They met at a bar in midtown Manhattan. He arrived wearing a baseball cap pulled low and sported a pair of black-framed glasses, she says. As conversation flowed, from discussions about navigating life in New York to past relationships, he mentioned that his glasses were Meta Ray-Bans.

“I wasn’t familiar with them,” McAnuff, a 28-year-old project manager who now lives in Toronto, tells WIRED. It was her first time seeing the smart glasses up close, which can record images and video from the wearer’s viewpoint. He let her try them on and even showed her a couple of videos that he’d taken previously, she says. “That was it. We stopped talking about it after that. I figured that was the end of the use.”

The next day, checking her Instagram, McAnuff noticed she’d been tagged in one of his story posts. To her surprise, it was footage of them at the bar and on the subway together, en route to a basketball game uptown. In the video, McAnuff is captured from an above angle, sitting across from her date who is holding a drinking glass; WIRED has seen screenshots of the footage. “I felt super violated,” McAnuff says. “Like, what if I don’t want everyone knowing what I’m up to? He felt so free to film me and post it. There was no conversation about it.”

Meta sold more than 7 million pairs of the Ray-Bans in 2025, as its smart glasses have infiltrated public spaces thanks to pranksters with dreams of viral fame, some of whom even film people while they’re at work. The phenomenon, which has also spread to pickup artists hitting on women, has earned the hardware the nickname “creep glasses.”

Among singles, and particularly women, Meta’s AI-powered eyewear has become a recurring nuisance, as people share a spreading unease about being covertly filmed on dates.

  • Zensate@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Oh, how fun. Now we’ll all be even more repressed because literally every interaction will be recorded and you better not do anything cringe.

  • rekabis@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    Pervert glasses.

    They’re called pervert glasses.

    Get it right, Wired.

    And let’s also lay it all out: the only people wearing them are sick enough in the head to need immediate institutionalization. Full stop, end of story.

      • Idontwanttowork@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Interesting…

        I was actually thinking in a more traditional way, you know…just doing it while wearing the glass and record it.

        But yeah…your way seems work better. Sigh, my mind is start lagging behind the AI world I guess.

          • Idontwanttowork@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            I know. lol

            Technology really evolved… Some people of my age are laughing on their parents that they don’t know computers stuff.

            When my daughter grown up, I think she will laughing at me about I don’t know shit about AI or whatever that will come out at her era lol

  • My Meta Glasses memeable thought of the day:

    If you feel violated when a private citizen follows you around with a camera, might want to also feel violated when the state follows you around with millions of cameras.

    • heartSagan5@lemmy.zip
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      4 days ago

      Right. Flock, et al. are a violation of our 4th Amendment rights. These “autonomous deputies” are annotating our movements and our private vehicles.

  • mangobanana@discuss.online
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    4 days ago

    I’m old enough to remember when Google came out with their version. People went appoleptic and cried invasion of privacy. What happened, why were these not shunned in the same way? It’s our because they just look like sun glasses? The only acceptable use for these is to aide blind people

  • Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I wonder what’s gonna happen when someone who has like a reactionary-style mental illness, yet is cognitively aware enough to know what the glasses are and keeps up with current events, sees someone with the glasses on and just punches the person in the face. 🤣.

  • Steve@communick.news
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    4 days ago

    Funny title
    Is it not a red flag if the woman wears them on a date?

    It would be for me. But maybe I’m in the minority here.

        • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          4 days ago

          And women wearing smart glasses is immaterial to this article and this discussion about men doing so on dates.

          • Steve@communick.news
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            4 days ago

            But what if men recorded dates without smart glasses?
            It also seems odd to single out the behavior with only this one kind of device.

            • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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              4 days ago

              But what if men recorded dates without smart glasses?

              That is also creepy and people would definitely talk about it if there was an observable trend of men recording dates on their smartphones and uploading those images.

              There have been a lot of conversations about these smart glasses over the past year or so. We have been talking exclusively about this kind of device and what it means for privacy for a hot minute now.

              • Steve@communick.news
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                4 days ago

                Using smart phones isn’t a problem because it’s obvious and easy to decline when someone tries. The article itself points that out. But people can put hidden cameras anywhere.

                • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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                  4 days ago

                  What are you trying to argue here? That when people use hidden cameras it’s not as scandalous or something?

                  It is creepy to record someone without their consent. These smart glasses have made it even easier to do so.

    • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      4 days ago

      The existence of men wearing smart glasses doesn’t mean that women don’t wear them. It’s not mutually exclusive.

      • Steve@communick.news
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        4 days ago

        Indeed, that’s an assumption built into my point.

        The title implies it’s only a problem when men do it.
        I would think it’s a problem for anyone, no matter their gender.

        • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          4 days ago

          Is no one allowed to talk about men doing something without making sure everyone knows women are bad, too? Does every study that focuses on something that is prevalent with men must also include every other gender so that men don’t feel singled out? Does every article that is written about men have to have a disclaimer that people of other genders might do it, too?

          The title and the article are talking specifically about “Men who wear smart glasses on dates”. If you are not a man who does that, why did you take such offense to the title?

          • Steve@communick.news
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            4 days ago

            I didn’t take any offence to it.
            I just thought it strange to say it’s bad when men do a thing with this specific thing, instead of saying it’s bad to do the thing at all.

            Think if it was flipped around An article said it’s bad for women to eat cereals for breakfast, because cereal turns people into murderers. Would that not seem strange to single out women about?

            • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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              4 days ago

              If there were a lot of cases where women were murdering people after eating cereal, no, it would not be strange to see an article talking about the prevalence and the why behind the phenomenon.

              • Steve@communick.news
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                4 days ago

                Does it examine why men are doing it, and women arent? I didn’t see that. There is one line about reviewing the gave tape looking to improve, but that’s all I noticed.

                • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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                  4 days ago

                  This one talks about teen boys using these smart glasses to record girls in their middle and high schools

                  The video has the distinctive style of the invasive “rizzcam” and other “POV” videos in which self-styled “pickup artists” and other online creators use smart glasses to record themselves harassing women at malls and boardwalks or pestering employees at their place of work for content. But the people in this video aren’t adults. Everyone in the clip — the girl, the boy filming, and hallway passersby — is a teenage student.

                  A Futurism review found large numbers of videos recorded at middle and high schools using smart glasses — almost always Meta’s AI Glasses, designed in partnership with the eyewear titan Ray-Ban — and shared to social media platforms TikTok and Instagram. Recordings take place in school hallways, cafeterias, and classrooms, and feature interactions with other students as well as with staff and faculty.

                  Much of the behavior on display is plainly harassment and bullying, often filmed without the subjects’ knowledge or consent and uploaded online to humiliate them further. Strikingly, every single one of the many smart glasses videos we found were captured by teen boys — and their bad behavior was overwhelmingly directed at girls.

                • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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                  4 days ago

                  Here’s another article talking about the prevalence of men using these glasses to secretly record women.

                  Zanjani’s experience is the tip of the iceberg. There are entire accounts dedicated to this type of “pick-up artist” content: men whose shtick is stopping women in the street and chatting them up, with the exchange covertly captured on sophisticated smart glasses, such as Meta’s Ray-Bans, and then shared on social media.

                  The latter two women were both secretly filmed by an American content creator who goes by the name “itspolokidd”. He has 1.6 million followers on Instagram; the content is exclusively videos of him hitting on women in public places. Sometimes the women seem unfazed; sometimes they are unsettled by his full-on approach (he often walks up to them and calls them sexy or beautiful, then starts referring to them as his future wife or the future mother of his children). Even when his behaviour isn’t apparently distressing for the women involved, there is no escape from the comments on his videos, which can range from insulting to sexist to lascivious. In one itspolokidd video, the woman being filmed is standing with a friend, another woman with a shaved head. “What on EARTH is THAT next to her?!” reads one of the multiple derogatory comments.

                  There are already confirmed cases in which smart glasses have been used illegally. On 6 January, David Williams, 47, pleaded guilty to voyeurism at Warrington Magistrates’ Court after he’d recorded sex with a woman without her explicit consent using a pair of smart glasses. Williams swerved jail and was instead fined £800 and ordered to pay a £320 surcharge and court costs of £85, reported The Telegraph.

                  But even in the less obviously harmful cases, the End Violence Against Women coalition (EVAW) has flagged other potential safety issues connected to women being non-consensually filmed. Specifically, when the footage of them shared online includes their personal details, such as their location or phone number, says Rebecca Hitchen, head of policy and campaigns. “The safety risks of this are huge, as is the subsequent level of harassment, trolling and doxxing many are subjected to when videos are posted online.”

                • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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                  Gary Lewandowski, a psychology professor at Monmouth University whose research focuses on the science of romantic connection, says adding covert cameras to the mix will only make building trust harder. He says beyond posting for the ’gram, a number of factors could be driving men to do this. The most logical, non-creepy reason may be tied to post-date analysis, in that the glasses can help men identify blind spots around their own behavior.

                  “A lot of men out there are eternal optimizers. They want better, more efficient ways of doing things, so reviewing game tape allows them to learn from mistakes,” Lewandowski says. “But I do wonder if some are doing it to build a case instead of a connection—why they’re right and the other person is wrong—or to help better identify red flags.” That type of surveillance “makes the date less about getting to know each other and more about fact gathering,” he adds.

      • sportsjorts@lemmy.zip
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        4 days ago

        Yeah but men have an overwhelming habit of trying to take candid photos of women without thier knowledge. Worked in customer service all my life men are fucking psychos in public.

        • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          4 days ago

          There’s certainly a reason why most if not all of these stories of smart glasses being abused has men as the perpetrators.

  • Concetta@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    4 days ago

    I wear these sunglasses every day, I’m not even logged into the app since they made it the ai app and haven’t backed up my photos on 2 years. I also didn’t purchase them, am I a creep?

    • mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 days ago

      Very naive to assume they don’t just send video and images to Meta without your consent in the light of the recent LG debacle and Meta’s general history of secretly doing illegal things with user data

      • Concetta@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 days ago

        Ye bro ignore everything in my comment sweet, do you feel the same about dash cams? And like for real, I don’t have social media and the glasses aren’t linked to an app, how in the fucking world am I a security camera?

        • mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de
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          3 days ago

          Just to reiterate, the glasses are absolutely capable of transmitting the video feeds anyways without you ever logging into the app or backing up photos. Meta has a gigantic financial incentive to do so, as it gives them free fresh training data for multiple AI use-cases, and marketing data on you and others.

          Can you guarantee that they aren’t doing that? Because if not, it seems justified for other people who don’t feel comfortable taking that risk not to be forced into taking it by you wearing the glasses. At the very least, you ARE forcing people into taking that risk without their permission.

        • Refract@lemmy.ca
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          4 days ago

          I 100% feel the same way about dashcams, doorbell cams, trail cams, literally anything that isn’t a locally hosted camera.

          If you think you aren’t recording and submitting ANYWAYs without the link, think again. Look at the lastest investigations into smart TVs.

      • Concetta@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 days ago

        What do you want me to say here? Before the app update I would like, take photos or videos of traffic when driving? Sometimes when I’m on a bike there may be people in the background?

        • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          4 days ago

          You asked if you were a creep for wearing the smart glasses, so I asked if you’re recording people without their consent. I think that’s the line. It is creepy to record people without them knowing.

          Recording your drive or your bike route is akin to dash cam videos. Not quite the same as recording a person you’re sitting across from at a table.

          Do you only use those glasses as dash cam replacements?

          • Concetta@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            4 days ago

            No, I use them as headphones and sunglasses lol. The camera part is functionally dead to me, I’m literally just trying to figure out where you draw the line at.

            • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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              4 days ago

              I guess just be aware how you come off to others while wearing those glasses. They’re getting a particular reputation and it really seems like you’re using them innocently enough. Good luck out there!

  • Sanguine@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 days ago

    Where is the “hue hue people have cameras in their phone and you have no problem with that, checkmate” guy…I know you’re in here.

    The Instagram part of the story perfectly highlights the difference. Busting out a camera to start filming the entire date so I can make a highlight reel later is way more conspicuous than simply wearing my glasses. One leads to a discussion while the other is inconspicuous and likely never had consent in the first place.

    • AnAmericanPotato@programming.dev
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      4 days ago

      This is the only sane take on perv glasses.

      If someone pulled out their phone to photograph me on our first date, I’d nip that in the bud, and maybe just walk away. I guess I might be okay if there was a scenic background and they said “want to get a selfie together?” but a photo just of me across the table? Creepy.

      • Sanguine@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 days ago

        And with a conversation about it all that can be laid out and consented to.

        Hey this view is really pretty can we take a selfie? Sure!

        Later that evening: Hey that photo came out good, do you mind if I post it to my Instagram? I’d prefer if you didn’t.

        Okay no problem.

        It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than this.

    • joseki@lemmy.zip
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      4 days ago

      Yeah im a huge nerd and techno-weenie but this is just creepy abuser behavior and a major red flag if it wasn’t consented to im advance

    • huppakee@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      I’ve read this story about it where the people who bought them stopped wearing them within a few weeks because they felt uncomfortable wearing them - common theme was, when people notice you were those glasses they shun you and find an excuse to end the conversation. Guess people in general agree with you.