Rick Astley‘s 1987 single “Never Gonna Give You Up” has surpassed 1 billion views on YouTube.
“1 BILLION views for Never Gonna Give You Up on @YouTube ! Amazing, crazy, wonderful!” Astley tweeted in celebration.
In an accompanying clip, he says, “I’ve jus been told that ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ has been streamed a billion times on YouTube. That is mind-blowing. The world is a wonderful and beautiful place and I am very lucky.”
As part of the celebration of reaching the billion views milestone, Astley plans to release a limited-edition 7″ blue vinyl single. Only 2,500 copies will be released, with each vinyl numbered and personally signed by the singer.
In recent years, the hit single has become part of the meme culture thanks to the viral Rickrolling prank.
Rickrolling is a prank and an Internet meme involving an unexpected appearance of the music video for “Never Gonna Give You Up”. The meme is a type of bait and switch using a disguised hyperlink that leads to the music video.
When victims click on a seemingly unrelated link, the site with the music video loads instead of what was expected, and in doing so they are said to have been “Rickrolled.”
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