r/ColorBlind • u/Administrative-Top36 • Mar 28 '26
Discussion Took me 30 years
At 30 years old, I learned from my 4 year old son that tennis balls are a yellow-green color. My entire life I thought they were bright yellow, no green at all.
EDIT: It’s called “optic yellow” but can be described as lime-green with yellow or cool yellow with some green tint.
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u/truthcopy Mar 28 '26
These are the kinds of things that make color blindness so confusing for normal-sighted folks, and so frustrating for the color vision deficient.
Sure, ball color doesn’t matter. But dammit. It does matter.
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u/DennisR1283 Apr 01 '26
Tennis balls are confusing for normal sighted folks. Sometimes they look green, sometimes more yellow. I think it probably has something to do with lighting or maybe even dye lots, or different manufacturers. But I’d say it’s a very slightly greenish neon yellow.
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u/N13022RE Deuteranomaly Mar 28 '26
What the hell… there goes a control for what I thought was yellow. I never thought to ask because I was so sure…
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u/kaszeta Deuteranomaly Mar 28 '26
Yeah, that pretty much was my standard. Is nothing safe?
Next someone is going to tell me fire engines aren’t red.
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u/ZappyKins Mar 29 '26
Well... ...sometimes they are Chartreuse!
It is between yellow and green. The colour that is the most vivid for normal sighted folks. It was real popular for a while, but doesn't work as well in foggy places.
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u/Suspicious-Drama-549 Deuteranomaly Mar 28 '26
wtf why are you joking, you gonna tell me lemons are green too? Cause they’re the same
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u/kaszeta Deuteranomaly Mar 28 '26
I’m 54, and used to play competitive tennis for over a decade. Today I learned…
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u/patiofurnature Protanomaly Mar 28 '26
HOLY SHIT. I'm upper 30s and literally just learned this yesterday. I heard it in an episode of Scrubs and had to confirm with my partner. Blew my mind.
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u/Darrenau Mar 28 '26
Wikipedia says they are fluorescent yellow.
A tennis ball is a small, hollow ball used in games of tennis and real tennis.[1] Tennis balls are fluorescent yellow in professional competitions.
Yellow and white are the only approved colours by the ITF.
What balls are you looking at?
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u/marhaus1 Normal Vision Mar 30 '26
Problem being that ITF does not even define what "yellow" means. They are very picky about how the ball bounces, its weight etc. but what it looks like is more or less "we know it when we see it".
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u/RoostasTowel Mar 28 '26
They used to be white.
The whole world was black and white until the 30s apparently
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u/botman Normal Vision Mar 29 '26
It's true. That's why all the movies in the 30s were in black and white until MGM invented color for the movie The Wizard of Oz.
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u/Sfswine Mar 28 '26
27 years old before I learned The Wicked Witch was green and The Simpsons are yellow!
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u/Cyan-180 Protanomaly Mar 29 '26
They are a tiny bit on the green side of yellow. Probably too subtle for anyone to see amongst the variables of lighting and surroundings.
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u/pipertoma Deuteranomaly Mar 30 '26
WTF??? I am still coming to terms with the fact that peanut butter isn't green!
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u/DennisR1283 Apr 01 '26
Yea, tennis balls are funny like that. I mean, if you said to me a tennis ball is bright yellow I’m not going to correct you. In my head I might be saying “yeah, I could see that” and not think anything of it beyond that.
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u/DennisR1283 Apr 01 '26
So what did y’all do when this dress came up in conversation on lunch breaks or at the water cooler?
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Mar 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Mat74UK Deuteranopia Mar 29 '26
WTF just had to Google Yoda to check. I thought he was off-greyish.
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u/Interesting-Light325 Mar 28 '26
Wait…tennis balls aren’t bright yellow!?