Kylie Jenner wants you to notice her glasses.
Not the camera or the artificial intelligence. She wants you to compliment the shape of her glasses before acknowledging the fact the device can capture what the wearer sees. In a recent interview with ELLE, Jenner described her new glasses with Meta as a fashion statement rather than technology, “I wanted something slim and oval that feels like a real fashion piece, not something that looks like you’re wearing a gadget.”
Through celebrity partnerships and social media promotions, these glasses are being integrated into everyday life as an accessory designed to complement your outfit. While fashionable, the glasses offer hands-free features, allowing the user to take photos, record videos and get answers to questions through Meta AI which can provide accessibility benefits. Jenner's voice has become an AI assistant option on the Meta Starfire Kylie Edition glasses. Collaborating with a trendsetter like Jenner helps Meta normalize the idea of being recorded and recording others, without giving or receiving any consent.
In a recent CNN report, T.M. Brown, a senior reporter, analyzed the shift that is already happening with other forms of surveillance technology, such as Ring cameras. People have been using security cameras and doorbell cameras to participate in the trend of “surveillance selfies,” where people take photos and videos of themselves. Some people do the trend as a joke, while others, like English model Alexa Chung, use it as a creative way to post photos of her outfits on Instagram. This shows how surveillance is already becoming a part of social media culture. Privacy expert Judith Donath added, “It all turns into more imagery of who is where and doing what and it gets sucked into an unknowing database.” For example, programmer Morry Kolman created a “take selfies with surveillance” website that allows people to use public feeds from nearby traffic cameras to take pictures of themselves.
This trend is not the same as wearing Meta glasses, but they both reflect people becoming comfortable with being watched by cameras. Surveillance selfies require intentional interactions with an existing stationary camera, while smart glasses make the camera portable. Meta has addressed privacy concerns after women were secretly recorded by male influencers for social media content. In a statement to CNN, Meta said, “Our glasses have an LED light that activates whenever someone captures content so it’s clear to others that the device is recording…” But a LED light does not solve the larger problem. People have to notice it, understand what it means and feel comfortable confronting someone who may be recording them. Even so, there have been cases of modification to the glasses, with disabling the LED light or simply covering it, raising more security concerns.
The criticism also highlights what is missing from Meta’s marketing. While the technology itself isn’t new, as we are already constantly surrounded by cameras, in Jenner’s interview with ELLE she mostly focuses on the design and shape of the glasses, while the main selling point, the camera, is in the background of the conversation.
Celebrity involvement gives the product cultural credibility. When a recognizable person with high social status wears the product, it becomes easier for audiences to overlook criticism and privacy concerns. Jenner’s collaboration with Meta is not simply about selling another pair of frames. It further establishes a social expectation that wearing a device capable of recording everything the user sees is acceptable, even when the people subjected to it do not have much say in how the footage is used.
What once might have raised questions about privacy can now be dismissed as just another feature of what someone is wearing.
Alejandro Henry-Jackson is the assistant arts editor and can be reached at alejandro.jackson@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
