The dress (viral phenomenon)

The dress, also known as Dressgate^[3] and associated with the hashtags #thedress, #whiteandgold, and #blackandblue,^[4] is a viral photo and meme which became popular on 26 February 2015. The viral phenomenon revealed differences in human colour perception which have been the subject of serious ongoing scientific investigation in neuroscience and vision science, with a number of papers published in peer-reviewed science journals.^[5][6][7]

The meme originated from a washed-out photograph of a dress posted on the social networking service Tumblr, and a dispute over whether the dress pictured was blue and black, or white and gold.^[8] In the first week after the surfacing of the image alone, more than 10 million tweets mentioned the dress. Although the actual colour of the dress was confirmed to be blue and black,^[9][10] the image prompted discussions surrounding the matter across various platforms, with users discussing their opinions on the colour and why they perceived the dress as being a certain colour, while some dismissed the issue as trivial.^[11]

At the same time, members of the scientific community began to investigate the photo for fresh insights into human colour vision.^[12] A 2015 scientific study^[5] with 1,400 respondents found that 57% saw the dress as blue and black, 30% as white and gold and about 10% as blue and brown, while approximately 10% could switch between any of the colour combinations. A small number saw it as blue and gold. Women and older people disproportionately saw the dress as white and gold. The scientists further found that if the dress was shown in artificial yellow-coloured lighting almost all respondents saw the dress as blue and black, while they saw it as white and gold if the simulated lighting had a blue bias.^[13]

The dress itself, which was identified as a product of the retailer Roman Originals, experienced a major surge in sales as a result of the meme.^[14]

Origin

About a week before the wedding of Scottish couple Grace and Keir Johnston, Grace's mother Cecilia Bleasdale and her partner Paul Jinks took a photograph of the dress she planned to wear to the wedding. Cecilia, Grace, Paul, and Keir then disagreed over the colour of the dress in the photograph. The bride posted the image on Facebook, and her friends also disagreed over the colour; some saw it as white with gold lace while others saw it as blue with black lace.^[15][16]

On the day of the wedding, Caitlin McNeill, a friend of the bride and groom and a member of the Scottish folk music group Canach, performed with her band at the wedding on the island of Colonsay. Even after seeing that the dress was "obviously blue and black" in real life,^[16] the musicians remained preoccupied by the photograph; they said they almost failed to make it on stage because they were caught up discussing the dress. A few days later on 26 February 2015, McNeill reposted the image on her Tumblr blog and asked the same question to her followers, which led to further public discussion surrounding the image.^[15][16]

Response

Later that day, the website Buzzfeed posted an article based on the post, including the original photo.^[17] The image went viral worldwide across social media, including on Twitter, where users took to hashtags such as "#whiteandgold", "#blueandblack", and "#dressgate" to discuss their opinions on what the colour of the dress was, and theories surrounding their arguments. The photo also attracted discussion relating to the triviality of the matter as a whole; The Washington Post described the dispute as "[the] drama that divided a planet".^[15][18][19] Some articles suggested that the dress could prompt an "existential crisis" over the nature of sight and reality, or that the debate could harm interpersonal relationships.^[15][20]

Ben Fischer of the New York Business Journal noted that interest in the first BuzzFeed article about the dress exhibited vertical growth instead of the typical bell curve of a viral phenomenon, leading BuzzFeed to assign two editorial teams to generate additional articles about the dress in order to drive ad revenue,^[21] and by 1 March, the original BuzzFeed article had received over 37 million hits.^[22] The Dress was cited by CNN commentator Mel Robbins as a viral phenomenon having the requisite qualities of positivity bias incorporating "awe, laughter and amusement", and was compared to and contrasted with a video that went viral earlier that week of llamas loose on an Arizona roadway, and tributes paid to actor Leonard Nimoy after his death on 27 February.^[23]

68% of BuzzFeed users polled responded that the dress was white and gold as of 1 March.^[24] Some people have suggested that the dress changes colours on its own.^[15] The dress attracted the attention of celebrities; Taylor Swift, Jaden Smith, Frankie Muniz, Demi Lovato, Mindy Kaling, and Justin Bieber announced that they see the dress as blue and black, while Anna Kendrick, B. J. Novak, Katy Perry, Senator Christopher Murphy, Julianne Moore, and Sarah Hyland saw it as white and gold.^[25] Kim Kardashian tweeted that she sees it as white and gold, while her husband Kanye West sees it as blue and black. Lucy Hale, Phoebe Tonkin, and Katie Nolan saw different colour schemes at different times. Lady Gaga described the dress as "periwinkle and sand," while David Duchovny called it teal. Other celebrities, including Ellen DeGeneres and Ariana Grande, mentioned the dress on social media without assigning it a colour.^{[3][26][27][28][29][30]} Politicians, government agencies and social media platforms of well-known brands also weighed in on the issue.^[31]

Media outlets noted that the photo was overexposed and had poor white balance, causing its colours to be washed out, giving rise to the perception by some that the dress is white and gold rather than its actual colours.^[15][32]

The dress itself was confirmed as being a royal blue "Lace Bodycon Dress" from the retailer Roman Originals; although available in three other colours (red, pink, and ivory, each with black lace), a white and gold version was not available. The day after McNeil's post, Roman Originals' website experienced a major surge in traffic; a representative of the retailer stated that "we sold out of the dress in the first 30 minutes of our business day and after restocking it, it's become phenomenal."^[14] On 28 February, Roman announced that they would make a single white and gold dress for a Comic Relief charity auction.^[33]

Scientific explanations

Neuroscientists Bevil Conway and Jay Neitz believe that the differences in opinions are a result of how the human brain perceives colour, and chromatic adaptation. Similar theories have been expounded by the University of Liverpool's Paul Knox.^[34] Conway believes that it has a connection to how the brain processes the various hues of a daylight sky, noting that "your visual system is looking at this thing, and you're trying to discount the chromatic bias of the daylight axis", and that "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."^[12] Neitz remarked that

Our visual system is supposed to throw away information about the illuminant and extract information about the actual reflectance... but I've studied individual differences in colour vision for 30 years, and this is one of the biggest individual differences I've ever seen.^[12]

One hypothesis focuses on the naming of colours as a possible explanation. According to this view, the eye can differentiate between over 3 million colours but we only have names for 20 to 30 of them.^[35]

The duck-rabbit, described in Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations

Neuroscientist and psychologist Pascal Wallisch points out that while inherently ambiguous stimuli have been known to vision science for many years, this is the first such stimulus in the colour domain that was brought to the attention of science by social media. He attributes differential perceptions to differences in illumination and fabric priors, but also notes that the stimulus is highly unusual insofar as the perception of most people does not switch. If it does, it does so only on very long time scales, which is highly unusual for bistable stimuli, so perceptual learning might be at play.^[36] In addition, he notes that discussions of this stimulus are not frivolous, as the stimulus is both of interest to science and a paradigmatic case of how different people can sincerely see the world differently, an acknowledgement of which is a precondition for world peace.^[37] The philosopher Barry C. Smith has invoked Ludwig Wittgenstein and the rabbit–duck illusion by way of comparison.^[38]

The Journal of Vision, a scientific journal about vision research, announced in March 2015 that a special issue about the dress will be published with the title 'A Dress Rehearsal for Vision Science'. The submission deadline is 1 July 2016, and scientific work has been ongoing.^[39] The first large-scale scientific study on the dress was published in Current Biology three months after the image went viral.^[5][6][7]

Legacy

The dress effectively captured the collective attention of online networks; in South Africa, the Salvation Army has attempted to re-direct some of this mass awareness towards the issue of domestic violence.^[40] Daniel Howland, a Texas piercer, got a tattoo of the dress in blue and black with the words "White and Gold?". According to Howland, "It's actually a great tattoo. It's just dumb." He also "thought it was funny that it upset a lot of people".^[8][41][42]

As the original author of the photograph which sparked the viral phenemona, Cecilia Bleasdale and her partner Paul Jinks later expressed frustration and regret over being "completely left out from the story", including their lack of control over the story, the omission of their role in the discovery, and the commercial use of the photo.^[17]

See also

• List of Internet phenomena

References