4Chan Founder Testifies in Palin Email Case, Tells Court What A "Rickroll" Is
Posted by Joshua_Kopstein on Thursday, Aug 19, 2010
Back in 2008, a hacker from the infamous anonymous image board 4chan managed to gain access to the email account of former Vice Presidential candidate (and not very cunning linguist) Sarah Palin. Naturally, they’ve made a federal case of it, and the site’s founder, Chris Poole (aka m00t) is now being asked to testify in the trial of David Kernell, the man who hacked the email account of the United States’ most famous soccer mom.
But the line of questioning was… a little odd, to say the least. Reading the transcript below, it seems that both the prosecution and the defense were primarily concerned with deciphering the meaning of 4chan’s special brand of memes and internet slang. One particularly hilarious bit involves m00t explaining what a ‘Rickroll’ is to a seemingly baffled court inquirer.
Q: “Rickroll”?
A: Rickroll is a meme or Internet kind of trend that started on 4chan where users — it basically a bait and switch. Users link you to a video of Rick Astley performing Never Gonna Give You Up
Q: And the term “rickroll” you said it tries to make people go to a site where they think it is going to be one thing, but it is a video of Rick Astley, is that right?
A: Yes
Q: He was some kind of singer?
A: Yes
Q: It’s a joke?
A: Yes
See the entire transcript in all its lulzy glory here, and see more of m00t and other interweb celebs in our documentary on ROFLcon, the world’s first convention for internet memes and culture.
We submit the following as evidence:
Filed under:
About the author
Electronic musician and computer culture journalist. Contact: josh ◢at◣ motherboard ◐dot◑ tv
