First, you see the words. “This picture of you is so funny!”, or “OMG I can’t believe this actually happened!”, or “Have you heard this song? You’d love it!”, or something similarly intriguing. Your interest is piqued, your internal defence system temporarily subdued. You click on the innocent-looking link. Then, before you can do anything, you hear it; that salvo of synthetic drums, the rush of synths. You see it; that flash of flame-red hair, the swaying dance moves. And with a sinking sense of inevitability, it dawns on you: you’ve just been rickrolled.
Sound familiar? It’s been a rite of passage for any internet user from about 2007 onwards to be unwittingly directed towards the song Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley, and as a meme, the so-called rickroll shows no sign of being consigned to annals of digital folklore — just three weeks ago, headlines were generated by a Texan drone operator who, using 300 of the devices, created a huge QR code in the sky above Dallas. What happened to anyone who scanned the display with their smartphone? Take a wild guess.
