Mar
26
Rickrolling the New York Times
March 26, 2008 |
Usually the high-point of every Internet meme (just before it disappears back into the dark corners of the Internet) comes around the time the big media outlets start reporting about it. On Monday, the New York Times picked up the ‘rickrolling’ meme and lead the article with a summary of the “College Basketball Game Gets Rick Roll’d” video most of you have probably seen at this point:
But a routine timeout turned into a 1980s flashback, as two men on the sidelines briefly hijacked the proceedings with a popular prank known as rickrolling. They surprised the crowd by blasting the British singer Rick Astley’s 1987 hit song “Never Gonna Give You Up” through the gym, while one, dressed as a look-alike in Mr. Astley’s signature trench coat, lip-synched and mugged to the music.
The stunt provoked a variety of reactions. Many older spectators looked, by turns, puzzled or irritated. But the under-30 fans danced and sang, happy to participate in a rapidly spreading phenomenon with roots in their favorite medium — the Internet.
Turns out, this never happened - no game was ever interrupted by anybody. A Spokane NBC affiliate actually did some research and found out that the filmmakers spliced together footage from various Eastern Washington Univ. basketball games and a regular time-out performance of somebody lip-synching the song, which explain how they could get all the different angels into the shot without having 10 cameras on hand.
As CNET notes, it’s interesting that almost nobody’s BS alarm went off when watching the video. CNET author Caroline McCarthy argues that this is a sign of “of how online video is no longer an unfamiliar new medium that inherently draws suspicion.”
I think its a sign of how our expectations of YouTube videos have changed. We no longer just expect shaky home videos on YouTube but polished productions just like the basketball rickroll video. Because of this, maybe it’s gotten easier to fool us as well.
Technorati tags: rickroll, nbc, nytimes, new york times, fake
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