Guy reveals the real reason why the seats and curtains in movie theaters are red

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By VT

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A man has taken to TikTok reveal the surprising reason why the seats and curtains in movie theatres are red.

TikTok user @designsecretsss shared a video of himself explaining why movie theatre curtains are red - a design feature that most of us have likely never thought twice about.

He said that the reason they are this color is that "the color red is the first sight that the human eye loses sight of in dark and low lighted conditions, making it easier for you to focus on the performance or movie screen and not get distracted by the surroundings."

Watch the viral TikTok below:

The surprising revelation did not go unnoticed on TikTok, and at the time of writing, the video has amassed more than 470,000 views, been liked over 52K times, and received almost 200 comments.

Reacting to the video, one TikTok user wrote: "did you just explain why assassins in comic books [wear] a lot of red and black [sic]."

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Credit: TikTok

A second added: "Red light is less harsh on photosensitive things (aka eyes and cameras) that's why photo labs are lit with red light as to not ruin the film."

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Credit: TikTok

A third wrote: "no way i woulda thought because it's a romantic colour [sic]."

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Credit: TikTok

A fourth added: "Cool, red also is perceived by our brains faster than any other color!"

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Credit: TikTok

Meanwhile, a fifth wrote: "I believe that's why alarm clock leds are usually red [sic]."

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Credit: TikTok

However, as we all know, you shouldn't take everything you're told on the internet at face value, but we did a little digging so you don't have to.

LiveSavvy reports that @designsecretsss is very much correct and describing a process that's known as the Purkinje Color Effect.

In layman's terms; our retinas are made up of rods, and while they are light-sensitive, they aren't good at responding to colors.

When it gets dark in movie theatres, the rods start to filter out the colors around you, and red is the first to turn to black because of its wavelength!

However, The Uijunkie reports that there's more to the use of the color red than just this, and theatres have also stylistically been influenced by Italian opera houses, which were red and gold!

Featured image credit: Alamy / Photology1971