Learn English – “After all 7 8 9” joke

I used this phrase on myself when my marriage ended for reasons that I knew existed prior to but chose to ignore or had a notion I could change. In the end, I said, " Well, I went into it with my eyes wide shut". Therefore, the definition to me is very much a play on words. It doesn't only apply to a naive individual. It applies to those who choose to enter into or take on something and all the while are fully aware of the perils or dubious outcomes that may lie right before them. It's a connotation that could be one of romanticism or that of ignorance to the obvious and not listening to intuition.

The underlying reference is to the display of "threat level" as a color in a span from green (minimum threat) to red (maximum threat). The problem with this code is that the distinctions are, as far as most people are concerned, quite arbitrary.

Magenta is a reddish color. So is maroon and so is oxblood. Which is redder, and how do these gradations of color correspond to gradations in the threat level? As the speaker says, "[sigh] I honestly don't have an answer for you."

The joke is that the security services (DHS in the US) seem often to draw distinctions which they consider important, but the rest of us find opaque. As such, the humor in the joke relies on tweaking the DHS for being uninformative when it thinks its being helpful, and is an expression of discontent with how the government bureaucracy is functioning.