A recent and ongoing phenomenon around the world is the reaction people have had to “The Dress.” Most of you who are reading this will now sigh and say, “Ah, The Dress.” Those readers who have been living in their bedrooms because they have run out of clean underwear, may not be aware of what The Dress is, so Life in the Boomer Lane will enlighten you:
This past Wednesday, a Tumblr user posted a photo of a $77 dress and asked people for their opinions as to the colors. She wrote, “I see it as white and gold. My friend right here sees it as blue and black. I CANT HANDLE THIS. If that’s not gold my entire life has been a lie.”
Some of you may scoff that a person would declare her entire life a lie over the color of a dress. Life in the Boomer Lane can relate. Just recently, she discovered that her body, when seen from behind, actually seems to belong to another person, making her own entire life a lie. In this case, the case of The Dress, the world reacted. The Earth stopped revolving, as virtually everyone on the planet tried to figure out this conundrum. Surgeons walked out of surgeries in process, people erroneously ate gluten, and Rep Louie Gohmert forgot to say anything stupid or offensive. ISIS issued a fatwa on The Dress. Republicans blamed Obama for the hysteria, as a way of promoting The Affordable Care Act.
Since there are more experts than people on the planet, it didn’t take long for the experts to weigh in. Hundreds of explanations were postulated, addressing visual acuity, color theory, and the effect of inverted qualias. All explanations made sense up to a point, until experts concluded that none of what they had said could really explain everything about this particular Dress. The Alien Channel expressed concern that aliens were using The Dress as part of a mass hypnosis experiment.
Crisis hot lines were established for people who were unable to get on with their lives, once they had seen a photo of The Dress. Both Dr Phil and Dr Oz devoted entire shows to The Dress and linked it to weight management. Monica Lewinsky, until now, the owner of the most-talked about dress in history, was interviewed on national TV and asked how she felt about this particular Dress overshadowing her own very famous dress during the Clinton Administration. Her comment was, “It’s unlikely that anyone wearing this dress will have as much fun wearing theirs as I did wearing mine.”
QVC started selling knockoffs of the dress in fuchsia/magenta, /turquoise/hot pink, and teal/lime green. Sizes ranged from XXX to XXXX. QVC promised viewers that these copies had met all FDA safety standards and would match all of the jewelry that was to be shown in the next segment of the show. Women called in, saying they were ordering the dresses in all colors. Within minutes, the inventory was gone.
Rumors began circulating that the same person who posted the original photo of The Dress was about to unleash a photo of a Pair of Shoes on Tumblr. Therapists’ phones began ringing off the hook. Survivalist websites posted ways people could deal with this invasion of personal rights, and provided maps to remote areas where they could hide out. Fox News blamed Obama for The Shoes, even though they couldn’t come up with a reason why he would have done that. They concluded by saying, “He just does shit.”
Vonnie
March 2, 2015
Personally, I saw it, made no comment, and just moved on. I didn’t even follow the chatter but wondered why THE DRESS made the evening news!
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 4, 2015
Clearly, there isn’t enough else going on in the world to keep peoples’ attention.
OneHotMess
March 2, 2015
Think may be the funniest thing you have ever written
I love it! I saw the dress as blue and black from the start. At one point in this whole thing, that apparently meant that I was a sad, depressed, pessimistic, individual. Oy! The dress is, indeed, blue and black. What a relief!
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 4, 2015
Wow, thanks. I could have told you the true color of the dress, had you only asked. I maintain a separate service, for a hefty annual fee, in which I will answer any question you ask that I feel like answering.
Kate Crimmins
March 2, 2015
I didn’t pay any attention to it at first except to correct my husband’s erroneous statement that it was black and blue. (Anyone could see that it was white and gold.) Then I started getting emails. I found I had to correct several people in my family. In the end I wondered if this was an Obama plot to make money for the Affordable Care Act. If it was, it was ingenious!
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 4, 2015
Kate, I hope all of your family’s discord over the dress has been mended. If not, they can receive mental health services through the Affordable Care Act.
gliderpilotlee
March 2, 2015
Someone, I think he was an artist, of course that brings up books to be written, mentioned an experiment – cloth, black material and same in white. Put the black in cloudless sunlight, the white in a shadow nearby. The black appears lighter than the white. That’s what I was told, I have not done the experiment. Then the topic of bird feathers–
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 4, 2015
Color, it appears, is a myth that we create.
An Ordinary Man (the novel)
March 2, 2015
did different people looking at it on the same monitor from the same vantage point under the same lighting see it as two different colors? that part was not clear to me – a big ho-hum if not.
mybrightspots
March 3, 2015
Yes, people did. My coworkers and I went round and round on this. As did my husband and I. Always looking at the exact same picture on the exact same device at the exact same time.
I always saw white and gold except for one time, on one Facebook share, it looked blue and black. I followed the link, thinking maybe it looked blue and black on the Facebook share because of how it was zoomed in, blocking out the lighting that was (supposedly) affecting my brain’s interpretation of color. I thought I’d go to the full picture and it’d look white and gold again, except it didn’t. Except later, when I tracked down that share to show my husband the only place I saw it black/blue, and it was white/gold again.
That picture looks white/gold to me. I can see that the dress is really black/blue because another picture has been shared of the woman in different lighting. And because the maker of the dress doesn’t make a white/gold one. Yet, anyway. 🙂
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 4, 2015
My husband and I did and came up with different versions. Then my cousin and I did, also with different versions. After that, I stopped asking.
Malcolm
March 2, 2015
i knew I was in trouble when I saw blue and gold. Don’t most polls have an ‘All of the above’ and ‘None of the above’ option?
Nancy Blue singer/songwriter
March 2, 2015
yes, a medium to light blue with a gold – – except the gold is almost a brown/taupe kinda gold. .that is what i see, I have a macbook air…must depend on your screen, bright and contrast settings etc…
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 4, 2015
There are a zillion theories of this, but none explain how two people looking at the dress at the same time see it differently.
btg5885
March 2, 2015
What a marketing idea. It seems to be working.
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 4, 2015
You betcha.
elizabeth2560
March 2, 2015
yes, it prompted much debate in our house too 🙂
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 4, 2015
It is crazy how everyone was talking about this.
Elyse
March 2, 2015
Does this dress belong to Monica Lewinsky? That would explain the need for a disguised dress.
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 4, 2015
And both dresses are blue (cue in dum-dah-dum-dum mystery music).
Susan in TX
March 3, 2015
White-&-gold girl here. Unless I squint. Which I do.
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 4, 2015
You bring up a great point. So many people squint. I haven’t read anything about the impact of squinting on visual acuity. Research needed, with a fancy title.
truefinds
March 3, 2015
My daughter texted the photo to me and other family members, asking what color it was. I immediately said white and gold. My sister said blue and black. I thought she was just making a joke. When I scrolled back up to the photo, I saw that it was indeed blue and black. I freaked out! I figured it was voodoo magic. Now I have seen it be a variety of colors, such as light blue and brownish-gold. I don’t know why. But I like your explanations better. Thanks for sharing.
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 4, 2015
The dress changed color on me, as well. And, since then, I have been able to communicate with the departed, speak in tongue, and predict the future. But my hair is still a pain in the butt, so not everything changed.
Jeffrey Slater
March 4, 2015
Reblogged this on Slater Creative and commented:
A very fun read.
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 4, 2015
Thanks for the reblog!
Gail Kaufman
March 5, 2015
You are too funny! Love the blame Obama theme – so true.
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 6, 2015
Thanks, Gail. And thanks for appreciating the Obama theme.