this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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I still only see white/gold even though the actual dress was black/blue

[–] kreskin@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago (9 children)

So people looking at this photograph actually can perceive this to be white and gold? thats utterly wild. And hard to believe.

[–] xeekei@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 day ago

Back when this went viral, I only saw white and gold. Then one moment it just sorta morphed into blue and black. Now I can't turn it back to white and gold for the love of me.

[–] Ledivin@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I've been trying for the past minute and cannot see anything other than white and gold 🤷‍♂️

[–] Zanz@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Change your screen settings to be accurate instead of vivid it should show the correct colors. If you have a tn or really low quality v.A panel that might cause it. Be the cause

[–] otacon239@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I’m right there with you. I don’t doubt they are correct, but from the start, my brain has solidly decided to perceive it as white and gold. Cannot see blue anywhere no matter how much I try and force my brain to look for it.

[–] TheodorAlforno@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago

It's very noisy. In the sense of there being a lot of pixels that would make up either colors. Your eyes and brain try to make sense of the noise and "decide" what color it is. The strongest correlation that seems to exist is the time people get up in the morning. Early risers seem to see white more often, night owls have a tendency for blue. It might be caused by the amount of daylight vs. artificial light that people see throughout their waking hours.

[–] Devmapall@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

I saw this same post yesterday and the dress was blue and black. Later that day it was gold and white. Today it is gold and white still.

Same phone. Same location in my house. Different times of day though. It kind of fucked with my head though because when the dress meme was going around I only saw it one color (though I don't remember which it was).

[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I see it as white and gold unless I squeeze my eyes almost shut and then it looks blue.

[–] Zanz@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

It had a lot to do with low quality displays at the time and not necessarily people seeing it incorrectly.

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[–] callyral@pawb.social 4 points 1 day ago

I see it as dark brownish yellow and blue

[–] hubobes@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Ok is this post some sort of trick? I opened up lemmy, saw it white and gold for the first time in my life, then I took a shower, now it is blue and black once more.

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[–] drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago

I can never see black and blue. I assume all those who claim to see black and blue are bots. fite me

[–] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

10 YEARS AGO?!

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 120 points 3 days ago (13 children)

Because no one has posted the other photos:

And this is a photo of the same dress taken under proper lighting:

[–] Hubi@feddit.org 61 points 3 days ago (15 children)

Not even the brighter version looks white and gold to me. It's so obviously blue and black, y'all are insane.

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[–] Zoldyck@lemmy.world 138 points 3 days ago (9 children)

I'm still convinced this is the biggest troll. It's clearly white and gold

[–] Nelots@lemmy.zip 72 points 2 days ago (21 children)

I've always really liked this explanation image you can find on Wikipedia page for it. Essentially, people who see white and gold are mistaking the lighting to be cold and blue-tinted, rather than warm and yellow-tinted.

The portions inside the boxes are the exact same colors, you can easily check this with a color picker.

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

What the actual fuck? When this first came around, my eyes saw white and gold, in this post it looks like overexposed brown and blue, and looking at this graphic is fucking with my head! Brains are wee photo editors, aren't they?

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[–] 474D@lemmy.world 85 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (13 children)

You can literally sample the rgb values and see it's blue and black

Edit: am I part of the joke here??? It's clearly blue and black...

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 87 points 3 days ago (30 children)

am I part of the joke here??? It's clearly blue and black...

The objective fact is…it is a blue and black dress. Other photos of the same dress show that.

But I cannot, for the life of me, see how anyone can possibly get that from this photo. Sample the RGB values all you want and it clearly is not black in this photo. The exposure and white balance have messed around with it so much it is incomprehensible to me how anyone can see it as blue and black.

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[–] jsomae@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 days ago

Literally the entire planet remembers this. Even people who were not born yet.

[–] pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

everyone's wrong, gold and baby blue

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[–] exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I found this image to be a really good way to distill the issue down into the two different modes or perception:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress#/media/File:Wikipe-tan_wearing_The_Dress_reduced.svg

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[–] HuskerNation@lemmy.zip 20 points 2 days ago

I only see white gold

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 16 points 2 days ago

When that was going around I saw it as black and blue, and my partner at the time saw it as white and gold. When it was revealed that it was actually the former, I made a comment something like "I guess the difference is I see things as they actually are", which got me a sharp look. :)

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 43 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (20 children)

It appears white/gold to me on it's own, I've never been able to see anything different.

Grabbing this specific image and sampling the colours though; they appear more of a grey/brown colour. I can sorta maybe understand blue, but definitely not black.

This is just using Polish photo editor on android:

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 35 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (35 children)

This is exactly the thing.

Whatever the dress may be in reality, the photo of it that was circulated was either exposed or twiddled with such that the pixels it's made of are indeed slightly bluish grey trending towards white (i.e. above 50% grey) and tanish browny gold.

That is absolutely not up for debate. Those are the color values of those pixels, end of discussion.

Edit to add: This entire debacle is a fascinating case of people either failing to or refusing to separate the concept of a physical object versus its very inaccurate representation. The photograph of the object is not the object: ce n'est pas une robe.

The people going around in this thread and elsewhere putting people down and calling them "stupid" or whatever else only because they know that the physical dress itself is black and blue based on external information are studiously ignoring the fact that this is not what the photograph of it shows. That's because the photograph is extremely cooked and is not an accurate depiction. The debate only exists at all if one party or the other does not have the complete set of information, and at this point in history now that this stupid meme has been driven into the ground quite thoroughly I should hope that all of us do.

It's true that our brains can and will interpret false color data based on either context or surrounding contrast, and it's possible that somebody deliberately messed with the original image to amplify this effect in the first place. But the fact remains that arguing about what the dress is versus how it's been inaccurately depicted is stupid, and anyone still trying that at this late stage is probably doing so in bad faith.

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[–] themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oh yeah, the gold and white dress. I remember some people were acting crazy saying it is blue and white.

[–] meme_caster@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

jokes aside the actual dress was blue and black

[–] Stormdancer@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I remember.

[–] mehdi_benadel@lemmy.balamb.fr 64 points 3 days ago (19 children)

For your information : the dress is really blue and black, according to the store and manufacturer. The vast majority of people see it as white and gold, but I personally think most people are not used to decrypting overexposed pictures, hence their inability to perceive the right colors.

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[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 6 points 2 days ago

Black and blue. You blind.

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