The Grand Thef Auto franchise is one of those sagas that last forever in the video game industry. The care and affection that Rockstar has for this saga (not obviously the disastrous GTA Trilogy) has been so great that each game that has come out of this delivery has aimed to break all kinds of records, as has happened with GTA 5 which has become the second best-selling title in the entire history of the industry, only behind Minecraft.

But this time we will talk about one of the most adult deliveries and especially loved by the most staunch fans of the franchise: Grand Theft Auto 4 . Niko Belllic’s journey through Liberty City and the spiral of pain and sadness in which he is involved has made him the most painful game of the entire saga, with moments that we will be recorded by posterity. But did you know that The presentation of this title brought with it one of the most beloved and hated memes of all the brief history of the Internet ? We talk about nothing more and nothing less than the Rick Roll , the most representative internet joke of the last 20 years.

A highly anticipated trailer and a Rick Astley’s fan user

It was more than 15 years ago, specifically on March 29, 2007 , when Rockstar said we could see the first advance of his next game: GTA 4 . Throughout the day, Rockstar launched this first glance of the fourth installment of its most famous live franchise, causing the fallen from the site that would be supposed to show the trailer due to the huge amount players who longed to see this special event. The link , like other online places, was also shared by an unknown user in the online forum 4chan , specifically in the video game thread.

GTA
However, the link that this user shared through 4Chan, instead of taking fans to the teaser trailer of the adventures of Niko Belllic, the redirected the successful song of Rick Astley in 1987 entitled Never Gonna Give You UP . And what at first seemed to be a presentation with millions of excited players seeing what Rockstar had reserved with GTA 4, ended up being a joke of unmatched proportions. This joke, as expected,*

The song that became an internet anthem

There are many content creators who, throughout this decade, have fallen into the Rick Roll, almost all unintentionally and because of their subscribers. But the best of all is that Rick Astley himself takes this meme and hugs it with forcefulness, even being rickrolleado for the same during a conversation with a member of the FOX, according to La Him’s daughter.

The successful Song of the 80s achieved more than 61 million visits before Youtube was eliminated in 2012 for a copyright claim. However, these problems would be solved and only two years later, in 2014, it would reach more than 71 million visits. Today, as of May 2022, this video has obtained the a whopping amount of more than 1.2 billion visits , a large majority of these from trolls or jokes who want to keep the fans of Marvel, DC or Star Wars. Long life to Rick Astley.