Scottish singer Caitlin McNeil recently divided the Internet with one innocuous picture.

The response was immediate: 14.5 million views on YouTube, 36 million replies in BuzzFeed survey and dozens of articles. How could one picture divide the Internet so much? It turns out that all it took was to ask the question the wrong way!

The story of a dress

Let’s move back a couple of thousand hateful comments to the beginning of this story. On Thursday, 26 February, a Scottish singer posts on Tumblr an (apparently) ordinary picture of a dress. She asks what colour it is: white and gold or blue and black, as her friends seem to be divided about it. If the controversy pertained to whether it was ecru or pearl, no-one would be interested – but to discuss whether black is golden and white is blue?! Ridiculous, absurd… How can one suppose it’s nothing but a joke?

Authors: Monika Koperska and Dariusz Aksamit

Source: What colour is that dress, or a history of a question asked the wrong way, Focus, 04.03.2015