Parenting

This Adele Optical Illusion Is Freaking Everyone Out

by Maria Guido
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Originally Published: 

An optical illusion in a photo of Adele is going viral

Warning: There’s not enough coffee in the world to help you process this.

Nothing to see here, right? Just a totally normal picture of Adele looking gorgeous on her 25 album cover. But, wait. Why is her eyeliner under her eye? Is something off about this picture?

Yes. There is definitely something off about this picture. It’s going viral this morning, thanks to a Twitter account that takes somewhat benign pictures of recognizable celebrities and turns them into something out of a horror show. The Twitter page is simply called, Turn Your Phone, but it’s the stuff of nightmares. Don’t even let your kids near it, unless you want to scar them for decades.

So here’s what happens when you view the image upside down:

Perspective is everything, isn’t it? One minute you’re looking at a gorgeous photo of Adele, thinking maybe you should start wearing your eyeliner under your eyes, too. The next minute you’re crying into your coffee. “You” is me in this scenario, obviously. Can. Not. Un-see.

“The Thatcher Effect, also known as the Thatcher illusion, illustrates that the brain can’t properly process a photo of a face that is upside down,” writes ThatcherEffect.com. “The interesting part is that the brain thinks it can so you get a confident feeling that everything is alright, until you turn it over.” This strange optical illusion was named after Margaret Thatcher, as hers was the first face someone tested this illusion theory on. Why? Who knows.

For some reason, when you flip a person’s mouth and eyes, they look completely normal upside down, and like a science experiment gone bad right side up. If you really need answers, this link has several theories you can explore.

If you think Adele is somewhat horrifying upside down, look at this one:

Found on Imgur, with this title, “This picture doesn’t seem bad, until you turn it upside down.” Yeah.

Hold me.

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