bottom, as we only can see the treads not the risers (that small inset underneath a step).

How are y'all arguing this? The banister makes it unquestionably obvious that it's at the top. There's no debate to be had here unless the banister was intentionally installed wrong just for the purpose of this meme, which would be crazy.

The mattress is at the top, y'all.

At the top-left corner of the image we see a support bracket for the hand rail. The orientation of this bracket only seems to make sense if we are at the bottom of the stairs looking up at the mattress. The shadow cast by the mattress also looks like the light is above and slightly closer to the camera.

If we were at the top looking down, that would imply that the hand rail brackets were sideways instead of being vertical, and that the light was mounted on the wall instead of the ceiling. I have seen stranger things in construction but it would still be strange and unlikely.

Bottom, you can see the carpet on the steps are worn out.

Bottom. Carpet is really worn on the side facing us

While I'm not 100% certain it's not just confusing perspective, it does appear that the slope rise is shorter than the run, suggesting that this is from the top of the stairs.

I have those stairs with that carpet.

💯% this is looking down to a mattress at the bottom of the stairs.

Conclusive evidence:
Looking Down

Looking Up

(Sorry I was too lazy to get the low perspective)

Bottom, look at the wear of the carpet, lots of people have walked here.

On the top.

On the top left you see something... The holder for the railing...

Bottom. The spacing/size of the stairs is the biggest clue. If we were at the bottom, it would indicate that the stairs are very tall and not very wide. As others have said, the worn carpet is also an indicator, as the carpet on the side of the stairs would not be worn. It would also likely have something sticking out like most stairs, not just flat.

Bottom, these stairs have a rounded lip to make them compliant with rise over run requirements in limited space.

Bottom. Wear marks from foot traffic + if that were the top. those mattresses would tip backwards unless someone was holding them in place.

From the wear patten on the carpet I would say bottom, but the handle to the side makes me think top !....

I know as someone who has rabbits and cats that the hairfall on the close to camera stairs indicates we are at the top looking down. I know hair patterns.

Bottom, we can see dust and debris accumulated on the "run" part of the steps.

The biggest factor IMO is something no one mentioned yet: we can only see one face of each step (either the top or the wall). If a photo is taken from the bottom, we would almost always be able to see the tops of the first few steps, which isn't visible here. If a photo is taken from the top, the walls would pretty much never be visible (if they were, you could also see the photographer's feet).

Therefore, this photo is only consistent with a photo taken from the top.

It is possible that this is an extremely long flight of stairs or that the photo was taken from a deliberately deceptive angle, but if that's the case I have to say it was expertly done, because I am CERTAIN that we are looking from the top and the mattress is at the bottom.

Top the railing gives it away

Steps in a staircase have two measurements. Tread and rise. The proportions of what we can see make more sense as treads rather than rises. Therefore the mattress is at the bottom. Also what we can see of the handrail would make sense in either direction.

The mattress is a metaphor, it doesn't matter where it is.

Blue/black

Thought something was weird here. The contrast and colour is making it difficult. If you turn up shadows it changes the entire feeling, including where the obvious light source is. I wouldn't expect the dark side of the mattress unless there was a bright light directly above it.

Also the banister/handrail arm wouldn't be horizontal. Most importantly, congrats, you got me invested.

top. you can see part of the handrail on the top left of the picture

I think it is the bottom of the top of the stairs because of the lighting to the bottom left of the mattress. That should be in shadow from the mattress if it was at the bottom of the stairs.

Bottom.

1. The risers on the stairs are not visible.

2. The wear on the carpet goes right to the edge. That's consistent with people stepping on it, not kicking it on the way up.

3. If it's at the top, the mattress doesn't appear to have any of its weight resting on a step. It could be so wedged in that it's being held in place, and that it was wedged that way by someone awkwardly pushing at the ends of it in a way that wouldn't seem to give them enough leverage to do that. But the obvious explanation is more likely, that it's at the bottom of the stairs.

If it were from the bottom looking up, that'd be some tall risers. So I think we're looking down.

Yes.

This is gonna be our white and gold/black and blue dress, huh?

The carpet has wear on one side, and it doesn't make sense for the wear to be on the front of each stair, so most likely we're looking down from the top of the flight of stairs.

top or bottom doesnt matter, whats important is that you PIVOT!

The wear on the steps say bottom

It’s white and gold!

All joking aside, most stairs that I know had some sort of overhang, which we don’t see in this picture, so I’ll venture to say that we are looking down. The mattress is at the bottom of the stairs.

We are at the top.

Suppose the mattress is at the top. Why would someone fold the mattress into a V shape and not push the point forward?

Also, it makes sense that someone would try to fold it into a V, shove it, laugh that it is stuck and take a picture.