Survey of Rickrolling in Academic Literature [pdf]

Never forget how Oregon legislators did it. Epic.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/04/13/135385998...

A mildly interesting note that this paper was submitted as part of SIGBOVIK (http://www.sigbovik.org/), a collection of similarly funny papers.

One of the early assignments for an introduction to scientific computing course I teach has a Rickroll link -- I added it as a light-hearted way to see who's actually working through the materials in a detailed way.

Back in the 2000s:

- Trick your friend into clicking on that interesting link

- They get to enjoy good ole Rick Astley's baritone voice and shoulder padded jacket on youtube

In 2024:

- Trick your friend into clicking on that interesting link

- Phew, saved by two minutes of pre-video ads!

If you ask Rick Astley for a copy of the movie "Up" you will have presented him with an impossible dilemma.

Half expected this link to go elsewhere…

I love all the little Easter eggs that make their way into academic papers. 42 is now firmly entrenched of course as the “default number“ in virtually all examples. And paper that I have under review, I tried sneaking in a few references to Zork.

Rickrolling was not born in the early-2000's as the author says. It was alive and well in the late 1990's, at least at U.T. Arlington.

This could be a great target for machine learning driven automation.