By now, you're probably all tired of seeing this dress floating around the internet. But I just wanted to use this dress to write a meta post that comments on the platforms that talked about this dress. On Friday, a user posted a picture of a dress that caused mass controversy on Tumblr. Within less than 24 hours, the post spread like wildfire and because the most trended search.
After debating with my friend for hours on the color of the dress (yes, I'm guilty), and witnessing the dress change color with my own eyes, I scoured the internet for a satisfactory scientific explanation. To my chagrin, I found nothing satisfactory, and resigned to piecing together my own explanation with some piecemeal research regarding light and physics. The next morning, as I was scrolling through my Facebook front page, I noticed that a blog I follow, IFLS (I F*cking Love Science), had already posted an explanation of this on Facebook, citing field experts and everything. Buzzfeed was even more efficient in creating their posts, since a post about the dress was already available during the height of the trend.
This was the not the first time that Buzzfeed shocked me with its efficient use of internet trends. After seeing the Superbowl commercials and the halftime, my head was filled with some opinions of my own, so of course I took to the internet in order to see if anyone else shared my sentiments. However, my search produced a set of different results, and Buzzfeed had already posted a listicle commenting on the "awesomeness" of the Katy Perry sharks. After browsing Ad Age today, I realized that since Buzzfeed generates most of its revenue from advertising, it would only make sense for it to jump onto the hottest trend. This has in turn, make Buzzfeed extremely efficient in using the proper algorithms to create viral hits. Buzzfeed, then, no longer seems to be so unrespectable.
