A Rickroller Strikes Again
In Asheville, North Carolina, a prankster has been targeting people with fake parking tickets with a QR code on it, leading to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video. People are misled to the video as a friendly prank. This prank is known as “Rickrolling”.
The video is a running internet joke and has been since 2007. It began when someone posted a link to 4chan, an imageboard website, claiming to have the trailer for Grand Theft Auto 4 (a game that was not out at the time). However, people who clicked on the link were led to the Rick Astley video.
This video blew up after the post. For example, on April Fool’s Day of 2008, all of Youtube’s front page videos were linked to the hit song. It happened again at the Macy’s Day Parade, where Rick Astley made an appearance unexpectedly and Rickrolled everyone watching.
Many of the people that received the parking tickets were infuriated by it. However, some people, including Madison Hawk (9), thinks that it’s a funny situation.
“I think they were just trying to be comical,” she said. She also said, jokingly, if she were to have this happen to her that she would find this person and I would marry them. She said people probably just did this for comedic reasons and to have some fun, but not to do any harm.
“I think it’s funny,” she said, “It brings me joy”.
The police say that the people who placed the fake tickets cannot be charged, and that the only crime that they have committed would be littering.
Sources
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rickrolling-parking-tickets_us_56dca7d7e4b0000de404ffdb
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/07/fake-parking-tickets-rickroll-north-carolina-motorists.html
