(buzzword101.com)

We all got punked.

WhoDat.biz, the silly site claiming to be Kanye West's newest startup, is not in fact affiliated with the rapper. Everyone from The Washington Post to Ars Technica to BuzzFeed to our very own Betabeat got swept up in the WhoDat madness--which is probably exactly what the unknown architects behind WhoDat wanted.

When the Internet finally caught its breath from laughing so hard, we all did a little sleuthing. Buzzfeed cites a tweet from "a guy who works with Kanye" as saying, "If a site existed it'd be obvious that it was real." Fair enough.

The email address listed for WhoDat.biz (dondamedia at gmail dot com) is also different from the one Kanye originally tweeted as Donda's address (contact donda at gmail dot com).

We emailed the address listed as belonging to Whodat.biz asking if they were fake, and they responded "im real. a/s/l?" Nothing like a little '90s instant messenger slang to legitimize your identity.

The Tumblr that claims to be affiliated with Donda also only began posting yesterday, leaving just enough time to build a small archive of posts before going public today.

Betabeat reached out to Mr. West's manager, but he no longer works with the star. Mr. West's marketing and music managers also couldn't be reached for comment.

UPDATE: The whole hoax was orchestrated by OKFocus, a New York digital agency. Read about it here.