Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
The Dark Truth Behind The Viral Dress - The Story of Keir Johnston and Grace Johnston
05 Feb 2025
This is the story of Keir Johnston and Grace Johnston and the viral internet dress
Full Episode
At one point, this dress was the most famous dress in the entire world. It was a meme. And the creator of that meme just tried to unalive someone. Now, his name's Keir. And Keir's a normal dude. I think he works at a gas station. And he lives on a tiny little island in Scotland. And Keir is about to get married to this woman, Grace. So Keir and Grace, they're planning their wedding and whatnot.
And one day, Grace gets a text from her mom. And Grace's mom is at the store trying to pick out her dress for the wedding. And she texts Grace a few photos of some dresses, including this photo. And Grace, she mentions, oh, that white and gold dress. And Grace's mom is like, no, no, you mean the blue and black one. And so then they argue a bit about the color.
And so Grace, she shows the picture to Keir. Like, honey, look at this dress. What color do you think it is? And Keir's like, blue and black, of course. So then they get into a disagreement about it. Then Keir takes the photo over to the house next door to where he lives because his parents just happened to live in that house next door.
And his dad answers the door and Keir's like, dad, what color is this dress? And dad's like, that's white and gold, son. And so this whole family is disagreeing about the color of this dress. And so they show the photo to the people around them. And then soon everyone in the community is debating the color of this dress and none of them can agree on it. And this goes on for weeks.
And eventually one of Grace's friends, she takes the photo and she posts it on social media, hoping that maybe the internet can weigh in and help them settle this debate once and for all. And almost immediately after posting, kaboom, this post goes insanely viral. Everyone's talking about it and everyone's debating the color of this dress.
And this picture gets shared around and it gets retweeted something like 11 million times. The national news and talk shows are covering it. White and gold versus blue and black. This thing is really breaking social media records. Meanwhile, while all this is blowing up, Keira and Grace, they go and get married.
And they're on their honeymoon and they're not really paying attention to the outside world. And they're somewhat unaware of how much traction this story is getting on social media. And then suddenly, bam, they get a call from a producer of The Ellen Show. And the producer's like, will you please leave your honeymoon and come on The Ellen Show and talk about this viral dress photo?
And Keira and Grace are like, sure. So they all go on Ellen and they tell their story to the whole world. And I was like, no, mom, that's white and gold. And if you think it's blue and black, you need to go to the doctors. Right. And Ellen gives them an all expenses paid trip to Granada and like $10,000. And it's just a really cool moment for them.
And then so Keira and Grace, they have their fun and they go back to their tiny Scottish isle and they live happily ever after. Until seven years later, this is where it all goes south. So Keir, he's been drinking a lot lately and he's been really hard on Grace. And so their relationship just isn't going that well.
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