1:24There are countless important global issues and matters of cultural importance discussed on social media, but #TheDress was not one of them.
The top trend on Twitter Thursday was whether a dress was blue and black or gold and white. Different users saw different colors — and were all deadset that they were right.
The debate was sparked by a Tumblr post earlier in the day, which quickly picked up steam and sparked passionate responses such as, "If that's not gold my entire life has been a lie," "I AM GOING TO CRY," "My class just had a debate over this. Half sees black and blue, the other half sees gold and white. Someone please explain this…"
One user even suggested reaching out to NASA to solve the color conundrum. Wired weighed in with a post explaining, "The Science of Why No One Agrees on the Color of This Dress": "This fight is about more than just social media—it's about primal biology and the way human eyes and brains have evolved to see color in a sunlit world." It quoted an expert:
"What's happening here is your visual system is looking at this thing, and you're trying to discount the chromatic bias of the daylight axis," says Bevil Conway, a neuroscientist who studies color and vision at Wellesley College. "So 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." (Conway sees blue and orange, somehow.)
Once the interest in net neutrality faded and the runaway llama drama in Arizona was under control, #thedress went on to take over Twitter. Even Fox comedian Mindy Kaling jumped on the trend — and then dragged B.J. Novak and the Pope into it.
