PC Slower Than It Used to Be?
A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Crashes, No Sound, or Screen Glitches?
Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteSome links on this page are affiliate links: if you buy through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.
The crowd in Will Smith’s bizarre 2025 concert video was not simply invented by AI. An investigation matched audience members and signs in the montage to real concert photographs, which appear to have been animated into short clips. YouTube may then have made some of the footage look even stranger through separate video processing. The result blurred an important distinction: real fans were shown, but their images and movement appeared to be altered.
The video that prompted the backlash
In August 2025, Smith posted a montage from his Based on a True Story tour to Instagram and YouTube. It showed him performing, intercut with cheering audience scenes. The accompanying caption read: “My favorite part of tour is seeing you all up close. Thank you for seeing me too ❤️.”
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
|
Greatest Hits | $9.98 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
|
Big Willie Style | $10.18 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
|
Willennium | $9.25 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
![Will Smith - Men In Black - [CDS]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51iLzn7VbGL._SL160_.jpg)
|
Will Smith - Men In Black - [CDS] | $12.55 | Buy on Amazon |
| 5 |
|
Lost and Found | $9.99 | Buy on Amazon |
Viewers quickly focused on the crowd footage. Faces looked smeared or changed between frames; hands and limbs seemed inconsistent; signs appeared to contain misspelled or nonsensical text; and the audience movement felt strangely uniform. Some viewers concluded that the concertgoers were AI-generated, or that the video was meant to make the shows look bigger and more enthusiastic than they were.
The Tool Desk
Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Those visual clues are reasons to ask how footage was made—not proof, by themselves, that the people shown never existed. Compression, sharpening, denoising, upscaling and other processing can also create or intensify distortions.
#1 Best Overall
- Shrink-wrapped
Were the fans fake?
Not in the sense that the people were wholly fabricated. Andy Baio’s investigation for Waxy matched crowd imagery in the montage to professional photographs from Smith’s European shows, including festival performances in Switzerland and Belgium. A couple holding a cancer-related sign in the video was also identified in authentic concert photographs; Waxy later interviewed the couple.
The best-supported explanation is that some real photographs of real concertgoers were turned into brief, moving clips with an image-to-video AI system. That can change how a still image looks and moves without inventing the people or the event from scratch. One sign that seemed to show gibberish in the video referred in the source photograph to “West Swizzy,” a nickname for Switzerland. AI animation appears to have made its lettering less legible.
Rank #2
A Yahoo fact-check likewise treated the broad claim that the audience was entirely nonexistent as a mixture: the imagery appeared manipulated, but the source people and photographs were real. Calling the whole crowd “fake” erases that distinction.
What the AI appears to have changed
Image-to-video systems generate plausible movement from a still image, including details that were never captured in the original photograph. Faces, fingers and small text are particularly vulnerable: features can shift, hands can become malformed, and letters can warp as the model fills in the frames between moments.
Rank #3
That is different from generating an entire crowd of synthetic people. The available evidence supports describing the montage as real crowd photographs apparently given AI-generated motion—not as proof that Smith’s team fabricated an audience. The precise tool and production workflow have not been verified. Runway and Google’s Veo 3 have been mentioned as possibilities, but neither should be presented as the confirmed software.
YouTube may have made the footage look worse
The same montage reportedly looked better on Instagram and Facebook than in its YouTube Shorts version, where faces and details appeared more smeared, sharpened or uncanny. Waxy reported that YouTube was testing “traditional machine learning” on selected Shorts to unblur, denoise and improve clarity. That kind of processing is distinct from generative image-to-video AI, though it may alter the appearance of a clip.
The likely explanation is a two-stage one: some still crowd photographs were apparently animated before posting, and YouTube’s separate processing may have further affected its version. That does not mean YouTube generated the crowd. Nor does the platform comparison establish exactly what processing occurred to every upload. TechCrunch also covered the artifacts and YouTube’s enhancement experiment in its report on the controversy.
Recommended Free Tools
What about the follow-up video with cats?
After the first montage drew accusations, Smith reportedly posted another performance video depicting a crowd of AI-distorted cats. Futurism described it as a response to the controversy, and MusicRadar also reported on the clip.
Best Value
The timing and imagery make it reasonable to read the cat video as an apparent continuation of the joke or engagement with the AI discussion. But the reporting does not establish that it was an admission, apology or direct explanation of how the first montage was made. No detailed public account from Smith or his representatives was located in the cited coverage.
Why the distinction still matters
Finding real source photographs corrects the claim that Smith simply filled a concert montage with nonexistent fans. It does not settle every concern about the edit. When real people are made to appear to move in ways they did not, and their faces or messages are distorted, viewers can mistake an authentic moment for a fabrication—or believe the altered version is an unedited record.
That problem was especially acute with the emotional signs. In the video, a message to Smith could look garbled or unreal; in the source imagery, it belonged to an actual concertgoer. A montage can be intended to add motion or energy without a proven attempt to fake attendance, but viewers still have reason to question whether manipulated images of real fans should be clearly disclosed. The episode also shows why visual inspection alone is unreliable: generative animation and platform processing can compound one another, leaving artifacts that do not reveal a single, certain cause.
Free tools Windows power users keep installed
One-click scans. No signup required.
The precise verdict
Calling this a wholly AI-generated crowd is misleading. The strongest available evidence indicates that at least some crowd scenes came from real concert photographs that were apparently animated with AI; YouTube may have further processed its version. The exact model, full production workflow and Smith’s personal intent remain unconfirmed. The footage looked bizarre, but that appearance does not show that the fans or concerts were invented.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
