"The women’s basketball game at Eastern Washington University on March 8 started out like any other, as the Eagles of E.W.U. faced off against the Montana State Bobcats. 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-synced and mugged to the music.“ This is the waking dream describe by Evelyn Nussenbaum in her article "The '80s Video That Pops Up, Online and Off“ (The New York Times, 24 Mar 08).
The response to this dream? "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.“ A waking dream hatched on the Internet ripples out into other waking-life venues.
Rickrolling, it turns out, did not spring like Athena from someone’s forehead. Like collective dreams, it has a history. "Rickrolling is a descendant of an older Internet joke called duckrolling. A Web site or blog post would offer a link to something popular – say celebrity photos or video gaming news – that led unsuspecting viewers to a bizarre image of a duck on wheels.“ A duck on wheels? What a great dream image!
"For rickrolling, the duck was replaced with the 20-year-old Astley video, and in the last year it has become a hugely successful ‚meme,‘ the Internet’s word for an idea repeated across the Web. The video from yougotrickrolled.com has been viewed more than seven million times.“ One cannot help but wonder, out of all the possible retro music videos available, why it was this particular one that was chosen.
As is often the case in the realm of art and popular culture, images (memes) appear that answer an unspoken need existing in the minds and hearts of people. An archetype manifests that expresses a widespread need, thought or emotion. "The 'Never Gonna Give You Up‘ video has been watched over a million times on YouTube – not bad for a song that last had heavy radio play in 1988, when it spent two weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart of the top-selling singles.“ What is is about this particular meme, this particular dream image that captrues so many people’s imaginations?
The impact of art and the dreams that they articulate is evidenced by the use of this guerilla tactic in various waking-life venues, some of them quite serious. "Rickrolling has also come to mean a disruptive blast of the Astley song in a variety of situations. Former Scientologists protesting against the church, for example, have been playing and singing the song this year outside Scientology offices in London, Washington, Seattle and other cities.“ Scientology and "Never Gonna Give You Up" have been connected, like it or not, just like in a sleep dream!
"It is not clear what Mr. Astley himself thinks about rickrolling. He has not spoken publicly about the meme and efforts to reach him though his agent were unsuccessful. But it has surely renewed attention on his career at a beneficial time. He is planning a tour through England along with other ‚80s pop stars.“ While rickrolling may not be Mr. Astley’s preferred cup of publicity tea, hopefully he is keeping in mind that cultural dreams such as this express internal-world goings-on that have nothing to do with him personally. Dreams use whatever material and resources that work for their communicative needs.
Cultural dreams are like sleep dreams. They are communicating something. What is the dream called "Rickrolling“ telling us?