No break during my shift tonight. But at least I have (lemon) chicken
Month: August 2016
My Father, the YouTube Star
My
dad makes enough in each month’s ad revenues to take my mom out for a
nice lunch. Making the clips is a lot of work. The two of them test each
recipe a half-dozen times before committing it to film. Dad is behind
the camera and editing the footage; it’s usually my mom’s hands
demonstrating. They don’t speak in the videos. They say they’re
embarrassed by their spoken English and feel more comfortable using
onscreen text, in Chinese and English, for instruction. Writing and
translating this adds several more hours of work.“Why?” I asked during one of our weekly phone conversations. “Do you want a show on the Food Network or something?”
“You
really want to know?” my dad asked in Chinese. “Your mom’s
great-grandmother used to cook amazing Shanghainese food for her. She
would dream about it. But when your mom was finally old enough to ask
for the recipes, her great-grandmother had already developed dementia.
She couldn’t even remember cooking those dishes. The only thing your mom
had left was the memory of her taste. We’re afraid that if you wanted
to eat your childhood dishes, and one day we’re both no longer around,
you wouldn’t know how to cook it.”
First we had Rickrolling.
Then we had reverse Rickrolling, where you trick people into thinking they’re about to be Rickrolled, but it’s really something else.
Then we had post-reverse Rickrolling, where you set up what looks like a reverse Rickroll, and folks are pleasantly surprised to find that no, it’s actually just a Rickroll.
What’s next?
A compilation of further variants from the asks, tags and notes:
The Wrongroll: Tricking someone into watching the video component of “Never Gonna Give You Up”, accompanied by different and wildly inappropriate audio (e.g., Rick Astley performs “Down With the Sickness”).
The Teamroll: Making a post that looks like it’s going to be a Rickroll, but isn’t, then having an accomplice post a comment that contains the actual Rickroll.
The Bait-and-Switchroll: Posting a different obnoxious meme (e.g., “JOHN CENA”), which is interrupted by or segues into a conventional Rickroll (e.g., you have now been Rickrolled by John Cena).
The Interrupted Rickroll: The reverse of the preceding entry; it starts out as a Rickroll, which is interrupted by or segues into a different obnoxious meme.
The Counter-Post-Reverse Rickroll: Tricking someone into thinking you’re trying to trick them into believing they’re about to be Rickrolled, then reverse Rickrolling them anyway. (Extended variants of this type are omitted for brevity.)
The Pseudoroll: Linking to a different song by Rick Astley.