Noun: "(Internet slang) a bait-and-switch Internet prank involving the sharing of a link that leads to a picture of a duck on wheels instead of what is claimed"
2007, Rob Gordon, quoted in Tom Dalzell & Terry Victor, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2015), unnumbered page:
Its origins can be traced to 4chan, where there existed previously a fad called “duckrolling”: claiming a link has something interesting or amusing in its target thread (on 4chan) but which turns out to be a thread with an initial “duckroll” image.
2011, Cole Stryker, Epic Win for Anonymous: How 4chan's Army Conquered the Web, pages 60:
Duckroll became a silly prank meme when 4chan users started linking their friends to an ostensibly cool site, only to be met with a picture of a duck on wheels with the word duckroll written on it.
2012, Ursula Murray Husted, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way from the Forum: The Life and Death of Internet Memes", thesis submitted to the University of Minnesota, page 120:
The Duckroll surfaced in the random designated /b/ subforum of 4chan in 2006.
2015, Jamie Bartlett, The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld, page 251:
Examples of bait-and-switch images and videos include The Hampster Dance, Duckroll, Rickroll, […]
2022, Carlos Avitia-Velazquez & Javier Avitia-Velazquez, Curb Children, unnumbered page:
When you've been around to witness Rickrolling go from a forced-meme variant of the traditional 4chan Duckroll to having Rick Astley himself sing “Never Gonna Give You Up,” unannounced and on live national television, during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade last year, it's hard to ignore how crucial the 4chan-spawned Anonymous “Hivemind” has been to the development of internet culture since its inception six years ago.
Before it was know as rickrolling, it was known as duckrolling, which is the same thing, but instead of going to the Astley video, you end up looking at a picture of a duck with wheels. At that point it is said that you have been "duckrolled".
