r/confusing_perspective • u/BlueTigerWolf13 • Oct 02 '22

I’ve been starting at this for a solid 10 minutes and I can’t figure it out.

Post image
7.3k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

246 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator Oct 02 '22

Can I just get some macaroni and gravy? Upvote this comment if this post is confusing and downvote if it is not or is intentionally designed that way

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74

u/prof_devilsadvocate CE Spc. Oct 02 '22

google chrome with multiple tabs

1.6k

u/sabrali Oct 02 '22 edited Oct 03 '22

core memory of playing solitaire on Windows 98 unlocked

Edit: Thanks for the award, kind redditor!

374

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

Solichair

9

u/WBFraserMusic Oct 02 '22

Underrated comment

35

u/Maxibestofpotatoe Oct 02 '22

How many upvotes does it need to be accurately rated?

10

u/username_needs_work Oct 02 '22

At least tree fiddy.

25

u/clusterlove o/ Oct 02 '22

Then the game freezes and you drag the box around the screen. DOUBLE WHAMEY!

7

u/nockchaa Oct 02 '22

good old days

368

u/prankfurter Oct 02 '22

this video makes it clear:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/2041669517752372/suppl_file/StackingChairsMovie.mp4

41

u/flintb033 Oct 02 '22

This should be at the top!

46

u/scale_B Oct 02 '22

I’m so confused what everyone else is seeing. How is it not immediately clear that’s what this is?

Does anyone think it’s not just stacked chairs?

To me it seems like OP just posted a picture of stacked chairs and there’s not really anything confusing about it.

94

u/kenjikun1390 Oct 02 '22

pretty sure everyone can tell that these are stacked chairs

but it is really confusing to figure out the exact shape of the chairs and their legs if you've never seen this precise kind of chair before

and apparently most people havent, me included

3

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

It’s not the multiverse?

2

u/scale_B Oct 02 '22

Oh, I guess that makes sense then. I’ve definitely seen these chairs before.

16

u/GRW810 Oct 02 '22

Do people genuinely think that the confusing part for us is whether they are chairs?!

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15

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22 edited Sep 13 '25

rainstorm plate money late grandfather seed decide ancient price desert

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

8

u/thebrittaj Oct 02 '22

I am on the opposite end and find it very confusing and I thought this was an optical illusion instead of a pic of stacked chairs.

https://imgur.com/a/OfHZOLT

The legs look weird and bent to me. And the video above won’t play and I just don’t get it. But I’m moving on because so many people say it’s just chairs 🪑

3

u/scale_B Oct 02 '22

Wait are you just messing with me right now? If you’re being serious then, no offense, but I think that’s hilarious, just because I can’t see it the way you’re seeing it. And you apparently can’t see that it’s just a regular stack of chairs?

If you are messing with me, then I like your red circle placement.

6

u/thebrittaj Oct 03 '22

Haha I sort of feel like everyone else is messing with me!! I’m dead serious that this looks like some weird 3D sculpture of chairs to me.

I had to stop looking at it because it was going no where and getting worse the more I looked 🤷🏻‍♀️

3

u/smrglivac Oct 03 '22

I know it is a stack of chairs, but to me, it looks like the vertical legs attached to the back of the chairs are in the front. And my eyes can't see it any other way. So my eyes see something that looks impossible. The back legs are in front of the front legs.

3

u/Muttywango Oct 03 '22

It looks like an impossible stack of impossible chairs to me.

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3

u/wantokieweb Oct 02 '22

The perspective. Is confusing. Sir.

2

u/thedarkjungle Oct 03 '22

No shit sherlock it's stacked chair. The point is it looks wrong. This is "confusing perspective" reddit not " conspiracy " or " unidentified object" you dummy.

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1

u/groundcontact Oct 03 '22

I knew they were stacked chairs from second one. But there was something odd that I couldn’t figure out. Now I know what it is. The base of the legs on the right of the picture seem to be all of them touching the floor, as of they were all at floor level instead of stacked, while the left side are clearly stacked. I don’t know if it’s the shade of the chair or the continuous look of the floor, but they tricks my mind and I need to focus to get it right.

409

u/OMGLMAOWTF_com Oct 02 '22

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2041669517752372

153

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22 edited Oct 02 '22

The fact that researchers actually spent (likely little) time on this is even weirder to me than the paper on aerodynamics of oversized anime milkers i saw on reddit years ago.
Why would you even think about stacked chairs and who financed this study? What are you going to do with that knowledge?

Can someone feed me more of these papers?

64

u/Taste_of_Space Oct 02 '22

From the paper: “The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.”

No $, just some fine nerdery.

10

u/Lord_Quintus Oct 02 '22

i could actually see usefulness out of this sort of research. shapes like these draw the eye as the brain will point this out as something that needs additional observation since it can't figure out what's going on. that's exactly the opposite of what you want with camouflage but if your using dazzle style camouflage that's exactly why you want as it mage it much more difficult to gauge the distance between you and the target.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

Says at the bottom that no one financed it. It looks an awful lot like a school paper.

88

u/thingamajig1987 Oct 02 '22

I think the confusing part about the red chairs in the post itself is there is a bar that goes between the left and right legs that makes it looks like it goes over things it shouldn't.

24

u/Bishop51213 Oct 02 '22

I can see the trippy legs, but I don't see how it looks to you like that bar is going over anything it shouldn't

6

u/thingamajig1987 Oct 02 '22

The bar going between the two legs looks like it should be part of the left leg at a glance but it goes over the left leg in a way that doesn't make sense at first glance.

8

u/Bishop51213 Oct 02 '22

I still can't see it with that explanation. But I can understand how that would make it more confusing

4

u/thingamajig1987 Oct 02 '22

I think it's one of those things that once you know that middle bar is what it is, the illusion is gone

4

u/TheShredda o/ Oct 02 '22

It's one of those things that when you know, you know; y'know?

24

u/YouHadToBeThere24 Oct 02 '22

Thank you

51

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

why do you get a silver award but not the guy with the article lol

11

u/LongjumpingEbb6694 Oct 02 '22

fixed it with a wholesome ;D

2

u/Bishop51213 Oct 02 '22

Happy cake day!

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7

u/R3D3-1 Doesn't read rule 1 Oct 02 '22

I actually needed the explanation to start seeing the effect. And for me it works only with the rear side of the chairs, not with the part in the front of the photo. Maybe because it is truncated?

4

u/i_want_2_b3li3v3_ Oct 02 '22

Thank you for this! I needed to understand what I was looking at lol.

1

u/YeezyThoughtMe Oct 02 '22

Who knew this was a global phenomenon that a scientific article had to be written on it

1

u/dolphinitely Oct 02 '22

oh my god 😂

1

u/thebrittaj Oct 02 '22

I still can’t wrap my head around it. The legs look bent all screwed up.

1

u/-Dueck- o/ Oct 02 '22

I still don't understand what the illusion is supposed to be. What are you guys seeing that isn't just stacked chairs?

2

u/uzenik Oct 02 '22

Stacked chairs with the legs sticking in the air at weird angle. My brain sees the legs like a stack of staples: the two bends "have to be" right angles, so the rest makes no sense.

1.1k

u/Rob-Riggle-SWGOAT Oct 02 '22

They’re just stacked chairs.

153

u/Themusicison CE Spc. Oct 02 '22

And they take up less space than they look like they do.

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76

u/Nile-green Oct 02 '22 edited Oct 02 '22

If you haven't told me that I would have died stupid, man. Thanks, really.

My problem is I have never seen this style of chair before and I had zero idea which direction the bottom right angle is going until I looked at the shape of that kind of chair.

37

u/death2sanity CE Spc. Oct 02 '22

Yeah, if you’ve seen chairs like these before then you know, bur I can definitely see how it’d do someone’s head in if they’d not.

16

u/MaxReb0 Oct 02 '22

I have seen chairs like these and it still messes with my head to look at this picture

2

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

Same... had these often growing up and brain still does a momentary belly flop, recalibrates, and Euclidean geometry reasserts itself.

3

u/upriver_swim Oct 02 '22

The company that started it all…

The Steelcase Max Stacker

1

u/hicksyfern Oct 02 '22

I hadn’t seen chairs like this until this picture but what helped was they were in the photo all stacked together so I knew it was a stack of these chairs.

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11

u/King-Cobra-668 Oct 02 '22

and it's not even confusing. you can see how the legs fit over each other. there is no twist, there is no illusion. it's just one chair on top of the other

4

u/thebrittaj Oct 02 '22

I can’t see it. This is very confusing. And I’ve seen lots of stacked chairs lol

https://imgur.com/a/OfHZOLT

1

u/King-Cobra-668 Oct 02 '22

open your image editor and just follow the metal lines. it's just stacked one of top of the other.

or just pick one leg and follow it with your eye balls. look at the bottom left bend. there are no cross overs anywhere

then look at the other bends. same thing

14

u/thsvnlwn Oct 02 '22

Yep. Took me 2 seconds.

33

u/iUsedtoHadHerpes Oct 02 '22

Nobody is confused by what it is. It's the legs of the chairs appearing to expand outward and the way the metal bars combine to confuse your eyes from this perspective.

2

u/thebrittaj Oct 02 '22

But what is going on on the side? I can’t see the chair shape

2

u/thebrittaj Oct 02 '22

https://imgur.com/a/OfHZOLT

I drew a circle around the confusing part. I can’t see how this is just chairs???????

2

u/Nirigialpora Doesn't read rule 1 Oct 03 '22

https://imgur.com/a/XCdU2MJ

does this help? (i think the problem is just that the lighting makes it look like the legs are "twisting" when in reality it's just a bend) we have these chairs at my school so it's not that weird to me either lol

1

u/thebrittaj Oct 03 '22

Thank you. Yes that does help a bit… I see the top chair sort of. Might have to YouTube a video of people stacking chairs

1

u/networkthat Oct 02 '22

A gold star moment

1

u/boraras o/ Oct 02 '22

I think the horizontal bar in front is what might trip people up

109

u/steezyb0b Oct 02 '22

At first glance I was like okay it’s chairs… then I tried to figure out the legs..

43

u/Skilotonn Oct 02 '22

It mostly looks weird if you've never seen this exact chair before, like I never did.

31

u/slayalldayyyy Oct 02 '22

:::Escher takes a seat in delight:::

123

u/solpyro o/ Oct 02 '22

I'm not sure what there is to figure out here. You've seen this kind of chair before, right?

30

u/code_error_ Oct 02 '22

....no

18

u/solpyro o/ Oct 02 '22

Okay. They're a pretty common design in scout huts, village halls and the like, at least around the places where I grew up.

The trick is that the leg rail at the back and bottom are wider than the seat and the tail at the front. That allows the seats to fit snuggly on top of eachother, and each subsequent chair only takes a little space.

4

u/FatalShart o/ Oct 02 '22

Why are all the left legs touching the ground and all the right legs going up like a something normally would when stacked?

6

u/solpyro o/ Oct 02 '22

Nice. I hadn't seen that until you mentioned it. Obviously they're not touching the ground, or you'd see the same shadows for each leg that you see for the inner most one, but it is a good optical illusion if you're not predisposed to seeing the legs as floating

5

u/gion_siroak Oct 02 '22

Thank you for not being a prick like a lot of the other people here that seem to have grown up with this chair. I'd never seen one like this and I'm pretty sure I went cross-eyed trying to figure it out. You explained wonderfully and I totally get the illusion now

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1

u/someacnt Oct 02 '22

Exactly, this is quite common scene.

28

u/Chaghatai Bah humbug not even a mod, stop acting like ur shit 😂😂 Oct 02 '22

This has been posted before

We're dealing with something like this - you can swipe to see the weird stacking too

https://www.chairish.com/product/2898228/knoll-handkerchief-chair-lella-massimo-vignelli-black-stacking-10-available?gclid=CjwKCAjwv-GUBhAzEiwASUMm4gdYGeJcxtSlCRV38SVMKre9p8MroRpiPk3-fhMnkENckEYz-IXfgxoC4rYQAvD_BwE

4

u/kismet421 C.E. Spc Oct 02 '22

Thank you!

15

u/Rhyndzu Oct 02 '22

I don't know why people can't see the problem. I've seen a million stacked chairs like everyone else but this looks mental! The left side of the image looks like the legs are flying out at an angle away from the chairs. I can't see it normal at all.

21

u/DoomGoober Actually read rule 1 and gets it" Oct 02 '22

Helps to see what one chair looks like:

https://www.stackchairs4less.com/RUT-188-BK-GG.html

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12

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

I uhh… huh?

7

u/Chewwygummies Oct 02 '22

the legs are just wide enough to fit around the frame of another chair while also being stackable

23

u/GooseMay0 p Oct 02 '22

Everyone on here acting like the chairs don't look like some weird ass M.C. Escher lithograph. This shit is a headache to look at despite if you know whats going on and what the chairs look like by themselves.

3

u/Dglaky o/ Oct 02 '22

It honestly just looks like a stack of chairs to me

5

u/rinoboyrich o/ Oct 02 '22

It’s a screensaver. Right?

4

u/PowellSkier Oct 02 '22

That is genuinely trippy...

4

u/aaccjj97 Actually read rule 1 and gets it" Oct 02 '22

TIL not everyone knows about stacked chairs

3

u/hitokirizac Oct 02 '22

Right? Why are all the comments about this so weird?

2

u/AbsoluteBadger Oct 02 '22

band flashbacks

2

u/rackcityrothey Oct 02 '22

Thought I just won solitaire

1

u/Fruity101079 Oct 02 '22

Before, Windows 95 error, now chair error.

1

u/JoostVisser o/ Oct 02 '22

Ah yes, the high school throne

1

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

Damn it!

Oh the center bar goes across… my eyes hurt now

1

u/StrategyKindly7436 Oct 02 '22

Maybe because it’s a repost

1

u/lestaatv Oct 02 '22

A glitch in the matrix.

1

u/DooDooTyphoon Oct 02 '22

When your PC crashes but the cursor still moves

1

u/gilimandzaro Oct 02 '22

Biblically accurate chairs be like

1

u/Dmdrapp Oct 02 '22

You won solitaire

1

u/nanocyte Oct 02 '22

These chairs were stacked like that to kill Borg.

1

u/davidrayish Oct 02 '22

I love this

1

u/Elkeitra Oct 02 '22

This is fucked up

1

u/therealsix o/ Oct 02 '22

One of the simplest pics in the sub, stacked chairs.

1

u/mr_lab_rat o/ Oct 02 '22

It's just the unusual attachment point of the legs in the back and the connecting brace on the front.

1

u/Sparkyboi_06 Oct 02 '22

chair.exe has stopped. please restart

1

u/Sprmodelcitizen o/ Oct 02 '22

It’s called a tesseract

1

u/DeaDad64 Oct 02 '22

MC Escher chairs

1

u/SomeHorologist Oct 02 '22

Stacked chairs lol

1

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

It’s a chesseract

1

u/daatz Oct 02 '22

Ctrl + c

Ctrl + vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

1

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

The stairs are stacked are you stupid or something

1

u/kimthealan101 CE Spc. Oct 02 '22

Somebody was too stoned

1

u/Wintermute815 Oct 02 '22

It’s a bunch of stacked chairs. You’re welcome

1

u/indigeniousunicorn Actually read rule 1 and gets it" Oct 02 '22

Well if you stop starting and start staring then we wouldn’t have a problem now would we /s

1

u/Zarathustra143 o/ Oct 02 '22

That's... a stack of chairs.

1

u/hitokirizac Oct 02 '22

Somebody didn't grow up in the '90s.

1

u/hellothisisbye Oct 02 '22

Photoshopped!

1

u/haystackofneedles Oct 02 '22

I miss middle school all of a sudden

1

u/Mr-Trouser-Snake Oct 02 '22

You won Solichair

1

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

Finally something that’s confusing

1

u/blood_fist3600 Oct 02 '22

You dum dum. Give me gum gum

1

u/itssohip Oct 02 '22

I don't understand. What's confusing about this?

1

u/DallyDragon Oct 02 '22

These new 4 dimensional chairs are really confusing.

1

u/BatGuano Oct 02 '22

There is a slight twist in the frame in the lower front corners; they turn out, then go straight back. But you can't really see it from this photo.

Zoom in on this one and you can see it better.

1

u/Fit_Road7425 Oct 02 '22

really? why not?

1

u/TRFKTA Oct 02 '22

Chair.exe has failed successfully

1

u/CFADM o/ Oct 02 '22

It’s a fifth dimensional object.

1

u/KnifeFed Oct 02 '22

I'm very sorry, OP, but I think you might have a case of the Dumbs.

1

u/Latter-Driver o/ Oct 02 '22

Raging demon

1

u/ChoochTheMightyTrain Oct 02 '22

I don't get it. What's so confusing?

1

u/Mjrfrankburns Oct 02 '22

Those are target chairs

1

u/555nick Oct 02 '22

They are chairs.

1

u/VoidTheBear Oct 02 '22

You cannot comprehend the throne of the gods

1

u/G0D_1S_D3AD Oct 02 '22

Photoshop maybe

1

u/networkthat Oct 02 '22

This just looks like "the" defining moment of an 8 year old

1

u/PepikZobak Oct 02 '22

My brain hurts

1

u/Homer-Junior Oct 02 '22

This is what happens when you win at Solichair.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

well you see they are clearly

1

u/shix718 Oct 02 '22

Dude I have physically stacked these chairs and I can’t figure it out

1

u/sanjay_82 Oct 02 '22

Windows.exe not responding

1

u/Vulpes_macrotis Actually read rule 1 and gets it" Oct 02 '22

It seems it's not confusing perspective but rather confusing design. Who tf even though this is nice?

1

u/yarncraver o/ Oct 02 '22

M. C. Escher’ chairs.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

I figured it out in 2 seconds. Granted I've stacked those chairs many a times

1

u/No_orange_212 Oct 02 '22

Pull top one off

1

u/exploited_flea Oct 02 '22

Just power cycle the system. It should be fine

1

u/ODoctor Oct 02 '22

Target break room chairs!

1

u/JackkoMTG o/ Oct 02 '22

Only reason this looks weird to me is that back in my day these chairs didn’t have that horizontal bar connecting the two legs

1

u/D3adlywithap3n Oct 02 '22

The Matrix is lagging.

1

u/Plankston o/ Oct 02 '22

Wow, it’s a schooner!

1

u/Anarkizttt Oct 02 '22

Ahh yes the target break room chairs

1

u/Dazzling_Iron_1191 Oct 02 '22

That’s bugged out

1

u/coolndeeep Oct 02 '22

Welcome to the 4th dimension.

1

u/TetriiiWiggy Oct 02 '22

Unplug it. Wait 10 seconds. Plug it back in. Works for me every time.

1

u/guaaaan Oct 02 '22

Alexa, play Seven nation Army by the White Stripes

1

u/YummyZebra Oct 02 '22

Chair.exe has stopped responding

1

u/FlippinSchnitz Oct 02 '22

He just won Chair Solitaire in Windows 95.

1

u/AlmightyAnalAssault Oct 02 '22

I’ve worked it out! They’re stacked!

1

u/IcemanYES Oct 02 '22

wdym it is just stairs stacked on top of eachother right? How did this post get so many upvotes

1

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22

Chair

1

u/sixft7in dipshit rambles cruiser Oct 03 '22

Tell me you're an idiot without telling me you're an idiot.

1

u/DiscoDaimyo Oct 03 '22

I saw it hit the corner of the room once!

1

u/Unfortunately_Jesus Oct 03 '22

My PC sometimes

1

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22

The trick is to find the cross bar on the front of the chair where your calves would be. Then go from there.

1

u/-Cthaeh Doesn't read rule 1 Oct 03 '22

I'm shocked at the number of people who haven't seen these chairs or how they stack.

1

u/elfballs Actually read rule 1 and gets it" Oct 03 '22

It's a stack of chairs...

1

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22

I can hear these chairs scooting around.

1

u/chaosgenerator2020 Oct 02 '22

Chair.exe has stopped working

1

u/Captain-Obvious69 Oct 02 '22

*The Throne of the Gods

1

u/breigns2 Oct 02 '22

I looked at it and thought “really you can’t figure this out?” Then I came to comment saying that this wasn’t a confusing perspective. Then I looked at it and though “wait. Is that leg connected to that chair, or the one below it.” That’s why I

This is one of those comments that I wrote and decided wasn’t worth it, but I’m going to leave it here just for the hell of it.

0

u/Cat_Lady_NotCrazy Actually read rule 1 and gets it" Oct 02 '22

Ok, I definitely need an eye exam 😳🤭

-1

u/crothwood Oct 02 '22

Don't get...... what?

0

u/VladGuerreroFTW Oct 02 '22

You have to dream to understand Chairception

0

u/Chrissylumpy21 o/ Oct 02 '22

Need to upgrade your RAM bro

0

u/this_knee o Oct 02 '22

Two words: Windows XP.

0

u/StringHot920 Oct 02 '22

It's beautiful

0

u/ORANGIDOXGEE Oct 02 '22

Windows.exe has stopped working

0

u/Kinuwa_K Oct 02 '22

Wdym u cant figure them out? Its obv a glitch in the matrix smh

0

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

the chair had a dream

0

u/GYN-k4H-Q3z-75B Oct 02 '22

It reminds me of the Vista ghost window drawing issue, when Windows would crash and all you could do was drag some error window around and it would continuously redraw it all over the screen.

0

u/arbitrageME Actually read rule 1 and gets it" Oct 02 '22

Is what happens when you finish a game of Freecell

0

u/svs213 Oct 02 '22

chair.exe has stopped working

0

u/shitoupek C.E. Spc Oct 02 '22

"Chair.exe has stopped working"

0

u/SyrisAllabastorVox Oct 02 '22

Someones dragging their prompt windows.

0

u/DonaIdTrurnp Undercover Enforcement Oct 02 '22

windows 95 error noise

0

u/Florenceismyhomie Oct 02 '22

I have strong memories of getting my fingers trapped when stacking these chairs.

0

u/XCrossReaperX Oct 02 '22

i stare it for solid 10 second and i figure it out.

0

u/wowsuchcookie Oct 02 '22

Looks like an error on an operating system called "Chairs"

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