Facebook Turns 5

Back in June 2008 is when I joined Facebook, and didn't really get into it until the past few months. My FB logins far surpass my MySpace visits now simply because it seems to require less maintenance on my part, allows me to maintain a desired level of privacy, and lends itself to users' individuality without the obnoxiousness you see on MySpace. Facebook has arguably become known as the MySpace for the more mature generation. In any case, it serves us well in keeping people connected and even bridges us with people from our past.

I had no idea that Facebook has been around for 5 years now. MySpace had been dominating the social networking sector for the everyday American since 2006, until it was surpassed by FB in 2008 as the most popular social networking site internationally. Not a bad accomplishment for a networking tool that originally linked Ivy League students exclusively.

Happy Birthday, Facebook! If it were possible, I'd SuperPoke you right now and throw some birthday cake your way. At least in the virtual world of Facebook, that is possible.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Today was a victory for John "Vegasgeek" Hawkins.

Upon my return from Mexico in late November, I got wind of the fact that Rick Astley himself had Rickrolled the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and I felt motivated to continue promoting the cause. I randomly Rickrolled a few people in the past month for the sheer joy of doing so. John was the one person who fell victim to my Rickrolling schemes more than once. It was only natural that he seek revenge.

This morning I receive this IM from John:

9:04 AM John Hawkins: Hey, so, I get home last night and I'm totally stuck on the bacon website... I spent about an hour looking for themes for it. Haven't found one just yet. But, I was talking to Jason and told him about the Patron Saint of Bacon and he laughed and then showed me another bacon link... So, I had to post about them both. Go check out http://baconfan.com/ - too F'n funny!

Amused by the fact that John was so entertained by my finding the Patron Saint of Bacon, I obliged by visiting his bacon blog site. At first glance, there he was: Saint Anthony, Patron Saint of Bacon in all his pork glory. The post starts with praise for friends sending him bacon-related products, then describes my find and that of fellow blogger and friend, Jason. Jason's product was unsuspectingly presented as a link, preceded by "I tried 3 times to explain it, but this guy described it better than I ever could." John heralded it as "the weirdest bacon product EVER," so how could I not have clicked on the link?

Well, I clicked. My browser shrank into a smaller version of itself, and danced around on my desktop. When I attempted to use Task Manager to close Firefox, a pop-up appeared announcing that the fun wasn't over. Try to close the pop-up, and it encouraged me to sing along, displaying the beloved lyrics to "Never Gonna Give You Up." That's right...I got RickRolled.

John showed up in my office minutes later with a smile of satisfaction on his face. He turned to my colleague's desk, reached down to pull up a gadget, pointed it at me, and said "You just got RickRolled." We laughed.

It gets funnier.

His accomplice (another employee who had to stand in for my colleague who was his original partner-in-crime) planted the hidden video camera on my colleague's desk without actually pointing the camera in my direction. Instead of capturing my reaction to getting RickRolled, the video camera recorded about 30 minutes of wall. There was audio, however, and it did manage to capture over 4 minutes of my laughter and frantic clicking of the mouse while the RickRoll music played in the background.

Kudos to John for setting up this elaborate prank. You may have won this battle, my friend - but I'm still winning the war.

Beware the Rickroll

The online phenomenon of Rickrolling has taken a place in the annals of web history. For those of you unfamiliar with the meme, Rickrolling is essentially a bait and switch where a person presents a web link seemingly relevant to the topic at hand. The link, however, leads to the 80's Rick Astley video, "Never Gonna Give You Up."

Apparently Rickrolling originates from the practice of "duckrolling," where a link would point to a peculiar picture of a duck with wheels. Earlier this year, I had read an article mentioning a poll that revealed that 18 million adults in the US had claimed to have been Rickrolled. Since the phenomenon has started, sporting events, radio and TV have Rickrolled unsuspecting spectators. With the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade being televised to millions of viewers this year, that number has multiplied exponentially, I'm sure.

Want to learn how to Rickroll someone, and see someone get Rickrolled? No problem - just check this out.