#TheDress that broke the Internet

Online Desk
A blue two tone dress is seen in a shop window display alongside differently colored variants of the same design, at a shop in Lichfield, England. Photo: AP

Over the last 48 hours, there has been an ongoing debate about a dress. Across the globe, people have been talking about it. And that is excatly why #the dress is trending, on social media.

The background

On Thursday, Scottish musician Caitlin McNeill posted a picture of a dress on micro-blogging website Tumblr with the caption “guys please help me — is this dress white and gold, or blue and black? Me and my friends can’t agree and we are freaking the f-word out.” Within half an hour, the post had over 500 likes and shares. Buzzfeed posed the question to the readers and then, it just exploded over the internet. On social media and off it people debated about the colour of the dress. While some said white and gold, the others said it was blue and black. And #thedress went viral

Shop manager Debbie Armstrong places two tone dresses on display at a shop in Lichfield, England. It's the dress that's beating the Internet black and blue. Or should that be gold and white? Friends and co-workers worldwide are debating the true hues of a royal blue dress with black lace that, to many an eye, transforms in one photograph into gold and white. Photo: AP

The dress

The dress, according to the makers Roman Originals is a Royal blue with black trimmings. Then, you may ask, why did two new hashtags -teamwhiteandgold and teamblackandblue come to being? That, they say is an optical illusion

The illusion

“Our visual system is supposed to throw away information about the illuminant and extract information about the actual reflectance,” was what Jay Neitz, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington had to say. “But I’ve studied individual differences in color vision for 30 years, and this is one of the biggest individual differences I’ve ever seen.” (Neitz sees white-and-gold.)

A passer-by looks at a blue two tone dress in a shop window display alongside differently colored variants of the same design, in Lichfield. Photo: AP

The debate

The 'Great Dress Debate of 2015' has also inspired violent reactions from firm "Black and Blue" supporters. Check out the few tweets:

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