Rick Rolled

How to unlock Rick Rolled in Cheevos, click through to the classic Rick Astley video. Worth 10 XP.

The story

Partner. You clicked the link. You knew, probably. You clicked anyway.

Cache has had this particular video in the Stash since 2007. It has been used as bait, as a joke, as a surprise dropped into an unsuspecting link, for so long that most of the internet knows the trick before they fall for it. Cache finds this genuinely delightful rather than tiresome.

The same piece of media, doing the same job, for close to two decades, and it still works often enough that people keep using it. That kind of staying power is exactly what Cache collects for. He does not care that it is a joke. A joke that has lasted seventeen years is itself a primary source, worth preserving the same way he preserves anything else that refused to disappear.

You landed on the video. Maybe you saw it coming from three links away. Maybe you had no idea until the first notes started. Either way, it is logged now, filed in the section Cache reserves for treasures that are, technically, also traps.

The catalog entry

THE ROLL Acquired: Navigated to the Rick Astley video. Condition: Never gonna be given up. Rarity: SECRET. Technically a trap. Cache's Notes: Cache has had this video in the Stash since 2007. It is in the SECRET TREASURES section. He finds it genuinely delightful that this specific piece of media has been used as a surprise for seventeen years and still works. You clicked the link. Maybe you knew. Maybe you did not. Either way, the video is a primary source. The roll has been logged. Into the bag. We're no strangers to love.

Spoiler: how to unlock it

This one is a classic prank link, and the achievement fires the moment the page loads.

  1. Follow any link that claims to lead somewhere else entirely.
  2. Land on Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" music video on YouTube.
  3. That's it. Arriving at the video's URL is the whole trigger, whether you watch it or close the tab immediately.

A rickroll is one of the internet's longest-running bait-and-switch pranks: a link is disguised as something else, usually something relevant or urgent, and instead leads to the 1987 Rick Astley music video. It started circulating widely around 2007 and has never really stopped, partly because the joke has become self-aware, people click knowing exactly what they are about to see. Cheevos tracks the video's actual YouTube URL, so the achievement recognizes the genuine rickroll rather than just any music video.

Where it fits in the Stash

The SECRET TREASURES section holds the items Cache loves precisely because they are jokes that refused to die. Rick Rolled sits there permanently, never gonna be moved. To meet the raccoon who has kept this one running since 2007, read the story.