Good news, Mets fans: Those of you who are, like me, personally offended at the way the Shea Stadium PA takes “inspiration” from Fenway Park and plays “Sweet Caroline” for the whole stadium to sing along with in the middle of the eighth inning may have a reprieve. Like the Nationals before them, the Mets have launched a balloting campaign where Mets fans can vote on their pick for the eighth-inning singalong, with the candidates including “Movin’ Out,” “Livin’ On A Prayer,” the theme from freaking Friends, and (sigh) “Sweet Caroline.” Given my intimate knowledge of the Mets’ demographics, I was pretty sure that “Movin’ Out” would be the winner of this particular contest–that is, until I received an e-mail with the subject line “RickRolling Shea Stadium.”
Yes, that’s right: Some enterprising group of Internet dudes is planning on bombarding the write-in section of the ballot box with votes for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” thus pounding the Rickrolling trend even further into the ground than the New York Times did. But even knowing that the joke of Rickrolling is pretty much over, I love this idea the more that I think about it. It works on a personal level, because Rick Astley was a girlhood crush of mine and I’ve been a Mets fan for even longer. Plus, not only would it sound awesome over the PA system, and not only is “Never Gonna Give You Up” better than pretty much any other choice on the ballot (”Brown Eyed Girl”? Oh, come on), the chorus sums up any true fan’s feelings about their favorite team–
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
–especially given that I’m still believing after last September’s epic collapse and all, and not just because of the Santana acquisition. So I’m going to join the herd and cast my vote for Rick, yesterday’s-memeness of it all be damned. And! I’m going to Tuesday’s Opening Day tilt between the Mets and the Phillies (Pedro was supposed to pitch, but now it’s Oliver Perez instead, which I’m disappointed about but ultimately 100% OK with), so I will report back on who won as soon as the top of the eighth is over. I have to say, I will be right pissed if “Caroline” comes out of the speakers.
8th Inning Sing-A-Long Vote [mets.com via Radio Exile]
[Mr. Met photo via AP]
Read about this on Fark.com this morning, and immediately cast my ballot. Can’t wait for the results.
Rickrolling is OVER? Nobody told me. I still think it’s hilarious.
@Lucas Jensen:
Not knowing rickrolling is over is SO two days ago in the morning/just before noon.
I’m still waiting for someone to do a live rickroll on Idol (or at least at the audition stage)…I also just cast my ballot.
If we as the viewing public had the opportunity to get Rick-Rolled on live television every time David Archuleta begins another unfortunate “performance”, well, then I’d lend my vote to keep this trend around just a few more weeks.
Have any Rick Astley works come up for downloadable content in Guitar Hero / Rock Band? If not, GET ON IT, Harmonix.
@Lucas Jensen: I didn’t know either. Does that mean this gag is “retro”?
i had to explain what rickrolling was to my wife today. and she claims to be “hip” which is probably my first clue that she’s not.
@HONEYBFLY: i wonder how hard it would be to get a device capable of playing loud enough to at least rickroll archuleta’s judge review into the building. hmmmm.
As somebody already noted in these pages, there’s a reason Nick Lowe rhymed ‘Astley’ with ‘Ghastly.’
I don’t have any power over what cornball memes dorks on the internet flog until they’re well past their sell-by date, but if I did, I’d hereby decree that Rickrolling would instantly be supplanted by Billyrolling.
@natepatrin: One of the greatest videos of all time, for so many horrible, horrible reasons. When I was a pre-teen and first saw this video, my friends and I thought it was an ingenious idea that when we were older we would put our beds that close to the bedroom door, so the magic could happen quite quickly!
@natepatrin: man i love this song too. the alt-rock staples of this early decade are really missing billy squier’s willingness to go balls-out, don’t you think?
Unfortunately, MLB.com has taken down the target page of the survey… no more fun for us.
@cortana: it just worked for me!
I believe the contest was to be over by noon today (did the Mets tip their hand that their interactive agency is actually in California when the site was still open after noon?) so we’ll know soon enough, but nowhere did they promise to use the winner of the voting. I’m still holding out hope that it’s “I Came to Make a Bang!”
Some of us are getting late into this thread. Is this Operation Chaos?