The viewer cannot distinguish whether the black horse is walking towards the camera or moving away.
A black horse walking in the snow is accidentally becoming a phenomenon on social networks when attracting more than 16 million views on TikTok alone. Alesia Carrie, owner of the black horse named Rudnik, said she recorded the 40-second video in January. In the video, Rudnik walks some distance from Alesia on a white snow field in Kamloops, British Columbia.
However, because of the jet black fur on the white snow background and the gray sky with no sunlight, the viewer could not tell which direction the horse was moving. Alesia herself also captioned the video, “When your black horse walks through the snow, you won’t be able to tell if it’s walking toward you or away.” In the final seconds of the video, Rudnik stops and stands still, looking at its snow-covered domain.
After a month of posting, the video currently has more than 16 million views and 2.2 million likes. It even attracted many shares on other social networking platforms. More than 11,000 people commented on Alesia’s original post to debate which side Rudnik was really on.
“Obviously at first I saw it coming towards you. But then I suddenly felt confused, no longer sure if I was right or not,” one person commented. “Why does it keep coming back like that? I’m so confused,” another person wondered.
Finally, Alesia ended the argument by confirming that the horse had been moving away from her throughout the video. “I was right, haha,” one TikTok user rejoiced when his guess was correct. “I refuse to believe this claim,” another wrote.