The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2025
YouTube rickrolls the internet for its 20th birthday with a creator-built remake
A homepage 'help cut the cake' link lures users into a shot-for-shot Rick Astley remake voiced by 100+ creators — 7M views in 24 hours.
YouTube (Google)
What it had to solve
YouTube wanted its 20th anniversary to drive brand affinity and recall by speaking the native language of its users: rickrolling, the enduring 'gotcha' meme born on the platform itself. The brief also asked the celebration to put creators at the center and to scale a 20-year heritage down to a single must-watch moment.
How it works
YouTube turned 20 in 2025, and its brand team — with agency We Are Social North America — decided the anniversary belonged not to a corporate film but to rickrolling, the bait-and-switch meme born on the platform. The campaign teased a '20th Birthday Party celebration' to lure viewers in, then switched as soon as the iconic drum fill hit.
The centerpiece was a minute-long special version of Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up', recreated shot-for-shot with a 'sentence-mix' of clips from over 100 of YouTube's most influential creators: creator voices form the lyrics, and their bodies replace the dancers, bartenders and trench-coated Rick of the original video. MrBeast, Emma Chamberlain, Psy and Justin Bieber marked different eras of the platform, and Rick Astley himself appears in a cameo wishing YouTube a happy birthday.
The bait-and-switch was a real interaction, not just a video: a link on YouTube's homepage asked people to click to 'help cut the cake', and the viewing experience carried a custom '20' animation on the like button. The execution had to clear real hurdles — matching every word and beat with existing creator footage, clearing rights, and getting creators on board with being featured in the remake.
According to the team's Shorty Awards entry, the main video drew more than 7 million views in its first 24 hours, 330,000+ likes and 57,000+ comments, and performed 1,010.94% above benchmark after 30 days, with comments praising it as 'the best YouTube rewind that's come out in years'. At the 30th annual Webby Awards in April 2026, the campaign won Brand Strategy in Advertising, Media & PR.
Why it lands
- Rickrolling is the platform's own meme, so the prank is authentic brand voice rather than borrowed internet culture.
- The bait — a homepage invitation to cut a birthday cake — turns every click into a shared joke the user played on themselves.
- Rebuilding the video from 100+ creators' clips makes the 'gotcha' double as a celebration of creator history.
- Shot-for-shot fidelity plus a real cameo from Rick Astley gave the remake the craft and legitimacy a plain meme repost would lack.
What it did
The main video passed 7 million views in its first 24 hours with more than 330,000 likes and 57,000 comments, and performed 1,010.94% above benchmark views after 30 days, according to the team's Shorty Awards entry; ancillary meme content kept the moment running across YouTube's social channels. In April 2026 the 30th Webby Awards gave the campaign the Brand Strategy award in Advertising, Media & PR.
What you can take
For a platform birthday, use the house joke: bait viewers with an innocent link, deliver the internet's most famous bait-and-switch, and let creators star in the 'gotcha'.
Since then
The 20th-birthday rickroll became one of YouTube's highest-performing content moments of the year, with 7M+ first-day views and ancillary social posts that tapped further memes; the campaign also activated a partnership with Rick Astley himself. The team framed it alongside other creator-centered anniversary work such as a 1 Trillion Views celebration on Roblox, and in April 2026 the Webby jury named it the winner of Brand Strategy at the 30th annual awards. It became a reference point for community-first platform anniversaries.
Sources
- YouTube Rickrolls The Internet: YouTube's 20th Birthday (18th Shorty Awards entry)
- YouTube Rickrolls uns zum 20. Geburtstag
- The advertising, media, and PR award winners from the 30th annual Webby Awards
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