Appearing on tonight’s Sky.Com News is Helen Zaltzman from the AnswerMeThisPodcast. Helen will be telling us about the recent Internet craze involving Rick Astley. Read more about this now in her blog below.

When Tim Berners-Lee sat down at his desk to invent the world wide web, he must have had some qualms about it. 

Might it go a tad Orwellian?  Possibly.  Would it be used for the mass dissemination of pornography?  Almost certainly.  But he could surely not have predicted the fresh horror for which his invention is now responsible: the career renaissance of 80s pop earblight Rick Astley.

For those who were blissfully unaware of Mr Astley first time around, he was another squeaky-clean singing moppet from the Stock Aitken and Waterman stable, who saw the fresh-faced Lancastrian as the greatest white soul singer since Janis Joplin. 

Singles such as ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and ‘Together Forever’ shot Rick to number 1 on both sides of the Atlantic, netting him a Grammy nomination and, to date, 40 million record sales.

But then the 90s dawned and Rick and his white socks quietly left the charts, to languish in obscurity except for the occasional mention on TV programmes like Gosh, 80s Music Wasn’t Too Good In Retrospect, Was It?.

Until, that is, a craze called Rick-Rolling came long.

Despite the name, the said craze does not involve popping Mr Astley into a barrel and rolling him down a hill. 

Instead it refers to the following practice, originated by the messageboard 4chan:

1.  You are just going about your business looking at something on the Internet.
2.  You click on a completely normal-looking link.
3.  You find yourself, like some 13 million other unfortunate dupes, rooted to the spot in horror as said link instead takes you to the video of ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ on YouTube.
 
And there is the young Rick Astley, enveloped in very pale blue denim, doing a gentle dance while a wholesome-looking blonde looks on adoringly and an initially-cynical barman becomes so wooed by the perky beats and sincere promise of eternal devotion that he vaults the bar he’s been polishing and does a twirl.

No doubt Tim Berners-Lee himself has more than once reeled back in shock as Astley suddenly jives across his screen, dolefully unplugged his router and mournfully croaked, “No!  This was not how it was meant to be…”

To Find Out More About Rick Astley Click Here