The Dress: Buzzfeed’s most popular post ever just disappeared

The post, called ‘What Colors Are This Dress?’ used a Tumblr post that has since disappeared

The Dress, perhaps the most viral picture of the year, has disappeared from Buzzfeed’s website.

The story that began the phenomenon — titled “What Colors Are This Dress?” — is still online but has no picture of The Dress that it discussed.

The piece arrived in late February. Hours after that it quickly became the site’s most popular ever — and The Dress that it depicted became a global sensation.

But the picture of The Dress that was once hosted on Buzzfeed has now disappeared. Instead, the site just features embedded Tumblr links, which show a message saying that “This post is gone now”.

The picture of The Dress was originally uploaded to Tumblr by Caitlin McNeill, a Scottish musician who attended the wedding where it was worn. It was there that it was found by Buzzfeed, which embedded it on its site and made it shoot to fame.

But McNeill appears to have removed the picture from Tumblr. In doing so, she also removed it from all of the places that had embedded it on their own site.

Buzzfeed’s post consists of few words: just a message noting that Tumblr is busy with debate. But The Dress was so popular that the page became a huge destination for people arguing about what colour The Dress was — and almost 39 million people have now read the story.

Interest in The Dress largely faded in the weeks after it was first discovered. But it provided huge exposure for its makers, Roman Originals, as well as serving as the inspiration for serious scientific studies.

Update: The picture has returned to the post — hosted this time on Buzzfeed rather than embedded from Tumblr.