More than ten years after Google Glass ignited a fierce debate about wearable tech and covert recording, a new generation of smart eyewear is kicking up the same old anxieties.
Back then, critics even coined the insult “glasshole” to describe people wearing Google’s camera-equipped specs with little apparent regard for others’ privacy.
Now, Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta glasses have taken the concept much further in terms of technology — but the core controversy over being filmed without consent hasn’t really moved on.
The latest flashpoint: as reported by the Daily Dot, a New York City subway rider says a woman snapped and broke his Meta smart glasses.
“She just broke my Meta glasses,” said TikTok user @eth8n_____ in a video that has since pulled in millions of views.
After stepping off the train, he shouted through the window, “You’re going to be famous on the internet!” The woman he accused of breaking the glasses stared back, seemingly unbothered — almost as if she felt his reaction was deserved.
In the caption of a follow-up post, he insisted he hadn’t targeted her directly.
“I was making a funny noise people were honestly crying laughing at,” he wrote. “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.”
Online viewers, however, weren’t rushing to defend him. Instead, they overwhelmingly sided with the woman, treating her like a kind of vigilante for privacy — a reaction that neatly captures how uneasy many people feel about devices like Meta’s smart glasses.
“Good, people are tired of being filmed by strangers,” one commenter wrote.
“The fact that no one else on the train is defending him is telling,” said another.
“She’s perfect,” a third added. “I hope she called him a dork for wearing them before she broke them.”
Some doubted his description of the scene entirely.
“‘People were crying laughing’ — I’ve never heard a less plausible NYC subway story,” one user commented.
Part of the concern stems from how easy it is to use these glasses discreetly. Meta includes a small LED on the front to show when the camera is recording, but that light can be covered with something as simple as a piece of tape, making it easy to record people in public without their knowledge. As the Daily Dot notes, there are even stickers being sold specifically to hide that light.
Meanwhile, eth8n says he has “filed a claim with the police and it’s a misdemeanor charge.”
“What she did was assault, can get arrested for it if I see her again and felt like it,” he wrote.
Whether authorities will ever track down the woman — and whether anyone will actually identify her, given how much of the internet seems to be on her side — is still an open question. For now, the broken glasses and the viral debate around them are just the latest sign that the cultural fight over always-on cameras is far from over.
