How a made-up color blindness infiltrated the internet

The internet will tell you about all the different types of colorblindness, from protanopia to achromatomaly... but that second one? It is completely made up. Despite this, you can find it mentioned and simulated everywhere, including in peer-reviewed academic literature.
Footnotes and Transcript:
chromaphobe.com/how-a-made-up...
Glossary, including most of the technical terms in this video:
chromaphobe.com/words/
00:00 Intro
00:24 Reddit
03:04 Finding the source
06:05 A made-up simulation
07:04 A made-up term
09:58 Blue cone monochromacy
13:02 Mixed anomalous trichromacy
14:56 Outro

[@coyo_t]

There could also be the possibility that achromatomaly was created sort of like how "paper towns" are created for maps. Since its made up, if it showed up in any other CB Sims on the web, you'd know your code was copied to some degree or even outright stolen.

[@Chromaphobe]

Interesting theory! Maybe I should make up my own fake colorblindness and call it... chromaphobia?

[@brendan714]

Not gonna lie, this went from "over my head" to "stratospheric" when things got 'more technical' at 10:20, lol. But I do enjoy a good internet sleuthing story. It's funny that one person's tiny decision can cause 2 million Google hits decades later. Internet butterfly effect? It's also fun to see what some people accept as legitimate sources of information.

[@Chromaphobe]

Oh man, you should have seen my wife when I recited the script to her (its our special bonding time, ya know) without all the graphics, diagrams and titling. She was... lost. I actually took out another 4 minutes that got even more jargony and just put that in a footnote.

[@afelix]

The term "achromatomaly" doesn't even follow a logical pattern, like the other color anomalies. For example, "protanopia" (first type of blindness) is made up of "prot(o)-" (first), and "anopia" (lack of vision, from "an-" (not) and "-opia" (vision), the latter probably derived from "ops" (eye)), all Greek terms. Then "protanomaly" is made by replacing "anopia" with "anomaly" (unevenness, irregularity), which uses the same "an-" to indicate negation. See how "protanomaly", "deuteranomaly" and "tritanomaly" all contain the word "anomaly" in full. "Achromatomaly" would instead be an... "atomaly"? Or at least a claim that being an achromat is something completely normal ("omalous", if you will).

[@Chromaphobe]

Haha, I'm so glad I'm not the only person overthinking this. Your logic is sound. If -anomaly would mean irregular, then shouldn't -omaly mean regular? I can't find a trace of an "omaly" suffix, but yeah, makes sense. I guess I get caught up with protan being the base word, that "opia" and "omaly" are often thrown around as the suffixes, so I didn't even notice it! Even then, do you think Achromatanomaly is significantly better? Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't just name it Dyschromatopsia, which is at least a legitimate archaic term.

[@afelix]

@@Chromaphobe Yes, I think "achromatanomaly" would make more sense as a term. Regarding "omaly", the word "ὁμαλία" may not have explicitly existed, but the term "ἀνωμαλία" can be deconstructed in a different way: ἀνωμαλία ("anomalia" = unevenness) < ἀνώμαλος ("anomalos" = uneven) < ὁμαλός ("(h)omalos" = even) < "ὁμός" ("(h)omos" = same). I'm not sure why the "ὁ" changes to "ω", but every dictionary I've checked supports this.

[@Chromaphobe]

Great linguistic work detective af. That makes a lot of sense now!

[@Blubb3rbub]

Watching this video based on a "random" KZbin suggestion was kind of the experience, because I'm in it and kind of happy you didn't frame me as the villain here, even though I'm probably not innocent in this matter. 😅 I wrote "jsColorblindSimulator" (jsCS) some time ago, and it initially contained only two different algorithms: ColorMatrix (colorjack) and HCIRN (Wickline as recommended by colorjack). The reason I added the HCIRN simulation was, because the comment by colorjack explicitly mentions the HCIRN simulation as a better alternative to their ColorMatrix and the comment contained a convenient code sample. Because that HCIRN code came with a scary copyright and a "no commercial use statement" I never made that algorithm the default in jsCS, though, and kept the CVD-names as they appeared in both codes equally. So the version hosted on my GitHub featured "Achromatomaly" for a long time (I'm sorry). The HCIRN code, that was linked by colorjack contains a Wickline/HCIRN copyright and already used "Achromatomaly", but maybe that code was already modified by colorjack without any indications. COBLIS2 is based on that earlier version of jsCS, but with some changes: the CVD-names were changed, this "HCIRN" code was made the default and the algorithm choice was removed. The Brettel implementation was added to jsCS much, much later (2021-11-27) by a contributor and is not part of COBLIS2. I disabled the Achromatomaly simulation in jsCS now.

[@Chromaphobe]

Ah, what a weird thing to happen across. I wonder... at what point did you realize you'd be mentioned?! You're definitely not the villain. More the hero if anything, as you corrected your mistake and performed your due diligence. With sources, which really helped me with the final string in my story. And I thought I was getting it wrong with the coblis jscs relation, but I didn't want to overcomplicate that bit too much. And what color jack claimed was the HCIRN code definitely wasn't. This also confused me, but the "HCIRN" code also mentions wickline, which doesn't make sense. Unfortunately, I didn't get responses from wickline, color jack, HCIRN or the original coder, so I had to make a fair amount of assumptions based on the red herrings mostly initiated by color jack. Anyway, thanks for the clarifications and I'm glad you reacted accoridngly in your git 😅

[@Blubb3rbub]

​@@Chromaphobe When you showed the Coblis Screenshot at 3:23 I already was like "Oh, I made that" and paused the video to check my github and noticed "Oooooh ... I need to change that....". 😅 Then I unpaused and 4 minutes later I realized, "hey, I'm really getting mentioned here. 😱" 😂 I'm glad you could make use of my "research". Also happy, I always had a "No guarantees that these are actually good!"-Disclaimer on that page. 😅 The Brettel Code, that is now the default in jsCS, is arguably much better, and I also added a (hopefully bug free) Machado Simulation to jsCS by now. After watching a lot more of your videos, I have to say: Your channel is really delightful, and I enjoyed every video I watched 👍. It also made me learn more about my own CVD (Probably Protanomaly) and spiked an idea for a new project (I'm trying to "evaluate/visualize" my own color vision by implementing a customizable mosaic test to determine my "personal confusion lines" in more detail and display my color confusions/separations on the CIE diagram).

[@Chromaphobe]

Thanks for the compliments 😃 There was some really good research done recently by Daltonlens.org on the different simulation codes. Some really good articles on it there. Also, if you are going to make your own color vision quantification code, make sure you check out the video I based my biomodulation video on. With enough test time, I think you can get a pretty good model of your color vision based on macadam ellipses. David flatla also has a paper devoted to personalized CVD simulation. I'm on the bus to the airport right now though so I can't give you links.

[@ElectricDiamond360]

these are high quality videos, and theyre entertaining, how do you only have 388 subs?!?!

[@Chromaphobe]

Hehe, I share your sentiment. Thanks for the morale booster!

[@JustNilt]

I can't tell for certain but your image of the mixed anomalous trichomacy at 13:45 is shockingly similar to what I actually see. Since my insurance won't pay for comprehensive testing, all I know it I have a form of tritanomaly but that's never quite made sense since I see some really weird things noone else has ever said they also see. Now, I don't think you "solved the thing" since I can, in fact, mostly see other colors but I'd love to discuss with you somewhere other than KZbin comments how you arrived at that one. I'll next see if I can find an option for that noted elsewhere but wanted to leave a comment regardless.

[@Chromaphobe]

Contact me through my website chromaphobe.com and I can tell you more about the simulations I use. A very good resource are the articles at Daltonlens.org (and the Browser simulator there), which is the basis of my simulations. The sims in this video are old CoblisV2 sims, which aren't great. I've switched to more accurate simulations (Machado) in upcoming videos.

[@JustNilt]

@@Chromaphobe Thanks, I'll do that. :)

[@Veggie13]

This video was completely self obsessive. And I was riveted the whole time.

[@Chromaphobe]

Great! Just let me know any time you want a good riveting, Corey.

[@cgbasic808]

@@Chromaphobe hahaha

[@Owiion]

Cool video. I liked how far in depth you researched, and the way you explained it all. Thanks for this.

[@wwklnd]

This video popped up in the related videos as I was watching Acerola's "How Color Blind People See Games" video, and man am I glad I watched it. Absolutely fascinating, well sleuthed!

[@vanderkarl3927]

Bizarre how this ended up in my recommended, but I'm not complaining. Interesting stuff!

[@thechucklesstart]

This had me thinking about colorblind simulators and none of them change an image that is imperceptible by me, which I feel like they should be able to do. I was wondering if instead shifting the colors back to their original value, you instead chose a random direction that probabilistically was in the direction of the original color but left them at full intensity if that would be more similar to how I view colors (and of course doing some edge detection to make sure that the same object was shifted the same way).

[@jumpander]

Conditional Multrichromacy really piqued my interest. I need to read into this one. If people with normal trichromatic color vision could let their rods function as cones then they could maybe become tetrachromats (or tetrachromat-ish). Also it seems inconsitent to me that Deuteran-/Protan-/Tritanopia end with an "opia" but Achromatopsia ends with an "opsia", that is an added *s*. Unless "-opsia" describes a slightly different condition.

[@Chromaphobe]

Yup, most humans can force Tetrachromacy in this way, but because it's so much darker, it's actually still fewer colors you can see normally. Like how 100x100x100 is still bigger than 10x10x10x10.

[@Chromaphobe]

It is definitely an annoying similarity, like rhodopsin coming from Rhodos (for pink) and not ROD. In this case of Achromatopsia, there is not a good explanation in afraid. Both are derived from "ops" meaning eye or "opsis" meaning vision (Greek). It was just luck of the draw as I understand: "Occasionally, -opsia is used as a variant of -opia, as in teleopsia. Another rare variant of -opia is -opy."

[@jumpander]

@@Chromaphobe A good explanation, thanks. From my experience with mesopic light conditions I think less colors despite more "cones" is accurate. The next few times I go out for a walk in twilight/dusk I'll try to concentrate on the colors. Maybe I'll see something new. If only one could force the rods to be as light (in-)sensitive as cones. But that's harder than the other way around I suppose.

[@jumpander]

@@Chromaphobe Language, I guess.

[@Povilaz]

How do these small, pure gold channels appear on my feed? I am not complaining though, awesome video!

[@Chromaphobe]

If I knew the answer, I wouldn't be small anymore! 😏 Thanks for the nice words.

[@VegasEducation]

I saw your post on tube ritual and thought I'd check your channel. Your content is good. You'll grow. If I had any constructive criticism, it would be your audio. It sounds far away and echoey. It's not THAT bad, but I think it could hold you back a little Keep up the good work 👌

[@Chromaphobe]

I've tried so many different things. Got a sound recorder, rode lav mics, shotgun, the audio changes drastically with the smallest change in parameters. I've put so much noise absorbtion around my room. Sound is always crap. I'm trying something new every time. Seriously, I'm trained in industrial acoustics and this is embarrassing! 😂

[@VegasEducation]

@@Chromaphobe wierd. What was this video recorded with for audio?

[@Chromaphobe]

Rode video micro with tascam dr-05x

[@VegasEducation]

@@Chromaphobe how far away is it? Get it on a boom pole just out of frame a foot from your mouth

[@timothyrosenvall1496]

Under rated channel, you need more subscribers

[@somnvm37]

Did I get ir right: to sinulate protanopia (for example) you need to make red pixels the acerage of blue and green pixels. That way, if blue and green are all 100%, then it would be white, but for red, it would be black because it doesnt trigger other pixels? (I say pixels and nit cones because it's about cameras and screens). edit: I watched before the middle of the video.But would this work? If not, how does one make a simulation

[@Chromaphobe]

So that super simplification works KINDA for Tritanopia and Protanopia, but absolutely NOT for Deuteranopia. Real dichromacy simulations are quite a bit more complicated than that, which is why there have been so many journal papers written on the subject. Simulations in RGB colorspace is generally quite inaccurate. Most simulations first convert to XYZ or LMS colorspace. Even the Achromatopsia basic "black and white" simulation is laughably oversimplified.

[@AntsyBoi]

Didn't know there were channels just about colorblindness, gained a sub

[@nolamo1496]

underrated youtube channel!

[@tranonehalf]

Among Us is a wonderful game. Idea for shorts: review video games / board games / toys and explain how they are in/accessible for chromophobic people.

[@Chromaphobe]

I'm sure I'd play Among Us in another life. Already I have ideas for rating the colorblind accessibility of my daughter's Duplo.

[@tranonehalf]

Gotta review whatever the newest thing is, for clicks. Go review Mario Strikers for colorblind compatibility.

[@Chromaphobe]

I had a technical question in a KZbinr forum and mentioned my channel was accessibility related. Someone popped in to say "me too!" and we swapped channels. Turns out the majority of their videos are to rate the wheelchair accessibility of seemingly everywhere they go in Texas.

[@tranonehalf]

Sounds like you need to review major landmarks around the world and expense all of the travel.

[@Chromaphobe]

Statue of liberty: they say she's green. Lol, right. Golden gate bridge: I guess gold IS a type of brown. Redwood Forest: is the color supposed to be a metaphor? Yellowstone National Park: Wait, y'all just fucking with us, right?

[@FROZENbender]

this video was a welcome surprise in my feed.

[@bpark10001]

Most of the "simulations" I see on the web (especially in Enchroma videos) show the (protan or deutan) -opia form of colorblindness, despite these NOT being "improvable" with the glasses. I have seen only ONE video that makes a distinction between -anomaly & -opia kzbin.info/www/bejne/oXzQfaqJirCga5I It has a lot of silliness, but DOES explain the difference.

[@d3crypt3d]

there is grey star...

[@seb7391]

What's the point of those colorblind simulators if I can clearly see a big difference and I'm colorblind?

[@mnmlst1]

Oof i used this among us image on my presentation to show the 3 most common types of color blindness but left the image as it is, but I thought achromatopsia was off... I think I'll leave a note in the video and on my original slide.

[@suhilkhadka1314]

I'm colour vision me can you help my country Nepal

[@TheGlitchyFox]

There is an imposter among the colorblindness eh?

[@Chromaphobe]

I always thought Tritanomaly was sus, but I was wrong as always. 🙄

[@BuyMyBeard]

When people actually do their research

[@Terminaterk2]

i have blue-cone-monochromacy

[@iqruql9544]

I clicked for amogus, how have I been here for thirteen minutes?

[@Chromaphobe]

You lost your mouse. Did you check under the table? Maybe your cat ran off with it.

[@heliusuniverse7460]

once again among us is making people go crazy

[@demp11]

That sus