Friday, July 16, 2010

Internet meme

"X"ing is an Internet meme typically involving the music video for the 1987 song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a bait and switch: a person provides a web link that they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the video. The URL can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true destination of the link without clicking. When a person clicks on the link and is led to the web page, he or she is said to have been "X"-ed. The song may have been favored for this use by those regarding it as the worst popular song of all time. "X"ing has extended beyond Web links to playing the video or song disruptively in other situations, including public places; this culminated when the song made a surprise appearance in the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, a televised event with tens of millions of viewers.

x = What term?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

rick roll

(dude this is peter, too many times!)

Aravindh K said...

Sorry. Didn't realize it was a repeat.