Over a decade ago, Google showed off a pair of smart spectacles called Google Glass, sparking a major ethical debate over wearables being used to covertly film people without their permission.
At the time, the outrage was enshrined by the derogatory neologism “glasshole,” meaning a Google Glass wearer who was accused of having little regard for the privacy of those around them.
A seeming eternity later, Meta has attempted to revive the idea with its Ray-Ban Meta glasses. While it’s arguably a significant technological leap over Google’s early forays, the debate has seemingly remained the same.
Case in point, as Daily Dot reports, a New York subway rider has accused a woman of breaking his Meta smart glasses.
“She just broke my Meta glasses,” said the TikTok user, who goes by eth8n, in a video that has since garnered millions of views.
“You’re going to be famous on the internet!” he shouted at her through the window after getting off the train. The accused woman, however, peered back at him completely unfazed, as if to say that he had it coming.
“I was making a funny noise people were honestly crying laughing at,” he claimed in the caption of a followup video. “She was the only person annoyed. I never spoke to her, I even let her sit down when she got on the train at 42nd street, and I continued to stand.”
But instead of coming to his support, the internet wholeheartedly rallied behind the alleged perpetrator, celebrating the woman as a folk hero — and perfectly highlighting how the public feels about gadgets like Meta’s smart glasses.
“Good, people are tired of being filmed by strangers,” one user commented.
“The fact that no one else on the train is defending him is telling,” another wrote.
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