There’s something about smart glasses that bring out the worst in people. It’s really no mystery, though: they’re powerful little surveillance devices that let wearers secretly record anyone they’re looking at, uniting tech bros and vapid influencers under the same, obnoxious umbrella.
The popularity of wearables like Meta Ray-Bans are quickly reminding us why the slang term “glasshole” was already a thing over a decade ago, and is now becoming more relevant than ever. In a handy but blood-pressure-raising round-up of contemporary glasshole behavior from Mashable, jerks using the always-on devices are using them to film themselves doing moronic “pranks” for views — often centered around harassing women, service workers, and homeless people.
Unfortunately, one class of obnoxious blowhard that’s discovered the utility of this tech are “pickup artists,” who now have the ability to record the women they’re “seducing” — read: harassing — discreetly, in a clear violation of their privacy.
Of course, smart glasses alone can’t be blamed for this. It’s social media, it’s the attention economy, it’s the smartphones that we all use to participate in all of the above. But it’s undeniable that smart glasses let you record anyone and anything far more stealthily than shoving a phone in someone’s face, making it a godsend for creeps and losers looking for internet fame, such as one Instagram account that nonconsensually filmed women’s butts, and another that visits massage parlors to ogle the masseuses. Others confidently film themselves annoying service workers and keeping the camera going even as the subject asks not to be recorded. And a particularly bizarre channel involves a man pretending to be mentally disabled while talking to unsuspecting firefighters.
Unfortunately, these recordings are generally legal if they’re taken in public spaces, even in states that have two-party consent laws. Debating its legality, though, may be missing the point, argues Brad Podray, a content creator who formerly went by the name Scumbag Dad.
“I know it’s legal. I don’t care,” Podray told Mashable. “That’s not the discussion. I think it’s weird and creepy, and it shows a very predatory mindset.”
The appeal of the smart glasses, he said, is that they’re fairly cheap and allow the creators to capture the candid reactions of the people they harass, making their content feel more authentic. This is spicing up the genre of outlandish prank videos, which lost their appeal as many channels staged their exploits.
“They want people who are good on camera, so they’re going to hit fast food employees, and they’re going to hit pretty girls,” Podray said. “A lot of random women walking around aren’t going to want to participate in a skit if you ask them to, so they remove the agency entirely by just running the glasses.”
Unlike when Google first took a stab at smart glasses in 2014, it looks like this time the tech is here to stay. The popularity of products like Meta Ray-Bans has opened up a new market of imitators who are in an arms race to make their smart glasses as ethically dubious as possible, perhaps with a little help from AI or facial recognition software. But regular people are already getting fed up. When one lady allegedly smashed some dude’s smart glasses on the subway, she was universally hailed as a hero. May smart glasses make heroes of us all.
More on wearables: A Man Bought Meta’s AI Glasses, and Ended Up Wandering the Desert Searching for Aliens to Abduct Him
