The $DRESS Debate: Viral Meme Turns Ten, Launches Crypto Comeback
A decade ago, a poorly lit photograph of a dress sparked one of the internet’s most divisive debates, splitting households and confounding scientists. The viral sensation that erupted on February 26, 2015, saw people around the world vehemently arguing whether a simple striped dress was blue and black or white and gold.
Ten years later, not only are researchers still studying this peculiar phenomenon, but the iconic meme has found new life as a cryptocurrency token that recently skyrocketed over 3,000% in value.
“It was not a tranquil time. People argued with their friends about the very basics of reality,” writes Pascal Wallisch, a neuroscientist who has conducted extensive research on the dress phenomenon, in a Slate article commemorating the anniversary.
The dress represented more than just a momentary internet frenzy—it offered a window into how differently each of us perceives the world, and now, a decade later, it’s become a lucrative investment opportunity through the $DRESS meme coin on the Solana blockchain.
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From Scientific Phenomenon to Crypto Sensation
What caused such dramatic perceptual differences? According to researchers, the answer lies in how our brains process lighting conditions. The ambiguous photo made it unclear whether the dress was photographed in natural daylight or artificial indoor lighting, forcing viewers’ brains to make unconscious assumptions.
“It stands to reason that people who assume that the dress was illuminated by blueish, cool daylight (and mentally subtract as much) would see it as white and gold, whereas people who assume a warm, yellowish artificial light source would see it as black and blue,” Wallisch explains in his research.
One of the most fascinating discoveries from the dress studies involves chronotypes—a person’s natural sleep-wake preferences. In 2017, Wallisch published findings showing that “night owls” were more likely to see the dress as black and blue, while early risers tended to perceive it as white and gold. This correlation suggests our lifetime exposure to different lighting conditions may fundamentally shape how we process visual information.
The cultural staying power of this perceptual divide has now entered a new phase with the creation of the $DRESS cryptocurrency token on the Solana blockchain.
Launched approximately eight months ago with the contract address CzKP6gwrM8GnPs8tKBFjgD72nwgxJrsX2NcEgdAMpump, the token initially traded at a stable price around $0.00000236822 before experiencing a remarkable resurgence in recent days.
Beyond The Dress: A Legacy of Perceptual Puzzles
The dress wasn’t the last perceptual puzzle to captivate the internet. A few years later, a photo of a sneaker sparked similar debates between those who saw it as pink with white laces versus gray with green laces. The audio equivalent arrived with “Laurel and Yanny,” where the same sound clip was heard completely differently by different listeners.
Scientists have even created controlled experiments to reproduce these effects. Wallisch and colleague Michael Karlovich developed the “Crocs and socks” experiment, placing green Crocs under pink light against a black background. The footwear appeared gray to almost everyone—until white socks were added to the scene. The socks’ reflection of pink light caused some viewers to suddenly perceive the Crocs as green, while others still saw gray.
They dubbed this phenomenon “SURFPAD” (Substantial Uncertainty & Ramified/Forked Priors/Assumptions = Disagreement), a framework for understanding how different prior assumptions lead to different perceptions.
No matter the science behind it all, and whether you are seeing black, blue or yellow and gold — the meme is back and this time it’s taking shape in the form of a viral meme coin.
Viral Resurgence: $DRESS Token Skyrockets
While scientists continue exploring the perceptual implications of the dress, crypto traders have embraced its cultural significance through the $DRESS token. After months of quiet trading, the meme coin suddenly exploded in value, surging more than 3,000% within 24 hours to reach approximately $0.000144. This dramatic price action, tracked via GeckoTerminal, demonstrates how internet culture can translate into financial opportunity in today’s digital asset landscape.
The $DRESS token exemplifies the broader trend of meme coins gaining momentum based on humor, nostalgia, and social virality rather than traditional utility. With its roots in one of the internet’s most polarizing visual debates, the token has captured the attention of a new wave of traders and onlookers seeking to capitalize on cultural phenomena.
Ranking “The Dress” Meme Amongst Histories Greatest Memes
The Dress meme—famous for sparking global debate over whether a dress was blue and black or white and gold—is widely regarded as one of the most iconic and viral internet memes of all time.
It generated over 10 million tweets within a week of going viral in 2015 and has been ranked among the top memes ever, often second only to Grumpy Cat or Trollface (as seen through the visual below). Beyond social media buzz, it inspired scientific discussion on color perception and even appeared in awareness campaigns, cementing its place in internet history.
Lessons for an Increasingly Divided World
The dress phenomenon holds timely lessons for our current era of polarization. As Wallisch notes, “Your brain never tells you ‘We really can’t tell what the color is because we don’t have all necessary information available.’ There’s no flag that goes up saying ‘Just FYI, your assumptions did much of the heavy lifting here.'”
This cognitive blind spot contributes to societal disagreements far more consequential than dress colors. As Vox reporter Brian Resnick observes, “The dress was an omen because, in many ways, since 2015, the internet has become a worse and worse place to do this humble gut check.”
Resnick argues the dress represents “the high-water mark of ‘fun’ on the mid-2010s internet,” arriving before our shared online reality fractured into algorithm-defined bubbles. It was “both a metaphor and a warning about how our shared sense of reality can so easily be torn apart.”
As researchers continue studying perceptual differences and traders speculate on its meme coin counterpart, the dress stands as a reminder that reality isn’t objective but interpreted—filtered through the lens of our unique assumptions and experiences. Whether in visual perception, online discourse, or crypto markets, understanding this fundamental truth might be the first step toward navigating our increasingly complex digital world.
“The next time you find yourself in an intractable disagreement, whether about colors, politics, or morality, consider this,” Wallisch suggests. “You and the other person are not just arguing about the facts. You are seeing the world through different priors.”
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