The Rise of the Ray-Ban Meta Creep

355 points by wiredmagazine 4 hours ago on reddit | 89 comments

renn74 | 4 hours ago

The known creepy guy at the place I work showed up wearing these one day, I made sure to let people know immediately, especially the woman, and I haven’t seen him wearing them since then.

geekwonk | 3 hours ago

thank you for your service (unironic)

Inquisitive_idiot | 2 hours ago

Damn you’re a saint for doing that 🫱🏼‍🫲🏽

Simplylurkingaround | 2 hours ago

Not sure what the creeps are wearing but my metas have a noticeable white LED light that comes on in the front right corner of the lens frame when i take pictures or record.

PageFault | an hour ago

LED can be covered, damaged or removed depending on how much work you are willing to do.

thesecretbarn | an hour ago

> Not sure what the creeps are wearing

You don’t own any mirrors?

mydoorisfour | 2 hours ago

Still creepy

LongWalk86 | 4 hours ago

As much as I hate these wearable glasses for normal people. My mother, who is legally blind, loves hers. The ability to ask the glasses where an object in the room is, or which spice container she has in her hand, gives her a fair bit of freedom she had lost, back.

ChornobylChili | 4 hours ago

The way my eyes are going that will be me someday. Im so glad your moms enjoying more simple things again

Integral4230 | 3 hours ago

I just wear mine as a protective layer in case ICE discriminates against me as a brown US citizen instead of holding my phone out.

BriarwoodSniffer | an hour ago

Needing wearable spyware in case the president’s shock troops kidnap you because of the color of your skin is such an insane indictment of our society.

phoenix762 | an hour ago

I wear mine while traveling most days in case something crazy happens to me or my partner. I’m old and not terribly steady…I wear them to protests as well. The glasses have prescription lenses as well. When I go into places where cameras aren’t allowed, I remove them and put regular glasses on.

taakoblaa | 3 hours ago

But your mother isn’t a creep (is she?)

shoulda-known-better | an hour ago

We need a better obvious system that let's you know it's recording.... One that can't be undone without breaking them.... The light is good yes but a sound every 15 or so seconds that isn't heard in whatever video you record but it's loud enough to announce to everyone around you are filming....

Because yes there are a ton of amazing and good uses for these products! I know they make ones without cameras that act as smart glasses and screens that use your phones camera... So the glasses themselves don't have cameras and aren't a privacy risk

LongWalk86 | an hour ago

For sure. id love to see them light up and glow softly when they are recording. Make it really hard to hide and wire it such as disabling it disables recording.

Farmerj0hn | 4 hours ago

I’m sad to see articles like this because I wear mine everyday. I thought about them for ages because they’re very expensive but I love them because I hate wearing headphones, but these let me listen to audiobooks or music or take calls and texts all day hands free without having earbuds. I only use the camera feature when I’m on vacation. Literally no one has ever even noticed them in the last 6 months but I come on Reddit and there’s so much hate, I’ve seen people say they’ve seen people get their asses kicked for wearing them, “if I ever saw some dork wearing these I’d automatically assume they’re a creep” lots of sentiment like this. They’re literally just headphones on glasses… and there’s also a camera on every phone, you don’t assume every person on their phone is a creep…

Requiredmetrics | 3 hours ago

The thing is meta has every intention of harvesting the data collected from your glasses whether or not you’re using the camera feature. It’s a huge privacy violation.

No one is walking around with their phone casually strapped to their face lens out. And if you see someone recording on their phone you can call them out on it.

Farmerj0hn | 12 minutes ago

People do walk around with their phones in front of them all the time… do you live on a different planet? And there is no way meta is recording from my glasses all the time, do you have any idea the type of data and power use that would take? And your phones literally do all this and worse!!! These comments make me realize more than ever Reddit is full of chronically online people who have no clue about the real world.

nondescriptzombie | 2 hours ago

If you think your phone cameras and microphones aren't being used when you're not taking pictures, I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you....

Requiredmetrics | 2 hours ago

Everything is recording you unless there are laws protecting you there’s no controlling the large data trolling. Even then some of these companies have show utter contempt for the law. This is nothing new to me, and has been a concern of mine for almost 2 decades.

Me being concerned about the seemingly never ending encroachment of big data/big surveillance encompasses many things not just meta glasses.

nondescriptzombie | 2 hours ago

> No one is walking around with their phone casually strapped to their face lens out.

This is what I was referring to. I have my phone in my hand all the time. Sometimes I'm texting. Sometime's I'm stumbling through a playlist. Sometimes I'm just staring off into space. Even if it's just in my pocket it's still recording. Hell, if you turn it off and the battery isn't dead, it's still broadcasting....

Requiredmetrics | an hour ago

You are not explaining anything to me that I do not already understand. When your phone is on your hand texting the perspective is completely different. The camera is facing the ground most likely recording your feet, a table, your lap, or the ground itself.

From the perspective of glasses you’re recording environments, people’s faces, locations. The vantage point is much more valuable from a surveillance/data collection stand point. This is what ring and flock are trying to do. They want mass surveillance.

2580is | 4 hours ago

You do if they’re obviously pointing their phone at you. This is a way to disguise creeps. I weep for the future.

LBobRife | 4 hours ago

If a person spent their entire time in public with their phone out recording, you'd clock them as odd. If that person was doing recording with the phone hidden, youd clock them as a creep. Since there is no indicator that recording is happening, it can delve into the "creep" category pretty easily.

blake31a | 2 hours ago

I agree with your sentiment and will add that there IS an LED indicator to let the subject know that they’re being recorded. You can argue that it isn’t obvious, but it is there.

Farmerj0hn | 14 minutes ago

There’s a very bright light that indicates it’s recording. The AI detects if it is obscured and you can’t use it. You know what can record undetected by default though? Phones…

Queasy_Local_7199 | 4 hours ago

There is an indicator when recording is happening, more so than a phone

Zhaosen | 3 hours ago

And there's a physical way to hide that indicator.

Farmerj0hn | 14 minutes ago

No there isn’t. The AI detects that it is obscured and you can’t use it. You know what can record undetected default though? Phones…

Zhaosen | 13 minutes ago

Yes....there is. Quick YouTube on how to do it and you'll find out.

Queasy_Local_7199 | 2 hours ago

And I can hide a camera in a toilet, what’s your point?

ElCaz | 2 hours ago

Generally, they don't sell toilets with built-in cameras.

Queasy_Local_7199 | an hour ago

Generally, they don’t sell glasses with the indicator light disabled.

Zhaosen | 17 minutes ago

Dawg ...... Are you filming people without them knowing?

LBobRife | 3 hours ago

Perhaps, but people aren't expecting to be recorded if they dont see an item they typically associate with recording. That's another reason why it's quite easy for it to delve into creep territory.

If you are recording in a way that the act is obscured, be prepared to be called a creep.

TurelSun | 4 hours ago

Yes... people do if you're pointing your phone at them as if you're recording. Thats the issue here, you don't know you're being recorded because people don't think about glasses being a recording device. They do think about phones being such though. Take your phone out and point the camera at anyone and see what kind of reactions you'll get.

Farmerj0hn | 10 minutes ago

You literally cannot tell if you’re being recorded by a phone or another device in a person, and the glasses have AI that detects if the recording indicator is obscured or broken in any way. Phones don’t do this.

ThisCaiBot | 2 hours ago

They are not just headphones on glasses. They have a camera. People out in public pointing their phones at everyone are creeps. This is pretty basic stuff. Taking video of people without permission is creepy. Hth

Farmerj0hn | 10 minutes ago

You can tell when the glasses are recording, you cannot tell when a phone is by default.

Yellingseagull | an hour ago

The thing is anyone can say that they don’t want to use the camera. Knowing a camera is in place of someone’s eyes is just unsettling and uncanny. Maybe it’s not very different from the surveillance of our phones, but both are upsetting to the point where we have a right to not want it around us in any way. Cameras every where is draining the humanity out of us, eroding public trust, and quite frankly is making everyone crazy and paranoid.

Farmerj0hn | 9 minutes ago

Yeah all these cameras in public everyone will have to be held accountable, the horror.

xender19 | 3 hours ago

Hey buddy this is Reddit what are you doing with all that nuance! /s

Seriously though you made a good point and I'm very happy to hear that your mother and people in similar situations have this option.

LongWalk86 | an hour ago

Thanks, that's how i feel about them. No interest for me while my eyes work, but sure glad she can use it to regain some function.

Queasy_Local_7199 | 4 hours ago

I don’t get the hate for “normal people”

What’s wrong having a fucking camera?

It lights up while recording, I just don’t get the automatic hate for anyone using these

Zhaosen | 3 hours ago

It's when the lights get tampered is the issue.

Zombie13a | 3 hours ago

I, personally, don't get why you would want it. I know little about it, but given that its Meta, I can safely assume that it all gets stored in the cloud and filtered thru their harvesting software. That means things like Passwords, PINs, CC numbers, Health info are all being scanned by a for profit company that has a history of using its customers data for "personal" gain.

That doesn't even touch on any of the other privacy concerns that exist.

Queasy_Local_7199 | 2 hours ago

Same, personally.

But it doesn’t make me bully people that buy them

hanhanbanan | 3 hours ago

A little light is a lot less obvious than someone aiming a camera at you.

[OP] wiredmagazine | 4 hours ago

Between pickup artists and juvenile pranksters, the wearable device is becoming associated with pests of all kinds.

Joy Hui Lin, a book researcher living in Paris, was walking through the trendy Le Marais district last summer when two male university students chased her down to ask about her outfit.

Lin wasn’t surprised. It’s common for Instagram accounts to do street photography in the area and she prides herself on her fashion—that day, she was in “a nice sundress and a very big stylish hat,” she tells WIRED.

“It was all very cute until the end of the conversation, when one of them was like, ‘So, these glasses have been recording this whole time.’” She clocked the device, a black-framed pair of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses (commonly referred to as Meta Ray-Bans), which can record video from the user’s point of view.

Lin was taken aback at the young man not asking permission to film her—especially as he was now inquiring whether he could share the video online. It felt like a “violation,” Lin says. The man in the glasses, she adds, “didn't seem to understand that it could be very off-putting to record someone first without asking.”

This type of encounter is becoming more common, to judge by a proliferation of social media accounts in which content creators use smart glasses to record their public interactions for huge audiences. These conversations aren’t always so innocent as an interview about personal style. Instagram Reels and TikTok are infested with footage of users pulling juvenile pranks on retail workers, for example. And many of the top influencers in the Meta Ray-Ban scene, including Sayed Kaghazi (u/itspolokid) and Cameron John (u/rizzzcam), who have more than 3 million Instagram followers combined, are men prowling sun-soaked beaches and corridors of city nightlife so they can showcase their attempts to pick up women.

Their unsolicited, occasionally pestering flirtations in public spaces with these women have helped to inspire a contemptuous nickname for the Meta specs: “pervert glasses.” (Neither Kaghazi nor John returned a request for comment.)

Read the full article: https://www.wired.com/story/the-rise-of-the-ray-ban-meta-creep/

---Sanguine--- | an hour ago

If the “pervert glasses” moniker sticks that could be really bad for the brand 😂 you can never out-market a nickname that makes the user out to be a creep

Queasy_Local_7199 | 3 hours ago

It would be exact same issue if they had a telephoto lens recording her- you know, the way people have been doing pranks for decades.

avree | 3 hours ago

Yeah, and a telephoto lens requires a camera, costs $2000+, and needs a separate operator. The glasses are much cheaper and don’t need someone else operating them. See why it’s different?

Phyltre | 3 hours ago

GoPros then?

nondescriptzombie | 2 hours ago

Most people know what an action camera looks like. Having it hang off of my hat or mounted on a chest rig is pretty obvious. And the perverts who used to go around with a mirror on their shoe have already done the GoPro upskirt shit.

pomoville | 3 hours ago

Telephoto lens can be had for quite a lot less than $2000, but I agree with your other points. (Though it would be quite easy now to record with a completely invisible camera, much more hidden than these things)

horseradishstalker | 2 hours ago

“… people have been doing pranks for decades.”

Please allow me to rephrase that for you.

People have been violating boundaries for decades - so why do people have a problem with that being done?

k410n | 2 hours ago

That, too, has never been okay

Korrocks | 3 hours ago

I think the reason why people bristle at this is because 1) it's a newer / unfamiliar tech and 2) it's easier to record people without them noticing. If someone is walking around with a camera pointing at people or holding out their phone to record it's easier to step away if you would rather not be filmed; harder to do that when you can't tell.

IMO the best etiquette for this stuff is to just not record people without asking first and to avoid doing anything with them that you wouldn't do with a cellphone, GoPro, or other recording device. Basically if the users tried to be less douchey, people would gradually become more comfortable and accepting.

irobeth | 2 hours ago

I remember when the Google Glass came out and people were memeing on it for not looking like regular glasses, it seems like people are figuring out why it's a good idea for things like this not to look like regular glasses

Brawldud | an hour ago

Google Glass was an era when people were more trusting of tech companies and optimistic about their values. Of course the erosion of consumer protection, the federal government's authoritarian backslide and the progress of analytics tools have made them seem a lot less cutesy and a lot more of a threat to our freedom and privacy.

SpleenBender | 4 hours ago

#Creeper Peepers #Spy-clops #Glassholes #Dork-o-vision #Narc-specs

imhereforthemeta | 3 hours ago

Seeing how these have evolved is such a bummer. Bought the first gen of these for my husband so we could take photos and video hands free when hiking. We absolutely adored it. They were called ray band stories then and didn’t have ai built in either.

The way they are being pushed now is…kinda weird. And it makes my husband shy about using them.

AquaStarRedHeart | 2 hours ago

People should be shy about using them.

Farmerj0hn | 8 minutes ago

That’s a shame, I’ve used mine all day every day for 6 months around the center of New York City and no one has ever even noticed them lmao.

Inquisitive_idiot | 2 hours ago

In my eyes, this is done quite a bit of damage to the Ray-Ban sub brand of (luxotica?)

I don’t have my Way Farers anymore for unrelated reasons (I gave them away to fam this winter 😅), but I’m no hurry to replace them with that brand when I go for my summer refresh cause of meta

-Pelvis- | 8 minutes ago

wtf kind of name is Luxotica? Do they make "luxury erotica"?

TheFutureMrGittes | an hour ago

These glasses are made for stalkers and creeps. Designed by “the Zuck”. The ultimate creep.

Ivan27stone | 4 hours ago

As with every piece of technology, it depends on how you decide to use it... I know that FB is morally despicable, but in the end, it on the end user how they decide to use it. In my case, I've been interested on them for some time... I'd use these to record 3 things: Take pictures of my dogs, sometimes they do something really nice and cute lol and by the time i'm ready to snap a photo with my phone they have already moved 2.- I love festivals, these things are much less intrusive than taking videos with my phone during a concert, I'd use them for recording short videos of my favorite artists wthout missing the whole experience 3.- Take videos of my trips with friends or family to create storytelling videos... and that's it.

ChornobylChili | 4 hours ago

Why dont bigfoot hunters buy these?

When i had my encounter hiking it was over in seconds. If only i had these

borkborkbork99 | 3 hours ago

I have an elderly parent who is pretty much deaf. Would smart glasses be able to help as far as voice dictation?

klerplunkity | 3 hours ago

They may be better served looking into nuance frames, they're glasses with built in hearing aids with app controls for volume etc, can't speak for or against meta frames though, not sure if they have similar functions https://www.nuanceaudio.com/en-us/c/hearing-glasses

Farmerj0hn | 6 minutes ago

Yes and they can also translate live for you, they’re amazing. Redditors are detached from reality and they’re all ironically hating on the glasses from their IPhones.

scene_missing | an hour ago

Metaphiles lol

SidePsychological119 | 2 hours ago

How are these allowed to be sold in two party consent states? For example, in California you’re not allowed to record somebody without letting them know that you are recording. How can these things legally be sold in a place like that?

Korrocks | 2 hours ago

All-party consent laws just require you to obtain consent from all parties before recording; it doesn't make it illegal to merely own a recording device. Similarly, you're allowed to own a cellphone in California. You shouldn't use it to illegally record people but the device itself is not banned.

irobeth | 2 hours ago

because the existence of the smartphone basically annihilated any presumption of public privacy

SidePsychological119 | 2 hours ago

You can record in public no problem - there is no expectation of privacy and consent to be filmed or recorded isn’t needed.

However - if I’m filming with my glasses and come into your house and don’t tell you that you are being filmed, THAT would go against the two-party convent laws.

loupgarou21 | an hour ago

Ooh, so fun fact, you might actually still have some amount of reasonable expectation of privacy while in public. It does depend on local laws in your area, and yes, they have been upheld recently (although, most cases end up being settled out of court.) Most of the lawsuits where you see those laws being found to be unconstitutional have to deal with public servants having no expectation of privacy while performing their duties.

Your right to privacy in public mostly stems from Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347. The overly simplified summary for the way courts have ruled on this over the last 60 years is that laws can protect a reasonable expectation of privacy in public as long as your conversation can be reasonably assumed to be private (shouting loudly doesn't count as private, but whispering to another person might be.) So doing something like using a shotgun mic to listen in on a private conversation in a park may not be legal depending on local laws.

Check your local laws before assuming you're allowed to record people in public.

Ratticus939393 | an hour ago

I use mine on the golf course to film content and no where else.

Decabet | 44 minutes ago

Ugh. They don’t make sunglasses I hope. I love my RayBans and they are one of the few styles that look ok on my goofy-ass head

the_cellar_door | 43 minutes ago

Don’t they have a light that turns on when you take a picture or film?

salty-popscicle-21 | 3 hours ago

Unless you’re disabled your a psychopath if you wear these

CLTGUY | 3 hours ago

Gonna get downvoted for this, but I fail to see why there is so much outrage over this.

The moment you step out in public, you have cameras on you at all times. Flock cameras, security cameras, Ring doorbell cameras. This is just another camera. What makes this camera different from the others? If I wanted to creep on people, I'd get a button camera and you'd never notice it. At least these ugly, bulky glasses are somewhat identifiable

irobeth | 2 hours ago

perhaps you should research why Japan needed a law mandating a camera shutter sound any time your phone takes a picture

k410n | 2 hours ago

Fortunately this is not true for a lot of people living in nations which have not been failed by their governments. I do not know what a Flock camera is supposed to be, but guess it's some dystopian police state garbage, but security cameras have to obey rules in normal places. For example you can only film your own property, have to obey sensible rules there, and administrations are not permitted to simply put cameras wherever they feel like.