There are moments that happen in our very online culture that truly bond us as a people. This is probably going to be one of those moments and not for the best of reasons. It’s because we all collectively just stopped letting our brains work at the same time and just accepted something as the reality until it was pointed out that we were wrong.
By now you may have seen the video of two horses standing in the middle of a river together and seemingly floating past someone. And if you’ve seen it, you may have also come to the conclusion that the horses aren’t moving. Or you might not.
Now, look. At first glance, I get it. In fact, it wasn’t until I saw people calling it out that I realized that the horses are actually stationary. But now the horses are slowly breaking Twitter’s collective brain because we’re all slowly realizing that we just assumed two horses were hanging out on a raft together and taking a journey down the river without really thinking anything of it. The Internet and the state of society today have just primed our burned-out brains to accept this as a fact.
The reality is that these horses are in a shallow part of the water and standing next to each other, and the person filming the video is floating by, making them look as if the horses are on a journey as well. It became such a thing that people on TikTok were stitching the video and pointing out that the horses weren’t actually floating, and it’s leaped around social networks.
Sometimes, thinking is hard
Now look, I’m including myself in this, but sometimes we just don’t think. And seeing this video when you’re scrolling on TikTok or Twitter, you might just move past it without breaking down what you just saw. And thus the idea that we should have realized two horses were probably not floating together is not really fair. But then also like, should I have noticed that the two horses were standing as still as possible and that a raft probably couldn’t have held them afloat? Yes. But I was primed to see the floating and so I saw it.
The horses are falling into a trend of users on TikTok sharing something and then realizing after that it isn’t what we originally thought. It happens with cooking videos or cleaning videos but this feels like a master illusion. I probably would have just carried on with my life thinking those horses were having a nice little ride up the river for the rest of my days and not thought of them again.
Now, however, I am forced to confront my own lack of quick thinking and will forever sit in my upset over the fact that I just instantly assumed this was fine and didn’t think to question whether or not the horses could even float down a river safely. The brain has an incredible ability to see what it wants to see, especially when our brains are broken by years of a global pandemic and the world being literally on fire.
To the mastermind who filmed this video, you know what you’ve done. So many of us are now questioning our realities and we’ll forever second guess every detail in the TikToks that we’re watching. But also can someone let me know if horses can ever float on a raft? What’s the science behind that?
(image: Netflix)
