Fascinating! My husband is slightly colorblind, so we often have discussions about color perception. I’ve wondered for much of my life: How do I know that what I perceive as blue isn’t green for you--and we’re all calling it yellow?
Now THIS is an incredibly interesting question. Yes! Exactly that. Because, how can you possibly describe a colour in an objective way that, you know, doesn't rely on that person already knowing what that colour looks like?
My dad was colourblind, and I started this whole newsletter wondering how he got into the Royal Air Force despite it: https://everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/week-3-why-we-never-see-eye-to-eye But I've wondered for years: what did he imagine us non-colourblind people were seeing? What did he imagine red looked like, considering he'd never seen what we call "red"?
(Alas, he passed away before EnChroma glasses were widely available and/or affordable: https://enchroma.co.uk/ I wish he'd gotten a chance to see the world so differently...)
Jan 24, 2023·edited Jan 24, 2023Liked by Mike Sowden
My husband's colorblindness altered his course in the Navy (cut the red one...NOOOO that's the GREEN one!!!!). I keep saying I'm going to buy those glasses for him. Looking into that now, so thanks for that. I'm now curious how your dad got into the Royal Air Force, so I'm off to read...
I've no desire to wear pink as reds make me look like a tomato, but I've always been annoyed by how rigid culture norms push men to wear boring colors while women get to have all of the fun.
I agree - and furthermore, I would like to stand up for a man's right not just to wear colours that are more fun, but also to take risks with colours with the very real possibility of utter social disaster. We should do better! And by that I also mean, we should occasionally do a lot worse too - and yet not beat ourselves up about it too much.
What I'm perhaps saying is: maybe you haven't found the right shade of red yet?
I was born with red (closer to orange) hair, and my mother insisted I could not wear red or pink. You would think I would have rebelled when given the option to buy my own clothes, but by that time the whole world, or at least my world, was wearing blue jeans, which suited me just fine when paired with neutrals, not pink. I still feel repulsed when confronted with the pink aisles in toy stores or even that picture of the pink bank. The power of color!
(The most intense form of it is...really not great-sounding: "They may have trouble breathing, sweat a lot or even have a panic attack. Some people may avoid leaving their house and interacting with others. This can damage relationships and impact a person’s ability to work. Therapy and medications can help people manage this disorder.")
I am very late to seeing this post and your comment. I also have red hair, it sounds like mine was a bit darker than yours was growing up. My Mother had red hair too and she did dress me in pink and even red at times. People often commented 'I thought redheads couldn't wear pink, but she looks good in that!' So I grew up thinking that wearing pink wasn't 'girly' but instead was bold, radical even! It is all in how you 'look' at it!
I think my brain just broke reading this but in the best possible way. Mad at the Costa Rica bank, LOL at your perfect use of the Mad Men still, and then ... what does it mean that our brains just make colors up??? Is everything about perception? (I read such an interesting book about that last year.) Top notch fantastic read!
Thank you. :) It's such head-spinning stuff, and so unsettling. As shown by that viral dress thing a while back, where everyone was yelling NO IT'S WHITE at everyone else who was shouting NO IT'S BLUE ARE YOU INSANE, and everyone was *100% convinced* because they'd spent their entire lives relying on that colour sense and never questioning it and never considering that everyone else might see things a bit differently. Again, back to what we talked about elsewhere, a question of perceived threatened identity making everyone freak out...
What was the book you read on it?
(Of course, it's a book, so *of course* you've read it, because you've read literally all books that have ever been written, so I should just go Google the topic and assume you've read everything I find. Yep.)
I have not read all the books! My TBR pile keeps trying to bury me ...
That viral dress thing tripped me out because I can't remember which colors it was meant to switch between, but I could only ever see one color. I never saw the second one. Is there something wrong with me???
The book was "The Brain's Sense of Movement," and it's very academic and science research based, but there was some mind-bending stuff in there about how physical perception actually works in the brain. One thing I think I remember is, when you're walking a trail, your mind can accurately predict not just the curve of trail that's within sight, but the curvature that's beyond that, out of sight. He had a chapter at the end about the social implications of research on physical perception. It was pretty trippy, all of it.
"Normally, the male puppies wear red collars, while the female puppies wear blue collars, but there are exceptions to certain puppies, regarding their appearances in other media. In the live-action films, the male pups wear blue collars, while the female pups wear pink (or red in tie-in material), while the collar colors are not gender specific in both 101 Dalmatians: The Series and 101 Dalmatian Street."
The essay you shared by Henry Wismayer was medicine. Truly. I have sat here for the last several minutes savouring the words. It wrapped units of language around what/how I feel when I go to the woods or the beach. Thank you. 🤎
Hooray! Isn't it a fabulous book? And I know St Clair is bundling up her essays specifically in traditionally-published book format, but - if she had a Substack and was using it to publish essays that way, good LORD that would be a readable thing.
Decades ago when I was about to send out birth announcements for my first child, I recall that my brother mentioned blue used to be the girls for girls and pink for boys. I had forgotten about that until your piece. Then as I love rabbit holes, I spent a bit of time going on a pink-blue journey today and found quite a few links that corroborated what my brother said. You've probably seen a few as well. Yes?
“The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”
In any case, I say dress your little ones and yourself in what you darn well please. They'll develop their own preferences no matter what you do or don't do.
Fascinating article, (is it called an article?) on Pink! I just finished creating a lovely pink Ameniko Cat stuffie for our new little granddaughter. I like pink. Maybe I’m old-fashioned. My late 87 year old mother was crazy about pink! It suited her beautiful grey-white hair colour. When my now young adult granddaughter was small, she was crazy for pink, as well! Her bedroom looked like someone spilled a giant bottle of Pepto-Bismal onto everything in her room. Everything. It was awesome.
Lately I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the colour pink. Love DeCaprio’s suit colour! Btw, this is my first comment here in substack. Now I’m off to read some of the links you created in this article.
I never thought I could learn so much about pink in one sitting! Also, before today I'd never heard of extra-spectral colors. I'll never look at color quite the same way again!
I'll note that pink occurs in nature pretty often, in iridescence! I see pink in clouds quite often in Colorado. :)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/badastronomy/11941223576
Thank you, Phil! Fantastic.
Ahhh, I'd love to see iridescent & noctilucent clouds in person. Those and the Northern Lights. Flat out of luck on all counts, so far...
Hmm yes, aurorae too! I've never seen a full-blown aurora, FWIW. Just some vague glows on the horizon.
Fascinating! My husband is slightly colorblind, so we often have discussions about color perception. I’ve wondered for much of my life: How do I know that what I perceive as blue isn’t green for you--and we’re all calling it yellow?
Now THIS is an incredibly interesting question. Yes! Exactly that. Because, how can you possibly describe a colour in an objective way that, you know, doesn't rely on that person already knowing what that colour looks like?
My dad was colourblind, and I started this whole newsletter wondering how he got into the Royal Air Force despite it: https://everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/week-3-why-we-never-see-eye-to-eye But I've wondered for years: what did he imagine us non-colourblind people were seeing? What did he imagine red looked like, considering he'd never seen what we call "red"?
(Alas, he passed away before EnChroma glasses were widely available and/or affordable: https://enchroma.co.uk/ I wish he'd gotten a chance to see the world so differently...)
My husband's colorblindness altered his course in the Navy (cut the red one...NOOOO that's the GREEN one!!!!). I keep saying I'm going to buy those glasses for him. Looking into that now, so thanks for that. I'm now curious how your dad got into the Royal Air Force, so I'm off to read...
I've no desire to wear pink as reds make me look like a tomato, but I've always been annoyed by how rigid culture norms push men to wear boring colors while women get to have all of the fun.
I agree - and furthermore, I would like to stand up for a man's right not just to wear colours that are more fun, but also to take risks with colours with the very real possibility of utter social disaster. We should do better! And by that I also mean, we should occasionally do a lot worse too - and yet not beat ourselves up about it too much.
What I'm perhaps saying is: maybe you haven't found the right shade of red yet?
Ummm....nope! LOL.
I was born with red (closer to orange) hair, and my mother insisted I could not wear red or pink. You would think I would have rebelled when given the option to buy my own clothes, but by that time the whole world, or at least my world, was wearing blue jeans, which suited me just fine when paired with neutrals, not pink. I still feel repulsed when confronted with the pink aisles in toy stores or even that picture of the pink bank. The power of color!
Oh wow! So you reckon it was the peer-pressure of the blue-jeans-wearing world that kinda overrode your programming here?
And - how repulsed do you feel, if you don't mind me asking? eg. I really dislike pink to the point it makes me queasy, which makes me think I have some very mild chromophobia going on here: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22580-chromophobia-fear-of-colors
(The most intense form of it is...really not great-sounding: "They may have trouble breathing, sweat a lot or even have a panic attack. Some people may avoid leaving their house and interacting with others. This can damage relationships and impact a person’s ability to work. Therapy and medications can help people manage this disorder.")
I am very late to seeing this post and your comment. I also have red hair, it sounds like mine was a bit darker than yours was growing up. My Mother had red hair too and she did dress me in pink and even red at times. People often commented 'I thought redheads couldn't wear pink, but she looks good in that!' So I grew up thinking that wearing pink wasn't 'girly' but instead was bold, radical even! It is all in how you 'look' at it!
I think my brain just broke reading this but in the best possible way. Mad at the Costa Rica bank, LOL at your perfect use of the Mad Men still, and then ... what does it mean that our brains just make colors up??? Is everything about perception? (I read such an interesting book about that last year.) Top notch fantastic read!
Thank you. :) It's such head-spinning stuff, and so unsettling. As shown by that viral dress thing a while back, where everyone was yelling NO IT'S WHITE at everyone else who was shouting NO IT'S BLUE ARE YOU INSANE, and everyone was *100% convinced* because they'd spent their entire lives relying on that colour sense and never questioning it and never considering that everyone else might see things a bit differently. Again, back to what we talked about elsewhere, a question of perceived threatened identity making everyone freak out...
What was the book you read on it?
(Of course, it's a book, so *of course* you've read it, because you've read literally all books that have ever been written, so I should just go Google the topic and assume you've read everything I find. Yep.)
I have not read all the books! My TBR pile keeps trying to bury me ...
That viral dress thing tripped me out because I can't remember which colors it was meant to switch between, but I could only ever see one color. I never saw the second one. Is there something wrong with me???
The book was "The Brain's Sense of Movement," and it's very academic and science research based, but there was some mind-bending stuff in there about how physical perception actually works in the brain. One thing I think I remember is, when you're walking a trail, your mind can accurately predict not just the curve of trail that's within sight, but the curvature that's beyond that, out of sight. He had a chapter at the end about the social implications of research on physical perception. It was pretty trippy, all of it.
And don't forget the collars of the pups in 101 Dalmations. Boys in pink/red, and girls in blue!
Ah! Yes, good catch, Roger - via the Disney wiki:
"Normally, the male puppies wear red collars, while the female puppies wear blue collars, but there are exceptions to certain puppies, regarding their appearances in other media. In the live-action films, the male pups wear blue collars, while the female pups wear pink (or red in tie-in material), while the collar colors are not gender specific in both 101 Dalmatians: The Series and 101 Dalmatian Street."
I assumed the color change for the live film was more about modern use of the colors.
The essay you shared by Henry Wismayer was medicine. Truly. I have sat here for the last several minutes savouring the words. It wrapped units of language around what/how I feel when I go to the woods or the beach. Thank you. 🤎
I'm so glad it had that effect on you. :)
(And I let Henry know.)
thank you. :)
It was seriously a tonic wasn’t it
Truly. Vital medicine. 🤎
Another comment, sorry Mike, but I’m very excited for impossible colours!
Loved the Gatsby mention here! It’s my favourite book! Currently reading the Secret Lives of Colour...sort of for work sort of not
Hooray! Isn't it a fabulous book? And I know St Clair is bundling up her essays specifically in traditionally-published book format, but - if she had a Substack and was using it to publish essays that way, good LORD that would be a readable thing.
What a great piece. Thank you!
Thank you so much, Nilean. :)
What a fascinating reminder of the power of socialization and cultural narratives. Thank you for this deep dive!
Thank you, Ali! (And thank you for YOUR deep dives, which I've been enjoying very much recently.)
Decades ago when I was about to send out birth announcements for my first child, I recall that my brother mentioned blue used to be the girls for girls and pink for boys. I had forgotten about that until your piece. Then as I love rabbit holes, I spent a bit of time going on a pink-blue journey today and found quite a few links that corroborated what my brother said. You've probably seen a few as well. Yes?
“The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/
In any case, I say dress your little ones and yourself in what you darn well please. They'll develop their own preferences no matter what you do or don't do.
Thanks for a wonderful piece, Mike.
Fascinating article, (is it called an article?) on Pink! I just finished creating a lovely pink Ameniko Cat stuffie for our new little granddaughter. I like pink. Maybe I’m old-fashioned. My late 87 year old mother was crazy about pink! It suited her beautiful grey-white hair colour. When my now young adult granddaughter was small, she was crazy for pink, as well! Her bedroom looked like someone spilled a giant bottle of Pepto-Bismal onto everything in her room. Everything. It was awesome.
Lately I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the colour pink. Love DeCaprio’s suit colour! Btw, this is my first comment here in substack. Now I’m off to read some of the links you created in this article.
I never thought I could learn so much about pink in one sitting! Also, before today I'd never heard of extra-spectral colors. I'll never look at color quite the same way again!
Very interesting website Everything Is Amazing and Set Travel Tufrismo
www.settravel.com.br I recommend go here !
Amazing, Mike!