The Internet is a wonderful tool of mass communication—it’s also a conduit through which someone can create “news” with 20 minutes of free time and access to photo-editing software. That’s one explanation as to how a fake teaser poster and a purely speculative post on StarMedia led a large number of otherwise intelligent adults to believe that a Friends reunion was in the offing yesterday.
Another explanation: Poor long-term memory. The image of the Friends gang’s favorite piece of coffeehouse furniture below the words “the one with the reunion” began recirculating through social media last week—this in spite of a November 2012 tweet from Matthew Perry denying the authenticity of the very same image. Huffington Post has a detailed timeline of the rumor’s most recent flare-up and extinguishing; E! News meanwhile tracked down Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman at a red-carpet event, where she laid out in blunt terms that the show is not coming back on Thanksgiving 2014—or ever. “I’m going to clear this up right now: No. Not happening.” Kauffman continued to say that Friends will not come back as a movie, either, putting to rest scuttlebutt that’ll probably crop up again as Matt LeBlanc’s upcoming appearance alongside Lisa Kudrow on Web Therapy approaches. After all, Kauffman is yet to say whether or not Friends will be revived as a hastily Photoshopped JPG that will never go away because the Internet doesn’t forget—except when it’s been told the same thing, like, a dozen times already. And could that be more annoying?