Exploring Viral Videos (Rick Rollin & Chocolate Rain)

 Rick Astley - Rick Rollin

  • Rick Rollin, also known as "Never Gonna Give You Up," originated in 1987 and was performed by Rick Astley.
  • Before this iconic song became a meme, the original creation of the song was a music video performed by Rick Astley; the song's incredibly catchy beat and relatively upbeat tune helped people realize the potential, not only for a great song but an even better meme. Rick Rollin began in 2006 with 4chan, initially calling it "duck rolling." Rick Rollin usually only consists of the first 3-4 seconds of the song, which is more than enough time to get the mood across.
  • Here is a link to the original "Never Gonna Give You Up."
  • At the time, the song was very well received, placing first on the American top 100, as well as topping the list in 25 other countries. It also ranked no.1 in both the UK and South Africa end-of-the-year singles chart.
  • Rick Astley (Born February 6th, 1966) was an English Artist, songwriter, and performer. Aside from hits such as "Never Gonna Give You Up," he has a couple of other popular songs such as "Whenever You Need Someone" and "Together Forever." To this day, he is still putting out music, having released "The Best of Me." in 2019. While still putting out music, he is known to dabble in both Dj'ing and podcasting.
  • While "Never Gonna Give You Up" was released roughly 35 years ago, its current popularity is as high as ever. The youtube video for the song hit 1 billion views as recent as 2020, and people worldwide know of the Rick Rollin meme. It is relatively common to see the meme on all social media platforms, and with Rick Astley still staying reasonably active in the music industry, I don't see his popularity or the popularity of the video dropping anytime soon.
Tay Zonday - Chocolate Rain
  • Chocolate Rain originated on Youtube on April 23rd, 2007, and was performed by Tay Zonday.
  • Tay Zonday sang the song "Chocolate Rain" as a way to talk about and deal with the institutional racism found in American society. It is a relatively simple song, with Tay Zonday singing over what sounds to be some sort of rather basic audio loop.
  • Here is the link to "Chocolate Rain."
  • The initial reaction to the video was rather explosive; it has received over 100 million views on youtube, was given the 2008 Youtube Award for the category of music, and was the most viral video of the 2007 summer, according to CTV.
  • Since the 2007 success of "Chocolate Rain," Tay Zonday graduated with his Ph.D. from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has dabbled in various media careers, appearing on the Steve Harvey show for the ten-year anniversary of "Chocolate Rain, performing a cover of "CallMe Maybe," which has gained around 6.7 million views, and even trying out for "America's Got Talent" where he performed 15 seconds of "Chocolate Rain."
  • Over the years, the video has become more and more of a meme. While keeping its importance as a video that discusses racism in America, it has come to be known as more of a meme than anything. 4chan started this popularity back in 2007-8, and nowadays, the original video sadly isn't known as much as the meme. However, I personally didn't know about either of these until we talked about them in class.

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