A Josh Hutcherson Renaissance is upon us. With the recent release of “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” and “Hunger Games” prequel “A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” many fans are revisiting the famed franchise. Many edits are being remade, and one edit in particular from nine years ago has resurfaced and has become a rickroll type of meme. This meme format seems to return every few years or so, but why is that?
What is a Rickroll?
This subcategory of a “bait-and-switch” meme can be traced back to the “rickroll” from the late 2000s. A rickroll is a popular meme in which one posts a link that claims to lead to a website pertinent to whatever conversation is occurring but instead leads to the music video for “Never Gonna Give You Up,” Rick Astley’s debut song. In its 16-year lifespan on the internet, it has never lost popularity, with the meme being passed down to the next generation of internet users every few years.
The bait-and-switch meme has been popular since the internet’s conception. A popular example is the ghost car commercial. It is a video of a road winding through a green hillside, when all of a sudden, you are jump-scared by a terrifying image of a ghost. The image of the countryside alone is recognizable, resulting in the famed video.. The video is an ad for a drink called K-fee which quickly rose to fame because everyone was sharing it with their friends, attempting to trick them.
This meme gained popularity in the late 2000s on the platform 4Chan. Some claim they rickrolled before it was popular, but 4Chan is undoubtedly where the meme gained traction. At the time, many were excitedly awaiting the release of “Grand Theft Auto IV.” Users took this excitement and used it to make a meme, in which they would post a link, claiming it led to a preview of the game before release, but it instead directed people to Rick Aslety’s famous song from 1987. This meme went so far that in 2008, Rick Astley was nominated for an MTV award because voters were collectively voting for him due to the recent emergence of the rickroll meme. Astley has been praised for his continuous endorsement of the rickroll.
The Rickroll Effect
New forms of rickrolls happen every few years or so, but all have failed to stick around for as long as the original video. These new forms happen when a video that contains something absurd pertinent to current pop culture gains traction. At first, it is simply shared around as a funny video. Then, once the video has gone around enough, many people start to get annoyed with the repetition. Finally, to the dismay of the people who have come to hate the video, people begin to hide references to the video in videos, images, and audios.
The original rickroll is still going strong. It is a rare kind of meme that has stuck around for a very long time. The rickroll has stayed around for as long as it has because the video is known cross-generationally, whereas, with some of the memes that arose due to the rickroll effect, they are only understandable by a generation or two.
Since the meme originated in the late 2000s, people who were alive then understood the meme, and because the meme can still be seen today, new generations also understand it. It is rare for a meme to stick around for this long and still be loved by different generations, but the rickroll has done so successfully.
Examples of Other Rickrolls
@j0shfyp its getting scary atp 😕 #joshhutcherson #josh #trend #trending #edits #edit #joshhutchersonedit #whistle #fyp #viral #boost #likes #ae #editor ♬ original sound – ੈ✩‧₊˚ 𝘫𝘰𝘴𝘩𝘧𝘺𝘱
Getting “Josh Hutchersoned ” is the newest form of the rickroll, in which a Josh Hutcherson edit from 9 years ago has resurfaced, and is now being used to surprise people, mostly TikTok users. The video is a slideshow edit of different pictures of Josh Hutcherson with the song “Whistle ” by Flo Rida. This video resurfaced because of the current Josh Hutcherson Renaissance. However, as with most rickroll recreations, we can already see the meme falling out of common use. It fits into the category of a rickroll because it gained popularity due to Hutcherson’s growing popularity. However, it fails to live up to the original rickroll because of its short lifespan. Also unlike Asltley’s love for the rickroll, Josh Hutcherson claims he has yet to see the meme since he stays off of the internet.
@youjustgot_krissed._YOU JUST GOT KISSED…♬ original sound – 🤭𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗚𝗢𝗧 𝗞𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗗
Getting “Krissed ” is another form of this meme, but the star of this video is none other than Kris Jenner. The video is of Kris Jenner in a sparkly green top lip-syncing to the song “Lady Marmalade” by Christina Aguilera. The clip came from a lip-syncing video the Kardashians did to the song. This meme was popularized in 2022, especially on TikTok. You could not scroll more than a few videos without getting Krissed. For Kris Jenner’s birthday that year, her daughters dressed up as different versions of her. Due to the recent emergence of the meme, Kim Kardashian dressed up as her mother in the lip-syncing video. This meme also failed to live up to the original rickroll because of its short lifespan.
One last form of a newer rickroll is when one is surprised by a drawing of Twilight Sparkle from “My Little Pony” and Mordecai from “Regular Show” with the song “Airplanes” by B.o.B playing in the background. In the same fashion as any other rickroll, people would post a normal video, when all of a sudden the drawing and song would take over.
Overall, the rickroll has had its lasting effects, and it doesn’t look like the original video itself or its successors are going away anytime soon. The meme has taken many forms from the original rickroll to getting Josh Hutchersoned. Keep an eye out for the next one, which will probably emerge within the next year or so.
