“What is the internet prank of tricking someone into clicking a Rick Astley video called?” — It is called rickrolling. The prank uses a disguised link or other bait to unexpectedly deliver the music video for “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
Rick Astley’s song was released in 1987 and became an international hit, but the rickroll itself emerged online in 2007. On 15 May that year, a 4chan user known as Shawn Cotter linked to the video while claiming it was a trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV. The joke resembled an earlier bait-and-switch prank called duckrolling.
Rickrolling spread rapidly across forums, blogs, and YouTube, then reached mainstream attention in 2008. YouTube even redirected videos on its home page to the song for an April Fools’ Day stunt. The prank works because the victim expects one destination but receives a familiar, harmless pop song instead.
“Never Gonna Give You Up” is the essential ingredient: sending someone to an unrelated Rick Astley clip is not necessarily a rickroll. The term can also describe playing the song unexpectedly at a public event or embedding it in a misleading video.