It's safe to be behind the screen, but that won't get in the way of this trending shark post from tormenting the hell out of whoever comes across it.
Actress Blake Lively took to her Instagram on Tuesday to share an optical illusion starring a shark to promote her new movie The Shallows, a modern take on Jaws that will hit theaters on June 24.
The Instagram photo features nothing but a textured seafoam green background with some white pattern. While there is nothing else going on in this image at first glance, the more the eye browses around the image, the more bugged out the viewer will get.
Now it doesn't matter that that the viewer now knows there is a shark hidden somewhere in there because try as you might, it's close to impossible to see that it is hidden underneath the surface.
A photo posted by Blake Lively (@blakelively) on Jun 14, 2016 at 7:11am PDT
There's a really good chance those viewing the image will scan it a million times until you feel like your eyes will bleed. Talk about shark bait.
But this extremely difficult optical illusion could be clearly seen by anyone who grew up in the '90s and has some serious practice because of the popular Magic Eye books. For those who haven't heard of Magic Eye, the books featured pages of 2D patterns that included 3D hidden images which would appear when readers moved their eyes in a certain way.
And Lively was surely a fan of them.
"Here's a throwback to make you smile. What a hole decided the world no longer needed these?!?! '90s kid," she captioned the Instagram post.
There is a trick to seeing the hidden pattern: viewers are supposed to hold the center of the image to their nose so that it is blurry and focus off into the distance. When you start to slowly move the image away, the optical illusion should appear.
While it might take some serious focusing (and may even bring on a serious headache), eventually a shark jumping out of water should be revealed.
The post has received more than 126,000 likes and more than 1,800 comments in the past two days, with many Instagram users reporting they do see the shark. Then again, there are plenty of others who feel like a fish out of water and can't see the damn thing.
Maybe Lively will start a trend and have Magic Eye photos make a comeback. But for the half of the internet who needs an Advil and new glasses, it might be better to just stick to those "find the panda" photos.
Source: CNET
Photo: Jeff Kubina | Flickr
