Fake Will Smith fools thousands

A Twitter hoax has unearthed almost 200,000 gullible fans of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air who have been fooled by someone posing as Will Smith.

The death of Fresh Prince star James Avery, who played Uncle Phil, prompted the creation of a @FreshPrinceWill account teasing of a new episode of the 1990s comedy that propelled its lead actor to fame.

"R.I.P. Uncle Phil," the imposter "Will Smith" tweeted yesterday, along with a prompt to retweet a screen grab from direct messages that claimed to be between the actor and NBC promising a tribute episode of The Fresh Prince if at least 300,000 fans supported it.

The whole thing is quite obviously a dumb joke.

For one, Will Smith isn't on Twitter and, as Buzzfeed points out, NBC does not tend to commission TV shows by direct message.

It hasn't stopped more than 197,000 people retweeting the foolish hoax in the last day.