Because the majority of my students fall between the ages of eighteen to twenty, I spend a fair amount of time on YouTube and Websites oriented towards that young adult demographic, so I can get a bit of a handle on what is popular in that age group. I’d watch television, but I just can’t stomach American Idol and its ilk, and the radio on my stereo — like so many parts of it — just isn’t working that well right now. I really need to catch up book-wise, though; I still haven’t read any Harry Potter, and so many of my creative writing students are fans of Chuck Palahniuk that I feel obligated to read at least a couple of his books. Anyway, on the balance I find myself more aware of certain Internet fads than my students — I had to explain to one class last semester what LOLcats were — which is probably a sign that I shouldn’t spend so much time researching this stuff on the Internet. (Hey, it’s free, it’s readily available, and I have an itchy mouse finger if I ever find something truly revolting.)

I had certainly taken note of rickrolling when it started a while ago, and yes, I’ve been hit by it more times than I care to count. It had seemed that it was a fad that had run its course long, long ago, but when Cartoon Network rickrolled the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade last year, all of a sudden I heard people who had declared rickrolling blasé long ago say it was the greatest thing ever. Since then I’ve been wondering just why so many Internet people switched tunes on the Thanksgiving rickroll; certainly it was rickrolling on a scale that no one could have ever anticipated happening, but there was something more to it than that. Perhaps Cartoon Network gets a pass because of their image thanks to stuff like the Adult Swim block and their other cult shows (Powerpuff Girls‘ tenth anniversary, anyone?), or because rickrolling such a huge event as the parade was truly unexpected, or because they actually brought Rick Astley out instead of just cutting to the "Never Gonna Give You Up" video. Whatever the case, none of my students last term brought it up, so I never mentioned it to them; the last thing I need is to seem even less cool than I already am (which is to say, not cool at all).

That being said, Nancy Pelosi rickrolling everyone on her YouTube account … no. Just no. This is why you leave political comedy to the masters like Stephen Colbert and Rick Mercer; very few politicians know how to make jokes, particularly in relation to their own work and images. President Obama manages it well, which may make his presidency more bearable to watch these next few years, but he is one in a million here in America. (Seriously, everyone should watch Canadian political comedy television shows and see how much better both the comedians and the politicians are up there.) Pelosi inserting a rickroll into an already banal video smacks of a bad joke told months after everyone stopped caring about the joke in the first place. I know the Democratic press ate this up with a spoon, calling it yet another sign of good change in Washington, but I just shook my head when I heard of it and wondered if we could President Obama to write the Democrats’ jokes for the next four years. He’s got more important stuff to do right now, though.