A Rhetorical Analysis Of Rickrolling

Rhetorical Analysis: Rickrolling A song resurrection movement occurred when rickrolling came into internet culture. Rick Astley thought his song “Never Gonna Give you Up” wasn’t going to make it out of the eighties let alone past the millenia. Given at it’s time it had one a Brit Award and have a five week standing as number one on the charts, no one expected a tune like that to outlive the eighties. However, its upbeat rhythm happens to now be considered timeless because of how the internet shaped it. Rick Astley could have never imagined that his video would become popular and relevant after twenty years, but because it's element of surprise, appeal to ethos, and the many different ways the video and idea of rick-rolling has been remixed,

According to Kevin Accola’s Ted Talk “Why Videos Go Viral”, a video goes viral because of tastemaker, communities of participation, and unexpectedness. Rickrolling utilized all three of these aspects to because the ultimate viral sensation. There were many tastemakers that used rick-rolling in their different forms of media, the big ones including Fox News and Filmcow, who were both very popular entities at the time and contributed to its virality. Fox News used it to prank Bill O’Reily by putting the video on his teleprompter during his show. Film Cow was an owner to a very popular series on Youtube called “Charlie the Unicorn” around the time that rick-rolling first started. They participated in this meme by using advertising a new “Charlie the Unicorn” episode but really linking to “Never Gonna Give You Up”. In terms of communities of participation, Rickrolling was created on social media, a hub for communities of participation. Once it started on 4chan, people everywhere started making their own versions of rick-rolling. The song was inserted into videos of calming oceans, eye-catching news stories, or even used in political speeches. As for unexpectedness, that’s the whole point of rickrolling, it’s essentially a viral video that is solely reliant on its unexpectedness. Without it there is no