the fame the three big name pictures got (Goatse, Tubgirl, and the Harlequin Fetus used to be referred to collectively as the "unholy trinity") by the same method as the rick astley video got, but now that video is common the really messed up stuff like BME pain Olympics (DON'T LOOK THAT UP IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS!) exists people don't trick others into watching them much the way they did with goatse et all.
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Shohat, 11 Dec 2008 @ 3:32am

Ahem
A person has gotta have a mighty worthless set of skills to be judged by his /link sharing/online social/ abilities.
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Dav, 11 Dec 2008 @ 3:39am

Context
This is very true but the context in which you rickroll is also very important.

If you were to rickroll in a serious political discssion for instance your community value would decreace.

If on the other hand you were to rickroll in a joke/spam/pointless discussion then your detriment in value will be minimal. Also if you confine yourself to pulling pranks like this to the pointless/spam then your linking value will only fall in this arena rather then in the more serious discussions.

Also remember that rickrolling is still amusing when done in the appropriate place and time.
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B, 11 Dec 2008 @ 4:02am

Oh Crap
I just lost the game
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- chris (profile), 11 Dec 2008 @ 4:29am
  
  Re: Oh Crap
  i accidentally the whole rickroll. is this dangerous?
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  - LampLover, 11 Dec 2008 @ 5:09am
    
    Re: Re: Oh Crap
    It's only dangerous if you don't Love Lamp.
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  - Trevlac, 11 Dec 2008 @ 6:40am
    
    Re: Re: Oh Crap
    Dude. You're doing it wrong.
    
    "I accidentally a is this bad?"
    
    Not the form I keep seeing: "I accidentally a whole !"
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- Trevlac, 11 Dec 2008 @ 6:39am
  
  Re: Oh Crap
  GOD
  DAMMIT
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E, 11 Dec 2008 @ 4:19am

Aw man!
So did I!
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Matt, 11 Dec 2008 @ 5:41am

currency only to those who find value
Some websites are known to have tech savvy users, and so linking to lemoparty/goatse/rickroll has no effect, in fact it may value that person because of the social value of humor.

Fark forums, somethingawful forums, are both like that.

Also, unless someone does this kind of thing constantly, people's memory will tend to be like a goldfish. A single user in a swarm of users tends to not be memorable enough just due to a rickroll.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Dec 2008 @ 6:06am

ZOMG!
"Well, at least it is a music video. People who have been around the internet block a few times remember when goatse was popular."

The only thing worse were the 'fan' sites where people did similar things
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Dec 2008 @ 6:11am

I've been rickrolled several times. Sometimes it was pretty clever. Sometimes it was utterly obvious. Every time it made me smile.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Dec 2008 @ 6:43am

Mike, you're HILARIOUS
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eball, 11 Dec 2008 @ 8:49am

"When it first came around, it was actually a way of gaining social currency..."
Mike, I gotta disagree with you there, simply because the community on which it started is, of course, all anonymous. There's still an odd sort of value, but it doesn't have that value where you decide you will or won't click on links from one particular person.
But as soon as I read the headline in RSS, I thought of a friend of mine who was very late jumping on the bandwagon. He posted a Myspace bulletin claiming to go to some video, and instead of using an unidentifiable youtube link, it went to rickroll.com. And, of course, Myspace now takes you to a big warning page when you click external links, so... it wasn't the most convincing trick. Point being, he's a friend of mine IRL, but any online interaction we have is greatly devalued now, and I usually ignore the hell out of him. He's a good guy in person, but a total jackass online, and that little "trick" really put me off from seeing what he has to say.
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