Were you among the Facebook friends or Twitter followers of the 20 million people who shared a picture of @thedress? I was. And, I was convinced that the dress was white and gold, rather than blue and black (which was what my mother saw). Or, admittedly, white with shades of light blue shimmering tints, and a kind of golden brown. My mother could only see blue and black.

A BBC news segment included a visit to the manufacturer which revealed that my mother was correct in what she saw. In the absence of bad lighting – it was clear that @thedress was, in fact, blue and black.

I have always enjoyed understanding optical illusions. As more than 20 million people shared an image of @thedress through social media networking sites, I learned much about the way in which we each see colors, was reminded of long forgotten high school biology lessons, and paused to ponder on how our perceptions of the world vary.

As Facebook friends shared an image of @thedress, I noticed some mutual friends comment with exasperation with sentiments such as; “people are dying in the world, and you’re concerned about the color of a dress! C’mon people!!!”.

I am always confused by such sentiments. How does boycotting sharing an image of an optical illusion further the quest for world peace? Does the pursuit of justice require abstinence from trivial interests? I understand indifference as to the color of @thedress better than I understand this exasperation.

If 20 million people shared daily visions for organising a free and participatory society – where resources were allocated and produced differently so as to eliminate poverty and classism, where we worked jobs that were more or less equally empowering, and where we moved toward sustainability – we might not worry about who or how many were sharing a picture of a dress and questioning its color. We might have large and diverse movements to end conflict, poverty, classism, racism, sexism, homophobia, able-ism, environment degradation, but, we don’t.

And, @thedress is not at fault – it’s a harmless optical illusion – more powerful illusions are at play. The illusion that hard work leads to financial freedom; the illusion that we can positively think our way to financial abundance or political freedom; the illusion that change is impossible and there is no alternative. Perhaps we must also reflect upon our own methods of communicating, building, and sharing visions for a more just society.

U.S. media website BuzzFeed helped make the image of @thedress go viral. BuzzFeed was set up to test, track and create viral content on the internet and typically publishes content that beings with numbers “23 Things All Introverts Are Guilty Of Doing” or “10 Children’s Games That Make No Sense When You Think About It”. It would be unusual to find meaningful political analysis on BuzzFeed.

Surely it’s more important to: understand the systems that propagate and support such media projects; support alternative projects (such as teleSUR and ZNet) which aim to shed light on imperialism, capitalism and poverty; build and participate in diverse social movements; and express in our loud and diverse voices our poetic visions for a more just society, than criticize another’s interest in a modern popular optical illusion.