“The Dress” has swept over all social media within the past few weeks and has marked history as one of the biggest national arguments on social media. The question: “Is the dress blue and black or gold and white?” After a girl and her friends had their own argument of what colors the dress was, they posted the picture on Tumblr and it spread across the country and all over the world in a matter of days.
“What happened was two of my close friends were actually getting married and the mother of the bride took a photo of the dress to send to her daughter,” McNeill, whose band Canach performed at the wedding on the tiny Scottish island of Colonsay, explained to Business Insider. “When my friend showed the dress to her fiancée, they disagreed on the color.” Apparently after this happened, the band almost did not make it on stage in time because they were so preoccupied with arguing about the colors of the dress. As the photo swept across the nation, many relationships and friendships were put on hold due to such confusion and frustration from the question.
Scientists quickly searched for an explanation for the phenomenon to ease the tension on social media. The explanation is actually quite simple: some of us have eyes that are more sensitive to color in low lighting while others are not. Therefore, the low lighting in the photo makes those who have low sensitivity see white and gold because their eyes compensate for the dim lighting by almost turning the colors to a completely different end of the spectrum.While those who have eyes that are more hypersensitive can easily see blue and black because their eyes do not have to adjust to see it. And yes, the dress is actually blue and black.
Those who see white and gold are not necessarily wrong; that is just what they see. The light is just not received correctly by the eyes, so neither is the color. I myself see white and gold, but that does not mean that I am wrong because it’s not my fault that my eyes cannot compensate for the low lighting, so if you cannot see blue and black, do not feel bad.
The dress has not only been huge in terms of the argument sweeping across the nation but also in a movement against domestic abuse. The biggest image in this movement is a young woman in a GOLD AND WHITE dress, but she has black and blue bruises all over her body, and the question is “Why is it so hard to see blue and black?” Social media blogs and celebrities are now using this as a way to bring attention to the huge numbers in domestic violence and abuse cases in not only our country but around the world.