There's a Harmful Way to "Rick Roll" Someone, and the Link Is Making the Rounds

We can all agree that sometimes it's fun to troll people. Not in a bad way, but a friendly harmless way — and the internet is really built on that idea. One of the more popular ways to harmlessly troll someone on the internet is with something called "rickrolling." That prank has been around for a long time, but there's a new one in town, and if you're asking what kekma.ga is, well, it's not quite as harmless as the rick roll.

Rickrolling has been around for a long time and the internet lives for it. It's a way to troll or prank someone that really doesn’t do any harm — other than maybe a bruised ego. What happens in a rick roll is someone clicks on a link they expect to be one thing, only to be met with an unexpected appearance of the music video for the 1987 song "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley. 

Looking at how many views the video for "Never Gonna Give You Up" has racked up over the years, sitting at over 730 million, we're guessing this prank has been used many times. It's a classic, but there's a new type of internet prank around that works the same way, but it's way worse.  

The new way to rick roll someone, but leveled up, is with something called kekma.ga. It's more commonly called Kekma and it is way more sinister than the wholesome rick roll. According to KnowYourMeme, Kekma was created on April 23, 2019, and it's completely "not safe for life" and not safe for work. 

The link has been used in online attacks across several Discord servers and sub-channels across Reddit. The attack has people click the link and they are taken to the site, which is obnoxious and offensive. "The site contains a rapidly flashing NSFL image accompanied by a high-pitched ear rape of a person screaming, as well as an NSFL video in the center of the page," KnowYourMeme explains. 

"Upon opening, the page enters full-screen mode, while an attempt to leave the pages produces a confirmation window, slowing down the exiting process." The videos that plays when the link is clicked is hardcore gore and can be very traumatizing to view.

There have been several instances of attacks where the link gets shared and people are unintentionally viewing offensive and harmful images. One of the first known times the links were widely shared was in the summer and fall of 2019. It was found on several popular channels on YouTube and Discord servers of political YouTubers like Vaush and Donald Trump's YouTube channel. 

In July 2020, Google Trends shows that the site saw a spike in popularity and according to KnowYourMeme, the spike was related back to "meme communities in Eastern Europe and South-East Asia."

For anyone who may be curious about what visiting the link is really like, please don't. The imagery is harmful, and the site makes it very challenging to click away quickly.