Rickrolling is a descendant of an older Internet joke called duckrolling. A Web site or blog post would offer a link to something popular  say celebrity photos or video gaming news  that led unsuspecting viewers to a bizarre image of a duck on wheels.

Image Davin Perry, dressed as the singer Rick Astley, performed before a basketball game with an Astley hit from 1987. Credit... Pawl TV, via YouTube

For rickrolling, the duck was replaced with the 20-year-old Astley video, and in the last year it has become a hugely successful “meme,” the Internet’s word for an idea repeated across the Web. The video from yougotrickrolled.com has been viewed more than seven million times.

The “Never Gonna Give You Up” video has been watched over a million times on YouTube  not bad for a song that last had heavy radio play in 1988, when it spent two weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart of the top-selling singles.

Rickrolling has also come to mean a disruptive blast of the Astley song in a variety of situations. Former Scientologists protesting against the church, for example, have been playing and singing the song this year outside Scientology offices in London, Washington, Seattle and other cities.

It is not clear what Mr. Astley himself thinks about rickrolling. He has not spoken publicly about the meme and efforts to reach him through his agent were unsuccessful. But it has surely renewed attention on his career at a beneficial time. He is planning a tour through England along with other ’80s pop stars.