Is This Woman’s New Winter Hat Green, Brown, or Red?

A woman has gone viral on TikTok for her new winter hat that mysteriously changes colors.

It seems like every few years, there's an article of clothing that has the internet debating on because it looks like a certain color to some, and a different color to others. First, it was the infamous dress. You remember the dress, right? Some people saw a black and blue dress, while others debated that the dress was gold and white. Then, there was a woman's Nike tank top, shorts, and sandals.  Some people think they were teal and grey, while other people thought they're pink and white. Well...here we go again...only this time, there's a twist.

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The Hat of a Different Color

An interior designer named Otelia Carmen posted a series of TikTok videos after she bought a winter hat that she thought was green. When she got home, she looked at the hat and discovered that it was red. But wait, there's more. When she took it outside, the hat looked brown! The Horse of a Different Color from "The Wizard of Oz" might not be real, but "The Hat of a Different Color" sure is, and there's video proof of it.

Unlike the infamous dress debate, everyone is seeing the same colors with this hat. The question is: How can this hat just magically change colors? Seriously, what kind of sorcery is this? The answer, my friend, is "metamerism."

What in the World is Metamerism?

Metamerism is the reason behind this hat changing colors, not video editing filters...but what does that even mean? Essentially, things look different depending on the color temperature of the light that you're in at the time. In this case, the lights in her bedroom are LED's with a cooler light temperature, so they make it look green. However, incandescent lighting can make it look red because it's warmer.  When the hat is under sunlight, which is somewhere in the middle, it looks brown. And in case you were wondering, apparently the actual color of the hat is brown.

This is a real thing, but I can't recall anything that I have ever seen change colors like that, with the exception of my friend's truck. In certain light, it looks to be a greenish color, and other times it appears to be grey. Perhaps you have seen objects change colors under different lighting and you were unsure why that was. Now you know!

(H/T- The Sun)