Why Meta Chose Kylie Jenner to Sell AI Smart Glasses
Why Meta Chose Kylie Jenner to Sell AI Smart Glasses
Meta wants AI glasses to become an ordinary part of everyday life.
To make that happen, the company cannot market them only as technical equipment. The glasses need to feel fashionable, personal, effortless, and socially desirable.
That is where Kylie Jenner comes in.
Meta introduced a new line of Meta-branded AI glasses in June 2026, including a slim oval frame developed with Jenner. The Meta Starfire Kylie Edition combines cameras, microphones, speakers, hands-free content capture, and Meta AI with a design intended to look like a conventional fashion accessory.
In this episode of Network Issues, media scholar Jamie Cohen and marketing strategist Destinee Day examine why Jenner is the ideal spokesperson—and why making wearable cameras fashionable creates difficult questions about privacy, consent, surveillance, education, accessibility, and digital identity.
What Are Meta Glasses by Kylie?
Meta Glasses by Kylie are part of Meta’s new company-branded line of AI eyewear.
The Kylie model is called the Starfire Kylie Edition. It features:
A slim oval frame
Hands-free photo and video capture
Open-ear audio
Built-in microphones
Meta AI
More than eight hours of battery life
A charging case
Prescription-lens compatibility
A Meta AI voice modeled around Kylie Jenner’s participation
The Kylie Edition currently starts at $399.
These glasses are related to Meta’s wider wearable portfolio, which also includes Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta products, but they are not simply another Ray-Ban frame.
Why Did Meta Choose Kylie Jenner?
Meta needs more than a celebrity with a large following.
It needs someone who can reposition the product.
Smart glasses have historically been associated with:
Technology enthusiasts
Early adopters
Action cameras
Workplace tools
Accessibility
Gaming
Awkward wearable gadgets
Kylie Jenner shifts the association toward:
Fashion
Beauty
Youth culture
Personal identity
Influencer content
Aspirational lifestyle
Social visibility
She does not need to persuade audiences through a detailed explanation of the hardware.
Her participation communicates that the glasses are intended to be worn, photographed, desired, and incorporated into someone’s appearance.
Is Kylie Jenner a Fashion Icon?
That depends on how “fashion icon” is defined.
From a traditional fashion-history perspective, critics may debate her creative influence or originality.
From a marketing perspective, however, her influence is clear.
Jenner can:
Generate enormous attention
Move products
Reach younger consumers
Shape beauty and fashion trends
Make commercial partnerships feel like personal lifestyle choices
Introduce products through an existing visual identity
Her strength is not simply that people admire what she wears.
It is that her public persona has been built around turning appearance, aspiration, and access into commerce.
That makes her particularly valuable to a company trying to make camera-equipped AI glasses feel less like equipment.
How Did the Kardashians Shape Influencer Marketing?
The Kardashian-Jenner family did not invent reality television, but they played a major role in connecting reality TV celebrity with social-media influence, product development, sponsorship, and direct-to-consumer marketing.
Their media ecosystem combines:
Television
Social media
Beauty products
Fashion
Celebrity news
Brand partnerships
Personal storytelling
Controversy
Continuous visibility
Each family member can also serve a somewhat different audience or market position.
Kylie’s brand is strongly connected with beauty, youth, visual transformation, product launches, and social-media aspiration.
That makes the partnership strategically coherent even when the product itself raises ethical concerns.
Is Kylie the Product—or Are the Glasses the Product?
In a celebrity endorsement, the celebrity can become more important than the object being sold.
A consumer may initially pay attention because of Kylie, not because they were searching for AI eyewear.
This reverses the traditional product relationship.
Instead of asking:
Are these glasses technically useful?
The campaign encourages a different question:
What do these glasses say about the person wearing them?
The device becomes an extension of identity.
Kylie provides the cultural credibility. The glasses borrow it.
Why Do These Smart Glasses Feel Different From GoPro?
GoPro cameras were commonly marketed as equipment.
They were visibly mounted on helmets, bodies, vehicles, or other gear. People around the camera could usually recognize that someone was intentionally recording an activity.
Fashionable smart glasses reduce that separation.
They can look like ordinary eyewear while containing:
A camera
Microphones
Speakers
An AI assistant
Communication tools
Recording features
This makes them more convenient for the wearer.
It can also make the act of recording less legible to everyone else.
The device becomes socially frictionless for the person wearing it while potentially increasing uncertainty for bystanders.
Can Meta Smart Glasses Record Other People?
Yes.
Meta’s AI-glasses products can take photographs and record videos from the wearer’s first-person perspective. Current Ray-Ban Meta models also support hands-free livestreaming and video capture. (Ray-Ban)
A visible indicator light is intended to signal when recording is taking place.
However, the broader concern is not only whether a technical signal exists.
People must also:
Notice the light
Understand what it means
Have an opportunity to object
Feel able to leave
Know where the recording may be published
Trust that the device is not recording at other times
Consent becomes especially complicated in crowded, professional, educational, or intimate environments.
Is It Legal to Record People With Smart Glasses?
Recording laws differ by jurisdiction and setting.
Relevant questions may include:
Is the person in a public place?
Is audio being recorded?
Does the location have a reasonable expectation of privacy?
Is the footage being used commercially?
Does the venue prohibit recording?
Are children present?
Is the recording harassment?
Is biometric information being collected?
Is the content being published?
Something being technically legal does not automatically make it ethical, considerate, or compliant with a workplace, school, venue, or platform policy.
The wearer may think they are capturing their own experience. Everyone in view may feel that their identity has been turned into someone else’s content.
Why Do the Glasses Create Particular Concerns for Women?
Women already face disproportionate risks involving:
Nonconsensual photography
Voyeuristic filming
Street harassment
Sexualized content
Location tracking
Stalking
Image theft
AI-generated intimate material
Public humiliation content
A discreet first-person camera can make these behaviors easier to perform without obvious phone positioning.
The device does not inherently cause harassment. It changes the physical and social barriers involved in recording.
Recent criticism of Meta’s glasses has focused on videos in which wearers record strangers, service workers, women, or other people who did not knowingly agree to become part of the content. Meta has reportedly taken steps against some accounts publishing harassment filmed through the devices. (The Verge)
Can Smart Glasses Improve Personal Safety?
Potentially—but the answer is complicated.
A wearer might use smart glasses to:
Document an encounter
Record a threatening situation
Capture evidence
Contact someone hands-free
Share their location
Obtain visual assistance
For some users, a first-person camera may feel similar to carrying a personal body camera.
But personal safety for the wearer can create privacy risks for everyone around them.
The same capability that documents harassment can be used to harass. The same hands-free camera that records evidence can create content without consent.
The technology does not resolve the ethical question. It distributes the power to record more widely.
How Do Smart Glasses Change Influencer Content?
Traditional influencer production often requires an obvious setup:
Holding a phone
Positioning a tripod
Framing the scene
Asking another person to film
Looking into a visible camera
Smart glasses remove much of that friction.
The creator can record:
Shopping
Social interactions
Travel
Exercise
Dating
Classrooms
Restaurants
Conversations
Daily routines
The resulting content appears to show exactly what the wearer saw.
That first-person perspective can feel intimate and authentic. It can also make other people into background performers who never agreed to participate.
Do Smart Glasses Make Content More Authentic?
They may make content feel less staged.
That does not necessarily make it more authentic.
The wearer still decides:
When to activate the camera
What to include
What to post
How to edit it
What caption to add
Which reactions to preserve
Whether others know they are being recorded
POV media creates an impression of direct experience while remaining a selected and edited representation.
The absence of a visible phone may actually make the production process less obvious.
Why Does the Episode Describe the Glasses as Individualizing?
A phone often signals that media is being created for an audience.
Someone positions the device, performs toward it, and acknowledges a world beyond the frame.
Smart glasses place the camera directly into the wearer’s line of sight.
The world becomes material viewed through one person’s perspective.
That creates a strongly individualized form of media:
My view
My memory
My assistant
My recording
My summary
My content
Other people may remain physically present, but the device primarily understands them as information inside the wearer’s experience.
What Data Can Smart Glasses Collect?
Depending on the product, settings, and features being used, AI glasses may process or collect:
Photographs
Video
Voice commands
Audio
Device interactions
AI requests
Contacts
Messages
Location-related information
Usage patterns
Environmental context
Meta says its glasses include privacy settings and built-in safeguards, and that users control when they capture and share content. (Meta)
The broader policy concern is that wearable devices can access parts of physical life that were previously difficult for platforms to observe.
Phones reveal substantial behavioral information. Glasses can potentially reveal what is directly in front of the wearer.
Do Meta’s Glasses Track Exactly Where Someone Looks?
The transcript raises concerns about gaze and head movement, but this requires qualification.
Camera-equipped smart glasses can capture a first-person view and movement through the wearer’s environment. That does not necessarily mean every current model includes precise eye-tracking sensors that determine exactly where the pupil is focused.
Avoid claiming that Meta’s current Kylie glasses collect precise gaze data unless Meta’s technical specifications confirm that capability.
The more accurate concern is:
Wearable cameras give platforms and AI systems access to a continuous first-person perspective that phones generally capture only when deliberately raised and aimed.
Can Smart Glasses Help Blind and Low-Vision Users?
Yes.
This is one of the strongest potential benefits.
Meta has expanded descriptive AI responses for blind and low-vision users and has integrated a hands-free version of Be My Eyes, which connects users with sighted volunteers. (About Facebook)
Possible accessibility uses include:
Describing surroundings
Identifying objects
Reading signs
Connecting with a volunteer
Helping navigate unfamiliar environments
Providing hands-free contextual information
Researchers have also explored more extensible smart-glasses systems for visual assistance, object recognition, scene description, and reading text. (arXiv)
These benefits should not be dismissed simply because the same device creates privacy concerns.
The technology can be genuinely useful and socially disruptive at the same time.
Could Smart Glasses Become Always-On AI Agents?
Researchers are already exploring this possibility.
Experimental systems can use smart glasses to perceive surroundings, summarize documents, create calendar events, initiate online tasks, provide meeting briefings, or act on objects in the wearer’s environment. (arXiv)
This creates a future in which the device does more than record.
It may:
Observe an environment.
Interpret what it sees.
Decide what information is relevant.
Store or summarize the experience.
Perform actions on the wearer’s behalf.
That could create extraordinary accessibility and productivity tools.
It could also normalize continuous environmental data collection.
What Do Smart Glasses Mean for Schools?
Schools and universities will need clearer policies.
Potential concerns include:
Recording instructors without permission
Capturing classmates
Exam cheating
AI-generated answers
Lecture transcription
Unauthorized livestreaming
Disability accommodations
Intellectual-property rights
Student privacy
Harassment
Distraction
A blanket ban may conflict with legitimate disability accommodations.
No policy may leave teachers and students uncertain about whether they are being recorded.
Schools need rules that distinguish between:
Approved accessibility use
Personal assistive technology
Note-taking
Recording
Livestreaming
Assessment use
Covert capture
Can Smart Glasses Be Used to Cheat?
Potentially.
A student could use wearable AI to:
Photograph questions
Request information
Receive audio assistance
Capture prohibited material
Communicate hands-free
Summarize a lecture instead of engaging with it
The specific capabilities depend on the hardware, software, connectivity, and restrictions in place.
The larger issue is that conventional classroom monitoring assumes a device is visible.
When technology looks like ordinary clothing or eyewear, the institution may not know when it is being used.
Should Professors Be Concerned About Being Recorded?
Yes, but concern should not become paranoia.
An instructor can be:
Recorded without noticing
Clipped out of context
Posted publicly
Converted into AI notes
Livestreamed
Used as training or remix material
Universities should communicate recording policies clearly rather than leaving each instructor to improvise.
Faculty should also understand that banning all glasses based on appearance is not practical. Students may need prescription eyewear, accessibility devices, or approved accommodations.
The problem requires policy, disclosure, and institutional support—not visual profiling.
Could Smart Glasses Replace Attention?
The episode raises a deeper concern: a student or professional may allow an AI system to record, process, and summarize an experience rather than engaging directly.
That could be useful when someone needs assistance.
It could also encourage cognitive outsourcing.
A person may attend a lecture physically while delegating:
Listening
Note-taking
Memory
Summarization
Interpretation
The relevant question is not whether AI summaries are always bad.
It is:
Which parts of an experience can be delegated without losing the learning, relationship, or judgment the experience was meant to develop?
Can Facial Recognition Be Added to Smart Glasses?
Technically, wearable facial recognition is possible.
As of the episode’s publication, concerns have intensified around indications that Meta has explored or tested identity-recognition capabilities. Meta has not made unrestricted public facial recognition a standard advertised feature of the Kylie glasses, and claims about a future launch should remain qualified. (Business Insider)
Facial recognition would significantly change the social meaning of the device.
A camera records an image. Facial recognition attempts to identify the person inside it.
That creates additional issues involving:
Consent
Biometrics
Misidentification
Stalking
Public anonymity
Law enforcement
Data retention
Discrimination
Why Does Fashion Matter So Much?
A visible body camera creates awareness.
Fashionable eyewear creates acceptance.
The more ordinary the glasses appear, the less likely people may be to notice or question their presence.
That is why design is not a superficial issue.
Design determines:
Whether a device feels intrusive
Whether the wearer remembers it is recording
Whether other people recognize its capabilities
Whether social norms develop around it
Whether the technology becomes widespread
Kylie Jenner’s role is to accelerate that normalization.
Are These Glasses Inherently Bad?
No technology is explained completely by a single label.
The glasses may provide:
Accessibility
Hands-free communication
Translation
Navigation
Memory assistance
Personal documentation
Creative tools
Safety functions
They may also enable:
Nonconsensual recording
Harassment
Surveillance
Distraction
Cheating
Increased data collection
Context collapse
Loss of public anonymity
The responsible position is neither automatic rejection nor uncritical adoption.
It is demanding clear consent norms, meaningful indicators, enforceable policies, strong data protections, and honest marketing.
The Network Issues Smart-Glasses Test
Before wearing or activating smart glasses, ask:
Do people around me know the device has a camera?
Is recording permitted in this location?
Would I record this interaction with a visible phone?
Does the person have a meaningful opportunity to object?
Are children, students, patients, or employees present?
Where will the footage be stored?
Will AI analyze the recording?
Am I documenting my experience or turning someone else into content?
Is this an approved accessibility use?
Would I be comfortable being recorded in the same way?
Key Takeaways
Meta launched a new Meta-branded AI-glasses line in 2026.
The Starfire Kylie Edition is distinct from the Ray-Ban Meta line.
Kylie Jenner helps reposition AI glasses as fashion rather than technical equipment.
Celebrity branding can normalize a device before society resolves its privacy implications.
Smart glasses reduce the visible friction involved in recording other people.
A recording indicator does not automatically create meaningful consent.
Women may face disproportionate risks from covert, sexualized, or harassing POV content.
The glasses also offer valuable accessibility possibilities.
Schools need policies that distinguish approved assistive use from recording or cheating.
Current products should not be described as collecting precise eye-tracking data without technical evidence.
Always-on AI agents could make wearable devices considerably more powerful and invasive.
The central question is not only what the wearer gains, but what everyone around the wearer is required to surrender.
Questions Answered in This Episode
What are Kylie Jenner’s Meta glasses?
They are the Meta Starfire Kylie Edition, a slim oval pair of AI glasses designed in collaboration with Kylie Jenner and sold as part of Meta’s company-branded eyewear line.
Are they Ray-Ban Meta glasses?
No. They use technology from Meta’s broader AI-glasses ecosystem, but the Starfire Kylie Edition is a Meta-branded product rather than a Ray-Ban frame.
Why did Meta partner with Kylie Jenner?
She brings fashion credibility, a large younger audience, visual influence, and a proven ability to turn identity and lifestyle into product demand.
Can Meta smart glasses record people?
Yes. The glasses can capture first-person photographs and videos. Recording rules and consent requirements vary by setting and jurisdiction.
How can people tell when the glasses are recording?
Meta uses an external indicator light. People may still fail to notice or understand it, and reports of attempts to obstruct recording indicators have contributed to public concern.
Are smart glasses useful for accessibility?
Yes. Features such as detailed visual descriptions and Be My Eyes integration can provide meaningful assistance to blind and low-vision users.
Can students use smart glasses to cheat?
They could potentially be misused during assessments, depending on the model and software. Schools need explicit rules and accommodation procedures.
Do Meta smart glasses track eye movement?
Do not assume so. They capture a first-person camera perspective, but precise gaze tracking requires specific sensors that should be verified for each model.
Are smart glasses always recording?
Not necessarily. Current advertised consumer functions generally require activation. Future or experimental always-on agent systems may process the environment more continuously.
About the Hosts
Jamie Cohen
Jamie Cohen is a media scholar, professor, writer, and expert on internet culture, online extremism, memes, media literacy, and the manosphere.
Website: jamesncohen.com
Substack: New Media Homework
Destinee Day
Destinee Day is a marketing strategist and founder of Rudy & Company. Her work focuses on branding, digital strategy, communications, online influence, and responsible marketing.
Website: rudyandcompany.com
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Jamie Cohen (00:05) So you remember our talk or our discussion about the meta-ray bands, Snapchat spectacles, and the POV surveillance glasses? Taylor Lorenz, the internet culture journalist and tech journalist, had an interesting take very similar to ours. And she entered in interviewed Amy Odell, the fashion Jamie Cohen (00:23) Writer. Destinee (00:24) Love Amy Odob. Jamie Cohen (00:25) Amy Odell's great. Yes. Even I I read Amy Odell's work. yeah. Yep, sure. Destinee (00:28) I also love C Little Lorenz. I love them both. But yes. Jamie Cohen (00:31) Yeah. and she wrote she put this video out and during her interview with Amy Odell called Why Smart Glasses Feel Different This Time. And her take was a bit different than our take. Her take was a bit about how this summer, the introduction of Kylie Jenner to be it wearing the meta ray bands, Jamie Cohen (00:53) basically makes her this new what what mark Zuckerberg calls Kylie Jenner a fashion icon in order to represent these these glasses because they will bring in a new generation new set of consumers who will wear them more proudly whereas I was under the assumption or at least under the belief that like these glasses are just a no go. They're not gonna they're not gonna work out. Even though they do look cool as we talked about, but I do not see Jamie Cohen (01:21) These glasses, any surveillance type of POV lens as being like a thing. But it seems like specifically New York, City, or even Los Angeles, like these places in particular are like more fashion friendly towards these things. And I just I I just would love to ask you a question about I I don't know enough about Kylie Jenner or even the I would not personally call her a fashion icon, but Mark Zuckerberg did. Jamie Cohen (01:48) And so there was a per it was a specific choice to choose Kylie Jenner. And I would like to understand why Kylie Jenner represents the right brand sponsor for this. Destinee (01:57) She's 100% the right brand sponsor for this, right? So Kylie Jenner is a fashion icon. So I don't know how much you know about the Kardashians as a whole, right? But the reason why I'm saying that, I'm not saying that from like a fashion POV. I'm saying that from a marketing stance. Kylie Jenner is the right person to hawk these terrible glasses. Jamie Cohen (02:26) See, I okay, you could you're gonna have to explain that to me because I do, of course, I know the Kardashians. I used to work in reality TV, but I know the Kardashians are like Pokemon cards. I just missed it. Like this just a part of culture that isn't really my focus, even though they are like the substrate that makes up culture itself. As as you and I both know, the term influencer in terms of platform style was first used on the Kardashians after it was used on animals. This is written in Taylor Lorenz's book, Extremely Online. Jamie Cohen (02:56) So the Kardashians do represent like the basic framework of what we, you and I, and my students study in terms of like internet culture itself. But I don't know the siblings. I know I'm not clear what each brand they represent or what they do, but I know they're very, very wealthy as a result of it. But that's that's my knowledge. Destinee (03:15) Okay, it's actually wild that you study this and you missed this Kardashian vote, but like buckle up because here we go. Jamie Cohen (03:22) Yeah. Destinee (03:24) So the TLDR of the whole situation, the Kardashians invented reality TV as we know it today, right? It was something very different. It was more survivor, you know, fear factor yeah, show Jamie Cohen (03:37) Mm-hmm. Game shelly. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Destinee (03:40) before. And then you had things like Big Brother, right? The the whole thing. Jamie Cohen (03:44) Which is still a game show. Yeah. Yeah. Destinee (03:45) Crazy. Destinee (03:47) Survivor's still on too. Why? Jamie Cohen (03:49) Yeah. Destinee (03:52) but then Ryan Seacrest came along, met Chris Jenner, keeping up the Kardashian started. That's the whole thing, right? They're famous for being famous. There's not actually a real reason you could get into the Kim Kardashian sex tape situation. I would argue that's not actually really it though. Destinee (04:11) And their cultural impact has been extreme because yes, they invented reality TV and being famous for being famous, but because of that, they also invented the modern day influencer as we know it, right? So they were the ones that showed influencer marketing and brand partnerships on the social media level could be successful if you had the fame for it and people just wanted to look like you. Now there's good and bad to that, I will say, right? Destinee (04:40) When Kim Kardashian came along, it wasn't really cool for millennial women to have curves. And Kim Kardashian came along. She is that, she idealized that. So to a very, very thin baseline level, that started to change. It's also terrible. They hawked terrible things for money. They have zero backbone. They will take money wherever they can get money. bad, right? Destinee (05:09) The best example of this is Kylie Jenner. If you look at her as a kid, there's nothing wrong with her as a kid. She was beautiful, she was gorgeous, she should be herself. But why she's successful and arguably more successful than any of her siblings to date is that it's like if you asked AI to create a photo of Kim Kardashian and it AI'd itself, and that is Kylie Jenner, right? Jamie Cohen (05:39) No, Jamie Cohen (05:39) huh okay. Destinee (05:40) His Destinee (05:41) literally almost a perfect version of Kim without any of Kim's identifying features. Is that thing where AI does where it like changes everybody's nose and face structure? Jamie Cohen (05:50) Yeah, softens it down, gasifies it. Yeah. Interesting. Destinee (05:55) That's how she became one of the richest ones of her sibling. I'm she was the the billionaire before any of the other ones were. And she made that off of lip kits that she hawked. Destinee (06:09) To the youth saying that she did not have plastic surgery. She was just overlining her lips. Well, guess what? She had plastic surgery. She had lip filler. Jamie Cohen (06:18) Yeah. Destinee (06:19) Turns out the whole thing was a lie. That did not stop her from being incredibly successful. So now she has her fashion brand, Kai, which is not for everybody if you're into wearing a PVC dress that shows your cleavage and you say that's how you pick your kids up from school. Jamie Cohen (06:37) Is that what it looks like? Jamie Cohen (06:40) Okay. Destinee (06:40) Yes. Destinee (06:43) and then she just announced a partnership with her brand Kai with Frankie's bikinis. you know, like all the celebs are doing right now with lingerie lines and and swimsuit lines and stuff like that. So she created a fake version of herself and then made money off of it, which is you know, Chris Jinner playbook 101. Destinee (07:07) And arguably the current day Kardashians show is just a massive media platform for Christian or to showcase all of the brand partnerships that her children participate in, which makes it incredibly powerful. But then each one of them is segmented to a different audience, right? So you follow Kylie if you're a younger teenager to mid-20s, Jamie Cohen (07:35) they've been documented on TV since they were like little kids, right? So they're Destinee (07:38) Mm-hmm. Jamie Cohen (07:39) like, okay, so they they basically their audience grew up with them in many ways. Okay, so that's where Destinee (07:43) Mm-hmm. So Harry Potter. Jamie Cohen (07:47) yeah, interesting. Interesting. Yeah, what an interesting way to look at it. It's like they're the it's almost like the Potter series, but like like they're still Destinee (07:54) Never ended. Jamie Cohen (07:56) alive and they're not fictional, or or I guess arguably not fictional. Jamie Cohen (08:02) So then why? So then so the choice of Mark Zuckerberg when he's using these glasses that are like, as we talked about, highly problematic, particularly dangerous to young women, like particularly dangerous to like anybody who might be in a public space where somebody might be taking advantage of them for their own social media needs. Jamie Cohen (08:22) They were really aware that the Kardashians would represent the idea of influence. But why Kylie for these glasses, that is problematic to people in her age group? Like, why is that the thing? Why is she an icon according to Mark Zuckerberg? Destinee (08:38) Welcome to my thoughts. Okay, so I have a few takes on this. Destinee (08:43) one, they're it's very clear they're targeting younger generations based on the sister they picked. End. Two, if you look at the younger generations, this is a problem for me, a marketing person. Meta's targeting ability, phenomenal. We've talked about this. Jamie Cohen (09:04) Yes, yep. Destinee (09:06) Younger generations are moving away from these platforms. They're not on Facebook and they are slowly moving off of Instagram. Jamie Cohen (09:14) Yeah. Destinee (09:15) They are going to places like TikTok and Snapchat. Guess where you know they're trying to take these very, very fashionable, hawked by the youngest Kardashian thing, and reel these younger generations back into these platforms so that they can target them in their data. Destinee (09:35) Because if you miss the boat on it, look at Twitter. Look at what happened to it when Elon bought it. It Jamie Cohen (09:42) yeah. Destinee (09:42) is not something people use anymore. It's not something, it's not a platform that people view with a lot of legitimacy. So Jamie Cohen (09:50) Mm-hmm. Destinee (09:50) they're using or they're losing all of these younger generations and they're losing money on it. The company's gonna become less profitable over time. So that's why they would choose the biggest icon for young women. Destinee (10:05) who do want to become influencers, arguably more than men, right? But it is you can also view it with a lens of it's kind of like your own personal body cam. Destinee (10:19) So if yeah, it's a massive data privacy Destinee (10:24) situation, but then also if I'm a young woman and I'm going out at night, there is a lens that I can view this as well, yeah, I can show you my POV. I have it from my glasses. Jamie Cohen (10:39) So, yeah, it's Jamie Cohen (10:40) a really good point, right? So this is kind of like the aestheticization for women off of POV experiences, right? So like men, Taylor makes a point in her video to basically say like the idea of POV as an aesthetic in terms of like portability comes from GoPro. And it was like a head-mounted device, right? But Amy Odell makes a really good point where she says, but GoPro is always represented or at least marketed as gear. Jamie Cohen (11:07) It was always like something that wasn't really aesthetically thing. It was like something you bring when you're camping. You bring the gear with you. So it's always there. Whereas glasses are much more invasive because they're stylish. They fit on your face. they're frictionless. They don't have they're they're the meta idea of you don't have to think about them. But the funniest part of it, like the thing that always like shocked me with it, is like how crazy. Jamie Cohen (11:32) Hyper individualized it is. Like when Kylie Jenner, does her video on her little debut thing on the Instagram carousel she builds, there's no one around her. It's just by herself. She's doing a fit check in a mirror. here's my thought on it. And like this is just what it is. But like I feel like when you're using a phone and you're doing a fit check, or you're like setting it up on the street where you're like standing there and you set it up and you do your fit check, there's still the insinuation of somebody else. Jamie Cohen (11:58) Like there's a world inside this phone, but there's also like the idea where you're it's not a mirror, you're in public, you're with the public here. And when you put the glasses on, it takes the public away and just makes it you. It's just you by yourself. So the aestheticization of solo or individualism is like seems too apparent for me. But then when you to when you frame it like that, where it's like, but you get this opportunity to have your own you, it doesn't need the contrast of. Jamie Cohen (12:28) I'm alone because you're not alone. You're just remove the friction of the phone, and now you have the face. I it's just such a weird thing I keep going back to the idea of like these glasses are invasive, like, and especially to young women. But I I want to hear your thoughts on like, but if marketed to women, is this a trick? Is this like, I mean, all Destinee (12:49) Yeah. Jamie Cohen (12:49) marketing is, but I mean, is this like, are they is this is this bad? Destinee (12:57) Yes. Yeah. Jamie Cohen (12:58) Ha ha. Destinee (13:00) It is terrible. It is not something that is. I don't know. I don't feel great about it. When I see people out in public with them, I don't feel safe is the wrong word, but I don't feel like my privacy is protected, right? There are there are things that I do to make I never post in real time, right? I I don't like that. That makes Destinee (13:27) it very easy for people to figure out where you are at any time. And as someone that has, you know, stopped using certain dog technologies because they live track a walk, and then people have come and found me to meet Rudy, I refuse to use that. That's not safe for him or for me. So it's not safe from a location, like personal safety perspective. It's not safe. Destinee (13:55) From a privacy perspective, it's this is a bad thing. And I can't find the good in it enough to say, well, here's its redeeming qualities. it's just a piece of technology for a massive platform to track you and learn more at the detriment of you and everyone. Jamie Cohen (14:20) I'm quoted in this article by Steffi Sau, great internet culture journalist. She works her slate now in the the the dating area. and it's called Meta's meta, meta AI smart glasses are wreaking havoc in schools across the country. It's only going to get worse. And this is an anecdotal essay about me and my student, Gwyneth, and how we noticed young men in particular were wearing them. Jamie Cohen (14:45) And first off, our big point we were making was like what are they what life are they leading that they need to wear them? But second, it was about how uncomfortable it made people on campus and made people like feel like it's different. The question that Steffi asked several times was like, is this going to change cheating? And I said, at this time, no, but yes, it will. Because to your question, I do know the answer to what benefit they have. Because people have started to jailbreak these glasses and not just turn off the like circle that requires. Jamie Cohen (15:14) Chords, but also incorp incorporate agenc parts into it. It already does some AI, AI for seeing impaired people, or AI for like learning. But basically you can, we I think we've talked about this, but you could turn off your mind and let the glasses see your world and then give you an agentic summary later. So there is use cases for it, but in this case, that use case requires gobbling up data, just gobbling data everywhere. And it's like that's the thing that you and I always talk about, which is like what data doesn't. Jamie Cohen (15:43) Mark Zuckerberg have. And what he doesn't have, just like with the metaverse and the goggles, we talked about this when we were a decade ago, is he doesn't have your height. He doesn't have where your eyes actually look. He doesn't have head motion because two dimensions don't give enough data, but the body gives more data. So agentic or not, it's capturing three dimensional reality to reproduce it in an AI space. And I think we all know by now what it does to women. Jamie Cohen (16:12) You know, so it's just to me, it's just one of those things where it's like, I know you say that Kylie doesn't have any or the j Kardashians maybe generally don't have that many scruples to the brands that they choose, but this seems like it's something that like feels a little unhealthy in terms of like what Jamie Cohen (16:32) young people would be interested in, you know. Destinee (16:35) Well, that's their key demographic. The Takardashians hawk the unhealthy thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, they don't have any Jamie Cohen (16:43) And then we learn. Destinee (16:46) scruples, so yeah, they're the perfect people Jamie Cohen (16:48) years ago, Kendall was hired to by Pepsi to do a a a tone-deaf ad during a protest. And this seems fairly tone-deaf by Kylie, the younger, but not as a as offensive, I guess is the way to put it, because it's more fashionable, if that makes sense. Okay. So Destinee (17:07) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jamie Cohen (17:09) if it's in other words, Jamie Cohen (17:11) It fits the brand, even if the brand is harmful. Destinee (17:15) Kardashians as a brand withstood the Pepsi controversy and came out relatively unscathed. The power of that brand is so insanely strong that it can withstand Jamie Cohen (17:28) Yeah. Destinee (17:29) something like that where if it was anybody else, they never would have been able to come back up. Jamie Cohen (17:33) So there's an another layer to this, which is that Kylie is the prime device and the metaglasses are secondary. Destinee (17:43) Mm-hmm. Destinee (17:46) I have a side quest question for Jamie Cohen (17:49) Yeah. Destinee (17:49) you. Are you concerned at all being a professor and the appearance of these glasses showing up on college campuses? I know when I went to school, it was a big deal when they allowed like, you know, laptops in because they could record, right? There were a few classes that wouldn't allow laptops because they didn't want to be recorded. Destinee (18:14) Are you worried about that at all or do you have any concerns about that from students wearing glasses? Jamie Cohen (18:19) Yes. Very Jamie Cohen (18:20) much. I mean I have tenure now, I'm very fortunate, but Jamie Cohen (18:25) I, if you can't tell, I can't look I teach a class that's 60 people and I can't see some of the people in the back row. And for all I know, they are recording me and broadcasting that out almost clipped wise right to their Instagram right afterward. I s I teach and I speak pretty off the cuff. I'm an extemporaneous professor. If you saw how many tabs, I think I have 45 tabs over right now. So I'm a tabs professor. I tab across, I open up tabs as we go. Jamie Cohen (18:50) I've never said something cancelable, except once I said I insulted Mr. Beast during the height of Mr. Beast and I was almost canceled then. But aside from that, it depends on the student. Anyway, but you never know what is the thing in which I speak about something that I get clipped out of context in the clipping space and go viral for that because the glasses record it from a perspective. Jamie Cohen (19:15) That I can't actually see in terms of like surveillance because it becomes so subtly surveilled that I can no longer tell what is or isn't being recorded. We have hardcore, almost all schools do, have very hardcore Destinee (19:29) Yeah. Jamie Cohen (19:31) sort recording rules. But when you have a class of 60 students sitting in a big arc, it could be any one of them in the back, you know? So yeah, I'm I'm consistently nervous about surveillance at all times. I'm also concerned about what I Jamie Cohen (19:43) Talk to Steffi about, which is that their agent is in their head and they're not paying attention and they're just letting the agent record their day and give them summaries of what I said. So it's like, what's the point of them of attending? Why don't they just leave their glasses on the desk? You know, at that point, the body is unnecessary. And that's again when I think the end point of Kylie standing in that mirror by herself, looking at herself and no one around, is only a step away from no Kylie and just glasses, you know? So it's it worries me. Destinee (20:14) Well, I think we're very quickly my like, you know, I don't know. I think we're evolving into a society that is either full of wally humans, where they're all just floating around in the VR thing, super overweight and being fed junk food and the robots do all the work. or we're gonna end up, you know, doomsday prepping in the wilderness. and there's gonna be no in between. Jamie Cohen (20:42) You know what? You might be both right. Destinee (20:44) Yeah. Jamie Cohen (20:47) Here's hoping for a better future. Be be Destinee (20:47) Whoa. Jamie Cohen (20:49) re keep our skepticism up. All right. Well, thanks for explaining that to me, Destiny. I have no idea. Destinee (20:52) Well Jamie Cohen (20:55) That's like like a missed it missed thing. I I'll pay attention to it now, so thank you. Destinee (21:00) Well, I mean, I don't think I did a a benefit to your life at all. I just gave you some more useless information, but Jamie Cohen (21:05) Yeah, Jamie Cohen (21:06) just more stuff to feel grim about, but that's how we do. Destinee (21:08) Hopeless about. Yeah. All Destinee (21:12) right. Like, share, subscribe, do all the things with network issues. We'll be back next week to discuss brand new dystopian topics.