Having access to any social media site, I’m sure you heard of a dress that went viral this weekend due to a over exposed photograph. People from all walks of life were debating the color scheme of the dress. Some people debated it was white and gold others said it was blue and black. I personally believed that the dress was white and gold, that might have been a bias I had because that would have been my preference for the dress itself. But as it turns out, I was wrong, the dress was actually blue and black.
What surprised me about this particular topic is, not that it went viral because there have been many mundaine things that have gone viral, but the fact that it got so much attention from the press. I expected Buzzfeed to cover a story like this, it fits the tone of the many things that are posted on this site. However, I was taken aback by the New York Times covering it as a front page story. It is an interesting debate for the many eyes of the Internet but was it really front page worthy? The dress even got coverage on talk shows such as the Ellen DeGeneres show. Ellen gave the family a stipend of $10,000 for reasons unknown other than for them to “start their lives.”
This dress got far more attention than the family expected. In no way would they have expected the dress to end up on the Times or to receive a sum of cash with an all expense paid vacation. But it is one of the many wonders of the Internet. This viral photo shows that the Internet, as a hyper networked technology, has a way of connecting a diverse populous.
Photo credit to wired.com