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300 Drones Formed a QR Code That Rick Rolled Dallas on April Fools' Day (dallasobserver.com) 40

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Internet fads come and go faster than a hiccup, but one that's somehow lasted almost as long as the internet itself is the "Rick roll." From a report: The term refers to an online prank in which the "Rick rollee" receives a URL address and it leads them to the music video for singer Rick Astley's hit debut single "Never Gonna Give You Up." The opening synthed "doo-de-doo-doo-doo-doo" has created more grins and eye rolls than when the song scored an ungodly amount of airplay in 1987. Sky Elements Drone Shows found a way to Rick roll a sizable portion of the city for April Fools' Day with 300 of its customizable drones by forming a QR code in the sky that linked to Astley's music video.
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300 Drones Formed a QR Code That Rick Rolled Dallas on April Fools' Day More

300 Drones Formed a QR Code That Rick Rolled Dallas on April Fools' Day

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  • Rick Astley is never gonna give us up. (Score:3)

    by Kremmy ( 793693 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @03:14PM (#62420414)
    And we'll never give him up, either.
    • The editor probably meant Web. Rick's signature song predates the Web, but is a generation too late for the birth of the Internet. CERN and DARPA are both sinister organizations, so I can understand the confusion.

      • No.

        The editor probably meant Web.

        It continues to amaze me how many people (still) equate the Internet and the Web -- or disk and RAM.
        ... Guess they're never gonna give that up ... :-)

        • Not sure I would be amazed... the web as a subcomponent of the internet isn't a concept that anybody else in my family is familiar with. Now if my mother told me she was using IRC, that would be amazing. I'd be blown away if my sister used Usenet.

          I got my first internet connection in 1992. I tried for years to tell my family how this was going to change everything. But as long as it was telnet, gopher, et al it never intruded meaningfully in their lives.

          • The Internet (TCP/IP) started in 1974.

            The Web started in 1993.

            Rick Rolling as a meme started in 2006.

          • My mother once referred to her PC tower as the "modem", which led to a bunch of confusion until she actually pointed at it.

            I had been on the internet since 1982 or so. But I never got my own paid for ISP until around 2000 or so. But for a couple of years I did have a free dial up that I only used once a year to file taxes online. The rest of the time I had good internet at work ro school, so just donwload the files I need onto floppy disks and take them home, more convenient than waiting a few days to ge

        • I even had a computer person who was programming mainframes and minis for over a decade did not believe me at first that I was accessing the Internet before the invention of the WEB. The number of people who used GOPHER, USENET and other services were limited compared to the flood gates that Mosaic WWW opened.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by quenda ( 644621 )

            There was a brief period between the Eternal September of 1993, and wide adoption of Mosaic/Netscape, when millions of ordinary people joined internet-based services without WWW.

            But is it really "internet" if they are accessing Usenet, using their home PC as a terminal to access a BBS?
            Usenet, like email, does not require internet (tcp/ip).

          • There were the other non-AP networks ars well, SPANNET had a wide spread virus before the big Internet/Morris Worm that caught the world's attention. IP won out eventually and all the other types of systems sort of either faded away or adapted once the machines they ran on started having IP support. Windows and Macs seemed like the last holdouts.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by cusco ( 717999 )

              There was a portion of the Internet that used SPX/IPX, my boss used to access Novell that way apparently.

        • How many here recognizes the arpanet map?

    • Old school /. users will remember goatse DOT cx links being deceptively posted here long before rick rolling was a thing.

      • Never got caught on that one, but did by another image. At the time it was a mix of "urgh, wash my eyes out" along with "how the hell did that suddenly display all at once when all the other pictures on the network take a 5 minute download that slowly fills from top to bottom?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kremmy ( 793693 )
          Even in the wee early years the Internet was learning and adapting, it could tell that people were excited about sharing those images and optimized itself for delivering it. We still haven't fully recognized the sentience in the network, but it's there...

  • it didn't work (Score:5, Funny)

    by shadowrat ( 1069614 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @03:20PM (#62420442)
    is anyone else bothered that the link, Never Gonna Give You Up [youtu.be], in the summary just takes you to some youtube of a guy talking about the stunt. It doesn't even take you to rick astley? none of the links do! wtf is that about?

    • That's a Zen level Rickroll.

    • Also, on Youtube, if you don't have ad blocking stuff, you sit through a couple ads first, giving you plenty of time to read the title of the video and cancel it before it plays.

    • My phone, pointed at screen, took me to a Youtube vid of the song, but it wasn't mid song, it was at the start, so... not a proper Rick Roll in my understanding.

      Still, funny and well played, I'll give them that.

    • Damn you!

      Well played, good sir.

  • Advertising Done Right (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nugatory78 ( 971318 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @03:21PM (#62420444)
    Personally, I think this is about the best possible advertising for Sky Elements Drone Shows. Its a bunch of fun, that generates a lot of news.

    I really hope this doesn't start becoming a new "normal" way of advertising. Unfortunately I think its going to be effective (it made the news), so others will imitate.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jmccue ( 834797 )

      This, even though I think this is real cool and lots of fun, I would have ignored this. Why, malware, I would have no idea where that would send me.

      But yes, I can see this being used for ads, but in large cities I can see them require permits for this type of activity if this becomes common place.

      Remember what happened in Boston years ago.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_panic

    • I have a foreboding, and that's after thinking about it for a couple of minutes. There are going to be a lot of people in mktg/sales who will think long and hard about the advantages of getting 50-100K+ crowds all clicking on the same link at once.

      At least til peeps get annoyed at QR DOS attacks, I guess.

    • Maybe it's going to be the new normal of distributing malware to the gullible street walkers of Dallas?

    • Imagine a future where even the skies have been taken over for advertising. "Hey, kids! Let's go outside and look at that new comet [or planetary conjunction]!....Oh, shit!"

  • Internet fads come and go faster than a hiccup, but one that's somehow lasted almost as long as the internet itself is the "Rick roll."

    Can I assume that the article was written by a 10-year-old?

    • Back in my day we duck-rolled people with skywritten URLs, and we liked it that way.
    • Not only hasn't it lasted almost as long as the internet has existed, but neither has the fad lasted almost as long as the song existed. Gosh...

  • Simply brilliant! (Score:3)

    by BishopBerkeley ( 734647 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @03:27PM (#62420464) Journal

    I wish I were there.

  • If they'd photographed it straight on, then anyone scanning the story photo could've also been rickrolled; but alas.

  • This is epic, but... (Score:3)

    by presidenteloco ( 659168 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @04:12PM (#62420584)
    Elon Musk, can you do better with your astronomically annoying shiny starlink satellite constellation?

  • sky codes (Score:3)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Tuesday April 05, 2022 @05:02PM (#62420730)

    Anyone willing to scan a drone based QR code fully deserves a Rick Roll or much worse.

  • I appreciate the classic joke, but I cant be the only one a little concerned that people will just snap a QR code and go to where ever it links to without a second thought. I understand that most decent apps will give you the URL before you open the page but I also feel like its very easy to trick users or set up a MIM attack. The ad from the superb owl also raises similar concerns regarding IT security.

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