#DressGate solved
Offices and homes across the world came to a standstill today when a simple question was posed by a Tumblr user.
Is this dress black and blue or white and gold?
There is no doubt that this will go down as one of the oddest moments of 2015.
The collective freak-out of the internet was almost too much to take.
Here are some of the best tweets about #Dressgate:
Anna Kendrick cannot take life anymore:
If that's not White and Gold the universe is falling apart. Seriously what is happening????
— Anna Kendrick (@AnnaKendrick47) February 27, 2015
Ariana Grande caught feelings
if one more person asks me what color i think this damn dress is
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) February 27, 2015
i see grey and blue
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) February 27, 2015
and ugly
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) February 27, 2015
Demi Lovato did not know what to do:
Hold on.... So people actually see white and gold....??!! 😰😱
— Demi Lovato (@ddlovato) February 27, 2015
Jaden Smith is #TeamBlackAndBlue
I'm Seeing Blue And Black, As Of Now
— Jaden Smith (@officialjaden) February 27, 2015
Will Kanye and Kim divorce over this one?
What color is that dress? I see white & gold. Kanye sees black & blue, who is color blind?
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) February 27, 2015
David Duchovny thinks he has the answers:
The dress is Teal. 👗
— David Duchovny (@davidduchovny) February 27, 2015
Taylor Swift's world fell apart:
I don't understand this odd dress debate and I feel like it's a trick somehow. I'm confused and scared. PS it's OBVIOUSLY BLUE AND BLACK
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) February 27, 2015
BJ Novak is #TeamWhiteAndGold
white and gold
— B.J. Novak (@bjnovak) February 27, 2015
Julianne Moore does not believe you:
@mindykaling @bjnovak what's the matter with u guys, it's white and gold.
— Julianne Moore (@_juliannemoore) February 27, 2015
Mindy Kaling doesn't either:
I think I'm getting so mad about the dress because it's an assault on what I believe is objective truth.
— Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) February 27, 2015
Ike, bj and Messina think it's white and gold. Ders and I think it's blue and black. #themindyproject may have to shut down for the night
— Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) February 27, 2015
This dress thing is worse than the Sony hack to me
— Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) February 27, 2015
Anyway, according to Photoshop the dress is both black and blue and white and gold. Which is just confusing us more.
The dress (in real life) is black and blue.
The original image is in the middle.
At left, white-balanced as if the dress is white-gold. At right, white-balanced to blue-black.
Here is a pic of the orignal dress taken at a wedding before it became famous online:
It's patently black and blue in the above image.
So why the confusion?
Experts say it basically comes down to the way that people's brains interpret the light coming into our eyes.
John Borghi, a cognitive neuroscientist at Rockefeller University, told BuzzFeed News that luminance is a combination of how much light is shining on an object, and how much it reflects off the object's surface.
“In the case of the dress, some people are deciding that there is a fair amount of illumination on a blue and black (or less reflective) dress. Other people are deciding that it is less illumination on a white/gold dress (it is in shadow, but more reflective).”
Which kind of makes sense to us. Either way, the debate still rages on at East Coast Radio house...