50 Shades of Confusion: What is the colour of this dress?
So on today’s list of pressing issues, the Internet exploded with a crucial debate that aimed to find out… the colour of a dress. Here’s why people are up in arms.
To end our week, today we ask a pressing question, ‘what on Earth is the colour of this dress?’ Originally posted on Tumblr by user, swiked, who was seemingly perplexed about the shades of this dress by asking other Tumblr users to comment – white and gold or blue and black were the two teams that emerged but who was right? Now, who knew such a simple question on colours could turn the entire Internet into two raging camps arguing different combinations that even celebrities like Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Chrissy Teigen and Mindy Kaling weighed in. Such a big, big day for colour theorists on social media.
Personally when I first saw it, I’ll admit, it was clearly white and gold as did some of our other colleagues. Rana, our Editor-in-Chief saw it as blue and black straight off the bat. But which was the right answer? Apparently blue and black was the combination. After knowing that, my colleagues and I who saw it as white and gold initially, now saw the dress as blue and black – is our mind playing tricks on us? Is the sky green? Is the grass blue? Have we always seen the world in a different light? So many questions, so freaked out.
Thankfully Wired, gave everyone a scientific explanation to calm this odd colour mystery down with “Human beings evolved to see in daylight, but daylight changes colour. That chromatic axis varies from the pinkish red of dawn, up through the blue-white of noontime, and then back down to reddish twilight.” So basically probably depending on where you’ve just come from, “people either discount the blue side, in which case they end up seeing white and gold, or discount the gold side, in which case they end up with blue and black,” says Bevil Conway, a neuroscientist, to Wired.
To put minds to rest, our brain perceives colours differently and it’s been said that our eyes do have more difficulties seeing blue light then warmer colours and low light situations make matters worse. It’s all in the mind, so let’s just get on with this colour debate – unless of course the dress is just one super scary image made to trick you and whoever made it is laughing at the entire World Wide Web right about now. Maybe.
Tarandip Kaur
