--- title: Trying to Match Nail Polish to This Shoe Is Tearing Twitter Apart description: Twitter battle of two colors canonical: https://time.com/3952130/nail-polish-shoe-twitter/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-09T21:16:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:22.067Z og:title: Trying to Match Nail Polish to This Shoe Is Tearing Twitter Apart og:description: It's a battle of two colors og:url: https://time.com/3952130/nail-polish-shoe-twitter/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbc4b9cc58d2e754e/69885a4f428a9ef65ecce190/small-nail-polish-bottles.jpg?branch=production&width=508&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 508 og:image:height: 286 og:image:alt: small-nail-polish-bottles og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trying to Match Nail Polish to This Shoe Is Tearing Twitter Apart twitter:description: It's a battle of two colors twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbc4b9cc58d2e754e/69885a4f428a9ef65ecce190/small-nail-polish-bottles.jpg?branch=production&width=508&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trying to Match Nail Polish to This Shoe Is Tearing Twitter Apart > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: REAL TIME: The Dress That Broke The Internet [Watch (HLS stream): REAL TIME: The Dress That Broke The Internet](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/pHrrVTQq.m3u8) (0:43)  _Published 2015-02-27. Musician Caitlin McNeill posted a a picture of dress to Tumblr and asked what color it was. The internet weighed in._ by [Alex Heigl / People](https://time.com/author/people/) ## Alex Heigl / People Contributor Jul 9, 2015 9:16 PM UTC  Row of six small bottles of nail polish in various shades of pink, overhead view Row of six small bottles of nail polish in various shades of pink, overhead view Getty Images by [Alex Heigl / People](https://time.com/author/people/) ## Alex Heigl / People Contributor Jul 9, 2015 9:16 PM UTC Do you remember where you were when [#TheDress](http://www.people.com/article/what-color-is-this-dress-taylor-swift-demi-lovato-tweet-dressgate) tore our nation asunder? Get ready. It’s happening again. Twitter user @totallymendes made a simple request of her followers Wednesday evening. “Which color \[of nail polish\] matches the shoes the best.” > [](https://twitter.com/totallymendes/status/618898681912279041) Whether or not it was their intention to start a Twitter-wide controversy – and in this day and age, who knows, it could be some kind of stunt for a nail polish company – that’s how things ended up. The original Tweet has, as of this writing, more than 5,000 retweets, and it doesn’t look like it’s stopping anytime soon. Incidentally, we’d like to remind you of what Jason Silva, host of National Geographic’s _Brain Games_, [told us in the middle of #DressGate](http://www.people.com/article/the-dress-science-black-blue-white-gold). “The largest takeaway,” he explained by phone, “is that color exists in your brain. It’s not an objective feature of reality.” “We don’t see the world objectively as is, we see the world through the lens of our preconceptions, cultural operating systems … reality is coupled to perception, so change perception, you change reality.” “You never experience an objective reality,” he continued. “Your brain is shielded from the world by this box that is your skull; all it’s doing is receiving a signal and interpreting it, like a cable box does for a television. What you call the world is more like a TV screen in your mind.” So, to recap, we’re all collectively hallucinating what we actually call reality, and whichever nail polish matches the shoe, it doesn’t matter, because it’s not real. Thanks everyone, good talk, have a great Thursday. _This_ [_article_](http://www.people.com/article/nail-polish-shoe-quiz-twitter) _originally appeared on_ [_People.com_](http://www.people.com) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3952130/nail-polish-shoe-twitter/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3952130/nail-polish-shoe-twitter/"},"headline":"Trying to Match Nail Polish to This Shoe Is Tearing Twitter Apart","datePublished":"2015-07-09T21:16:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:48:22.067Z","description":"It's a battle of two colors","url":"https://time.com/3952130/nail-polish-shoe-twitter/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Internet","viral","twitter","color"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbc4b9cc58d2e754e/69885a4f428a9ef65ecce190/small-nail-polish-bottles.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alex Heigl / People"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbc4b9cc58d2e754e/69885a4f428a9ef65ecce190/small-nail-polish-bottles.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"small-nail-polish-bottles","caption":"small-nail-polish-bottles","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3952130/nail-polish-shoe-twitter/","name":"Trying to Match Nail Polish to This Shoe Is Tearing Twitter Apart"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"REAL TIME: The Dress That Broke The Internet","description":"Musician Caitlin McNeill posted a a picture of dress to Tumblr and asked what color it was. 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