What links Rick Astley, Bazil from Star Wars: The Acolyte, and the Justice League Snyder Cut? The iron will of the internet, for better or worse

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Earlier this week, there was a brief panic when one of the internet’s favorite videos was seemingly removed by YouTube; thankfully, whatever the problem was, it’s been sorted out and we can all enjoy Rick Astley singing about never going to give us up once again, but the whole thing got me thinking about… well, the collective hive mind of the internet.

The Good

It’ll come as no surprise to anyone who lived through the '80s — or, for that matter, has just heard the song — but the love for Rick Astley’s 1987 hit has very little to do with the song itself, and instead, its position as the punchline of what might be the prime meme, the Rickroll. (Surely you didn’t need that link as explanation, but still.) The Rickroll is a work of art in its simplicity, stupidity, and hilarity; there’s not a lot of backstory or explanation needed — you either get the joke, or you don’t, and that only became funnier the longer the Rickroll was around, and the more ubiquitous it became.

The Rickroll is one of those internet things that can provoke almost utopian belief in the concept of online culture as a whole; something that achieved critical mass as a result of so many people getting it in such a way that it became inescapable, and a thing unto itself. It’s far from the only such thing that the internet has given us, and every generation — or quasi-generation, given how fragmented and fractionalized culture has become — has their own, a shared language that can be impenetrable to anyone else. When viewed from the right angle, these kinds of memes are a sign that the internet has found a way to bring people together for something approaching, if not the greater good, then at least something close to a communal happiness.

The Bad

And then, there’s the flip side of that. I watch, with no particular joy, at the number of online complaint mobs forming whenever confronted with something that refuses to confirm pre-existing biases: fans complaining about The Acolyte for any number of reasons from “the episodes are too short” to “that’s not the way that Jedi act,” or people complaining that the entire management of Warner Bros. Discovery should be fired because Our Flag Means Death was cancelled, comic book readers decrying that the version of almost any character isn’t the same as they were when they were 12 years old, and so long. It’s not really the vitriol that gets me, as much as the self-righteousness, and the belief that because something is a problem to them specifically, it’s something that has to be fixed.

The archetypal form of this is, of course, the Snyder Cut campaign for Warner Bros’ Justice League that… against all odds… actually succeeded. Never mind the fact that there was a confluence of events that drove the studios’ decision to release a Zack Snyder cut on Max that will likely never, ever be repeated — how often does a major studio launch a streaming service that needs a high profile anchor to draw in subscriptions, only to realize that it already has one that is mostly finished, after all? — the fact that it succeeded has forever fueled the belief of anyone mounting an online campaign that they, too, will be heard and win, because their cause is just as… well, just.

The Definitely Not Ugly

It’s the yin/yang of the internet, I know, but it feels like it’s come to some sort of peak this week at a time when people memorialize the Rickroll — thankfully too early — and celebrities who make their living in part due to the geek dollar are writing about the need for geek culture to die. It feels as if we’ve slipped off too hard to the negative side of things, and need some kind of corrective measure to regain… look, I’m not not going to say balance, but it’s really not meant as a Star Wars riff this time. Maybe we can convince Lucasfilm to get Bazil the Tracker from The Acolyte to make a new version of ‘Never Gonna Give You Up,’ do you think? After all, who could resist this guy?

Turn back the clock 100 years before the earliest Star Wars movie and enter the era of the Disney+ series The Acolyte. We have everything you need from guides on the cast, the episodes (and their release dates), it's not-for-kids rating, where it fits in the Star Wars timeline, how the show asks who 'deserves' to use the Force, as well as bigger picture things such as a complete Star Wars watch order, and a comprehensive guide to the Star Wars timeline, and all the upcoming Star Wars movies & TV shows on the horizon.