It was early evening on Feb. 26, 2015, when a simple question changed the course of Internet history forever: “What color is this dress?”
It’s been one year to the day since the debate over whether a simple garment was white and gold or blue and black created the biggest viral phenomenon of 2015, so let’s go back to where it all began. The photo of the dress in contention was first posted on this Tumblr page 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—k out.”
Read More: Everyone on the Internet Wants to Know What Color This Dress Is
Cue the world losing its collective mind. After just two days, there were over 4.4 million tweets about the dress, according to the Observer. And things didn’t stop there. The dispute over the hues of the clothing item continued for weeks, inspiring rage-fueled social media arguments, scientific explanations of people’s color perceptions and a multitude of think pieces.
Since then, it’s been determined that the dress is actually blue and black with a trick of the light causing many to see it as white and gold. But while the mystery of the dress has been solved, the influence that it has had on Internet culture won’t soon be forgotten.
- What We Know So Far About the Deadly Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria
- Beyoncé's Album of the Year Snub Fits Into the Grammys' Long History of Overlooking Black Women
- How the U.S. Shot Down the Alleged Chinese Spy Balloon
- Effective Altruism Has a Toxic Culture of Sexual Harassment and Abuse, Women Say
- Inside Bolsonaro's Surreal New Life as a Florida Man—and MAGA Darling
- 'Return to Office' Plans Spell Trouble for Working Moms
- 8 Ways to Read More Books—and Why You Should
- Why Aren't Movies Sexy Anymore?
- How Logan Paul's Crypto Empire Fell Apart