Did you, too, fall for the Friends reunion hoax?

The revival of the classic ’90s American sitcom show Friends is probably the longest running hoax in showbiz — it has been going on for some 13 years now. Social media users were fooled yet again when a fake account of actor David Schwimmer (above right) uploaded a poster ‘revealing’ that the cast will reunite for a new season in 2018. Fan excitement immediately spiked — the post was shared over 350,000 times in just 48 hours and Facebook likes crossed 250,000.

But hawk-eyed fans later realised that it was a fake. There were many clues. The first giveaway was that the post was put up by a ‘David Schwimer’ and his search name was ‘Ross Gheler’. Both names were spelled wrong as the real David Schwimmer spells his name with two Ms and Ross’s last name is spelled ‘Geller’ and not ‘Gheler’. The profile, too, was created the same day as the post appeared online. We also checked the IMDB pages of the cast and found that no such project was listed there. The cast members and the show creators have said time and again that there will not be a reunion.

While we haven’t received a response from NBC (the channel on which the show aired), there’s enough evidence that the magic of Friends is not coming back.