It might seem strange that such a thing would be considered important to Youtube. If you’ve ever been rickrolled, it’s unlikely that you enjoyed it (at least more than once), or perhaps you’ve rickrolled people yourself. The point is rickrolling was an unusual fad parodying a similar one called duckrolling that swept the internet, though mostly Youtube, a few years ago.
On Youtube’s website is a timeline where all the important events that occurred on Youtube are documented. A brief summary is below, but if you wish to view the whole thing, you can click on the link at the bottom. Youtube was founded in February 2005, and its first video was uploaded in April of that year. The site launched the next month and slowly began to take off. Progress didn’t stay slow, though, because by the end of 2005, Youtube already saw 8 million views a day.
In 2006, there were 100 million views per day, the first advertising concepts came around, and of course, Youtube was purchased by Google for 1.65 billion dollars. 2007 brought the first rickroll, as well as the Youtube Partner Program and the first live debates. As you no doubt don’t need to be told, Youtube has continued to grow to where it is today, with billions of video views every day.