Decoder Ring: The Truth About #TheDress
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Slate Podcasts
4.2 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2022
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s episode, we’re excited to share an episode from Slate’s Decoder Ring podcast that we think you’re going to love.
In the history of viral images, #TheDress has got to be in the top 10. This unassuming photo of a party dress kicked off a global debate when people realized they were seeing it completely differently. Is it black and blue, or white and gold? In today’s episode, we’ll talk to someone who was there when the photo was first taken, and the BuzzFeed writer whose post briefly broke the internet. Then we go down the optical rabbit hole with a neuroscientist who’s been studying the The Dress for years. What does it reveal about the nature of truth?
This podcast was written by Willa Paskin, who produces Decoder Ring with Katie Shepherd. This episode was edited by Andrew Adam Newman. Derek John is Slate’s senior supervising producer of narrative podcasts. Merritt Jacob is senior technical director.
We’ll hear from Paul Jinks, Cates Holderness, Pascal Wallisch, and David McRaney author of the book How Minds Change. Here’s the optical illusion of the strawberries mentioned in the episode and created by Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, y'all. Do you remember the dress, capital T, capital D, the dress? You know the one. |
| 0:07.3 | It took over our entire timelines a few years ago, debates about whether the dress was white |
| 0:14.8 | and gold or blue and black lasted for days, decades. And I don't know about you, but to me at first, |
| 0:23.8 | it was definitely blue and black. But it's time and on. I also saw white and gold. And I thought to myself, |
| 0:31.6 | what is happening? Luckily, we do now know what was happening because our friends over at Dakota |
| 0:39.2 | Ring have a whole new episode about it. And I knew that y'all would love to hear it. In this episode, |
| 0:46.1 | they went deep down the optical rabbit hole. And what they found was both surprising and kind of |
| 0:54.7 | incredible. You should like definitely be already subscribed to Dakota Ring. But if you're not, |
| 1:01.6 | we're gonna give you a little taste of what you'll find in that feed. I see why Maya will be back |
| 1:06.8 | with a new episode next week. But for now, I'm gonna hand the mic to my colleague, Willa Pascon. |
| 1:19.8 | In February of 2015, Paul Jinx and his then-girlfriend Cecilia Blesdale were shopping at an outlet |
| 1:27.5 | mall near Liverpool, England. Cecilia was looking for something in particular, a blue dress to wear |
| 1:34.3 | to her daughter's wedding. She found these free dresses all blue. And she got, I don't know, |
| 1:40.0 | I don't know which one. So she goes, I know, I'm gonna take a picture of each and send them to a |
| 1:44.8 | door of grace. Paul held up the three dresses in turn and Cecilia took a picture of each of them |
| 1:49.6 | with her cell phone. And then she texted all three photos to her daughter. Yeah, they all look |
| 1:54.8 | all right. But I thought you said they're all blue. She said, well, they are. And she's going, |
| 2:00.1 | well, I fared when he sent him his golden wine. Paul was holding the dress in question in |
| 2:05.0 | his hands as these texts were coming in. It was undoubtedly a royal blue dress with black lace |
| 2:13.5 | detailing. Then Cecilia held up her phone to me. He says, what's that? Oh, it does look golden |
| 2:19.2 | white in the picture. And that's where he started from. |
| 2:30.4 | This is decodering. I'm Willa Paskin. In the history of viral images, |
... |
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