1981: Rickrolling Anniversary

[suso]

Alt text: Want to feel old? The 'want to feel old?' factoid meme dates back to around 2011, closer to the Bush/Kerry election than to today.

Missed opportunity: Saving this one for comic #1987

On a side note, we had an XKCD meetup this past weekend and Randall showed up. Here are some of the photos from the event.

[Soupspoon]

He's wrong, anyway. I say it goes back to 2006 if you count comic 87 and others that precede Randall's own probable assertion of 891 as the start of these things.

Ah, and I see someone has put something almost like that (one single factoid is still enough, in my book) in the latest explainxkcd description too. Great minds think alike! (Fools never differ.)

[cellocgw]

From now on I'm going to do the "Classical Rickroll" by linking to Pachelbel .

[SuicideJunkie]

He's wrong, anyway. I say it goes back to 2006 if you count comic 87 and others that precede Randall's own probable assertion of 891 as the start of these things.

Seems a bit pessimistic (or would that be optimistic?) to say that the peak was the start...

Hipster! That's the term. You're saying it peaked before it became popular.

[flicky1991]

Seems a bit pessimistic (or would that be optimistic?) to say that the peak was the start...

Hipster! That's the term. You're saying it peaked before it became popular.

But Soupspoon is talking about the "Want to feel old?" meme, which Randall described with "dates back to", rather than Rickrolling which was what "peaked".

[Soupspoon]

Correct. (Although I also had been a sort of hipster, before it became a boringly commonplace thing to be.)

[stilettoblade]

Here are some of the photos from the event.

And that looks like an excellent event, too bad I couldn't be there.

[teelo]

Time to move in with my auntie and uncle in bel air.

[suso]

Here are some of the photos from the event.

And that looks like an excellent event, too bad I couldn't be there.

Indeed. Randall said that the silver wagon they used in the race we had was part of an experiment they worked on at NASA. Pretty cool.

[fibonacci]

Cheer up! At least you didn't lose the game.

[gormster]

Obviously not clicking any links in this thread.

[Plasma Mongoose]

Never Gonna Give Your Teen Spirit Up - A Nirvana/Rick Astley fusion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN75im_us4k

[Raidri]

Here are some of the photos from the event.

And that looks like an excellent event, too bad I couldn't be there.

Copyright laws to the rescue (in Germany) ...

The uploader has not made this video available in your country.

[svenman]

Here's a topically oddly fitting manip I'd recently posted over in the xkcdsw thread:

Spoiler:

Image based on xkcd comic 1931 "Virtual Assistant" with graphic elements from xkcd comic 442 "xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel", both by Randall Munroe and published under CC-BY-NC 2.5. Text and image modified by myself, modified image also published under CC-BY-NC 2.5.

[qvxb]

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

As good a course of action today as it was two thousand years ago.

[The Chosen One]

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

As good a course of action today as it was two thousand years ago.

Thanks for the sage advice, dad, but my vintage meme collection makes me happy and I won't allow you to shame me for it!

[rmsgrey]

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

As good a course of action today as it was two thousand years ago.

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - C.S. Lewis

[Soupspoon]

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

As good a course of action today as it was two thousand years ago.

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - C.S. Lewis

"Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know." - Marx.

[Jorpho]

Never Gonna Give Your Teen Spirit Up - A Nirvana/Rick Astley fusion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN75im_us4k

I quite like Roboroll'd, myself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ8xce9HtD8

I understand someone managed to get Mitsuda (the Chrono Trigger composer) on the record as saying that it's all just a coincidence.

[bantler]

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

As good a course of action today as it was two thousand years ago.

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - C.S. Lewis

The classic battle between Bible and Pedo.

[water_moon]

RE: the feeling older comic is from 2011.

I love that one, I still refer to it, though I've taken to updating it. I find it has a lot of resonance with people, or at least those over the age of 12ish.
One I got to add last year was:
"Toy Story came out closer to Watergate than the present day."

Not sure which age group that was supposed to affect, but it rattled all of the people at Christmas between the ages of 20 and 67. Hehe.....

[jello34543]

The original (well, probably not) "You want to feel old" meme: With 100% less Rick Astley

[rmsgrey]

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

As good a course of action today as it was two thousand years ago.

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - C.S. Lewis

The classic battle between Bible and Pedo.

a) You're probably thinking of Lewis Carroll, not C. S. Lewis
b) Lewis Carroll's supposed paedophilia is still an open question for Carroll scholars - apparently most of the evidence put forward in support of the theory is either speculation ("the page of his diary covering this date is missing, so it must have been his record of proposing to Alice Liddell!"), since debunked (claims that Dodgson had no interest in women coming from his family having suppressed mention of more scandalous (by the standards of the day) relationships with adult women rather than those relationships not having existed), or broadly applicable to large sections of Victorian society (child nudes being a staple of the day with no prurient implications). The current situation seems to be that there's no smoking gun to show his interest in girls was unsavoury, but there are gaps in the record meaning it's not possible to prove it wasn't.

[Mikeski]

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
As good a course of action today as it was two thousand years ago.

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - C.S. Lewis

Or, as interpreted by xkcd.

[Wee Red Bird]

The classic battle between Bible and Pedo.

You make that sound like an "either or" when many, including those teaching how to follow the former, have chosen both.

I suppose it comes down to some believing in the old line that to have morals you have to follow a particular religion. And therefore everyone following that religion must have morals. It fails on both premises.

[Wee Red Bird]

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
As good a course of action today as it was two thousand years ago.

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - C.S. Lewis

Or, as interpreted by xkcd.

Balls for ballpits are so expensive. Then again, I've never tried shopping for an industrial quantity of them before.

How often does the average play area clean their ball pit and do they have an automatic washer, or do them by hand?
More likely they only clean barf contaminated areas and only give a proper clean when there is a jobby alert.

[Eternal Density]

I'm pretty sure the concept of the "want to feel old?" meme predates the concept of memes.

Also I'm surprised the Westworld Season 2 Primer incident from a few weeks ago hasn't come up yet. https://youtu.be/W7oeROkyPgs?t=1m30s

[DanAxtell]

Alt text: Want to feel old? The 'want to feel old?' factoid meme dates back to around 2011, closer to the Bush/Kerry election than to today.

XKCD #1891 is the latest example of the “Closer-in-time-to” submeme of the "Comics-to-make-one-feel-old” meme (aka “Want-to-feel-old?”), so I’m posting this important XKCD milestone news here.

Ameritrade has a video web ad of two 40-something guys and one says, “I'm closer to my retirement days than I am my college days.”

The meme is now mainstream as of July 2018.

I saw it on Yahoo Finance's video programming. I don’t know how to properly cite it or even how to see it again.

Edit: I found this link to the ad. This is for documentation; it's not an endorsement!

Edit Edit: And I just realized that the speaker has a round, shaven head. I wonder if the ad really is an allusion to Cueball.