For all of us that thought that 2017 was going to be a banner year — celebrities would stop dying! We’d all survive year one of Trump’s presidency and come out wounded but not broken like in that one Yolanda Adams song we all love — here’s some important and heartening news: Currently, in the first week of this momentous year, we are freaking out about ham. But not, like, actual ham. Not ham that we could actually be eating. Not ham that’s free. No, like the dress and all the sequels it inspired, we’re freaking out about a picture of ham.
A picture.
Here it is:
“You are correct,” I hear you saying, “that is a picture of ham. Have you perhaps had a traumatic brain injury that told you it might be a good idea to post it?” That’s a fair assessment (and I did hit my head pretty hard on a cabinet the other day, thanks for asking! I care about you, too!), but it’s also misguided. Because this ham is an optical illluuuuuuuusion. And it’s currently sitting pretty at the top of Reddit’s front page where it’s tearing people apart.
So here’s the question: What’s up with the ham? Why is it blurry? And why would someone post it? Take a few seconds to think about the answer and then let’s convene below.
If you’re still in the dark, take a look at the ham and then at the container and the table. As David Covucci points out over at The Daily Dot, the ham looks blurry but, uh, then why isn’t the container it’s being kept in blurry? Why isn’t the table blurry, either? You can see the fine grain right in front of your eyes!
Over on Reddit, the original post has racked over 1200 comments, with some suggesting that the ham might be a prime “cut of bigfoot” and others just writing about the fact that it hurts their face/head/heart because it doesn’t make any sense. And unlike “The Dress” which magically switched colors right before your content-starved eyes, this ham doesn’t even do anything. It just remains blurry and dead!
So why is it messing with our heads? Because it’s sliced! It’s not blurry! There are no camera tricks! It’s just a blurry package of sliced ham! And it’s more proof that this year will be just like the last one. Especially because, as Covucci notes, people were so skeptical that this picture (of ham) had been faked, that the OP had to actually make a full video to prove himself.
Where were you when the blurry ham took over? And how long did it take you to figure it all out?