Why The Dress Was Black/Black and White/Gold at the Same Time

"The mother of the bride wore white and gold. Or was it blue and black?" asked the New York Times last week when the photograph of a dress worn by the bride's mother went viral. "From a photograph..., there was broad disagreement. A few days after the wedding...on the Scottish island of Colonsay, a member of the wedding band was so frustrated by the lack of consensus that she posted a picture of the dress on Tumblr, and asked her followers for feedback....Within a half-hour, her post attracted some 500 likes and shares. The photo soon migrated to Buzzfeed and Facebook and Twitter, setting off a social media conflagration that few were able to resist. As the debate caught fire across the Internet — even scientists could not agree on what was causing the discrepancy — media companies rushed to get articles online. Less than a half-hour after Ms. McNeil’s original Tumblr post, Buzzfeed posted a poll: 'What Colors Are This Dress?' As of Friday afternoon, it had been viewed more than 28 million times. (White and gold was winning handily.) At its peak, more than 670,000 people were simultaneously viewing Buzzfeed’s post. Between that and the rest of Buzzfeed’s blanket coverage of the dress Thursday night, the site easily smashed its previous records for traffic. So did Tumblr." Read more.

The Times came up with an easy to understand explanation. It's optically fun. See the explanation.