The quality of life now seems to be
measured by number of clicks and likes. The absurdity that the internet
sometimes brings with it is shocking; sometimes enough to cause
temporary psychosis. Last week, the world abandoned its post and decided
to embrace some vanity fair tightly. By the time it was over, not a few
people were shocked about the internet sensation it had become. Despite
the answer now being public knowledge, there are currently two sets of
people in the world today – the #BlueAndBlack team and the #GoldAndWhite
team.
The full story is that sometimes on the
evening of Thursday last week, McNeil Caitlin, a 21-year-old singer,
wanted the public to weigh in on an argument by her friend and fiancé ?
Grace and Kent Jonston who were arguing over the colour of a dress. The
picture of the dress had been sent to the couple by the bride’s mother
who wanted them to see what she would be wearing to their wedding. Grace
posted the picture on Facebook to seek opinions about the colour of the
dress. Caitlin and her friends also got involved, arguing about the
colour and decided to take the colour spat out to social media and so
put up the picture on Tumblr and Buzzfeed took it up from there to make
an opinion poll. Major social network has since been flooded with
pictures of the dress. Buzzfeed’s poll asked viewers to decide if the
dress was #GoldAndWhite or #BlueAndBlack. Buzzfeed is reported to have
broken its traffic record when at some point more than 670,000 people
from across the world were viewing the post and the site generating
about 16 million plus hits in about six hours.
Various hashtags have been dedicated to
the internet sensation that #thedress has become. Like every other thing
that has gone viral on the internet most times, the principal
characters involved have had to take a back seat and watch. That
#thedress lit up the internet is not absolutely strange. What is
troubling is the sociology of the ecosystem called the social media. No
one is absolutely sure of what the next big and unsponsored hashtag will
be or what or who will break the internet like the dress just did. It
is also strange it turned out to be the most discussed subject in both
international traditional and new media stream.
Given the major events
of last week ? the hacking to death of Avijit Roy, an atheist blogger
and secular activist living in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka; the
shooting to death of Boris Nemtsov, a former Deputy Prime Minister of
Russia and a very vocal critic of Vladimir Putin and the increase in
urban suicide by Boko Haram in Nigeria amongst others; one would have
expected any of this to enjoy more attention than #thedress did.
#TheDress is viewed in some quarters as
one of the perfect excesses of the social media while a few others also
see it one of the balance the social media provides for itself; giving
people an opportunity at something light and trivial and without
capacity to generate hate feedbacks. The viral nature of #thedress will
not have been possible without the tweets and pseudo endorsement of the
debate by celebrities who further asked the question or were responding
to inquires about the dress from their fans. Taylor Swift, Justin
Bieber, and Katy Perry are some of the celebrities that decided to join
the fray of #thedress. A number of politicians also got involved finding
some political inclination to #thedress and also showing their
followers that they care about what the world cares about.
The dressmaker, Romans Original and
Buzzfeed has been the biggest beneficiary of this viral dress debate.
Romans Original mentioned that it did not have Gold and White coloured
dress of that make in its store but is now planning to. The
#blueandblack dress has enjoyed a phenomenal increase in demand and
sales are up by more than 300%. That’s more revenue for Romans Original
for something they know next to nothing about! For Buzzfeed, it is about
knowing what to do and doing it early enough and of course the benefit
for them comes in form of massive hits which means revenue from ads on
the site also increase. #TheDress, a lace garment which sells for $77.13
will have its place in history forever as the social media phenomenon
that started from Scotland.
The lesson from #thedress is varied. A
number of companies also decided to ride on the trend. A car sales
company for instance tweeted to ask if the colour of a car put up for
sales in their showroom was black and blue or white and gold. The
debate is also one that any photographer can key into to explain
exposures and some technicalities of light and camera phone use when it
comes to taking pictures. The picture of #thedress that went online was a
poorly lit one.
It is understandable since the bride’s mother was not
intending that it becomes available for public consumption which it
eventually became. That some brands have equally tried to benefit from
the phenomenon by squeezing themselves into the conversation is the
right thing to do. Maybe some Nigerians would even have made decisions
on whom to vote for in the next election if the candidates themselves
had chosen a colour team to side with.
Expectedly, Wikipedia already has an
entry about #thedress as a phenomenon. Tagged #thedress, it became the
most conversed subject in blogosphere for about two days. Conversations
around it even still lingers. My flatmate during my national service
year is the first and only person with colour blindness I have met till
date. He loved to have his tie wound around his necks on Mondays and it
was my brief to look at the colours for him and ensure he was not
committing a fashion blunder. Interesting, yours sincerely thought the
dress was #GoldAndWhite. Expectedly, various professionals including
scientists have had to weigh in on the conversation to explain the
phenomenon. In the field of participatory communication, #thedress will
make a good case study. That Roman Original is considering making the
Gold and White colour which was what majority of those polled on
Buzzfeed chose is a smart way to respond to people while wearing a
business hat.
Comments
Post a Comment