Ten years after a photo of a blue-and-black (or white-and-gold) dress tore the internet apart, Jenna Bush Hager wore the dress herself Thursday on the “Today” show.
The dress — which is physically blue and black — brought back fond memories for the “Today” crew, until they spent two minutes yelling about its color at the end of the segment.
“In the photo, it is white and gold,” Bush Hager said, backed up by co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, even as Bush Hager sat in the studio wearing the blue and black dress.
“You’re talking about a photo, we’re talking about reality,” host Willie Geist later argued.
The dress debate first went viral in February 2015, when a poorly lit photo of the dress was posted on social media and immediately started heated arguments. A BuzzFeed poll on the dress received more than 4 million votes, with a clear majority seeing it as white and gold.
“It depends if your retina is interpreting this photo as over or under exposed, or more scientifically if your rods or cones are dominating the image interpretation,” Dr. Reena Garg, now a board-certified ophthalmologist practicing in Maryland, told the Daily News back in 2015.
If a person’s brain interprets the photo as overexposed, they see the dress as blue and black. Those who see the dress as white and gold have interpreted the photo as underexposed, with the dress in shadow.
“Where was anybody in the control room about a minute ago?” an unamused Al Roker said to wrap up the “Today” segment. “You could’ve ended this a lot earlier.”
