“my kid wants the meta glasses bc Kylie Jenner has them. why is there so much hate for them?”

Worth knowing about even if your child doesn’t end up getting them, because the concern isn’t really about the person wearing them, it’s about everyone else.

A phone or a smartwatch mainly affects the person using it. Their data, their choice. Glasses with a built-in camera work differently, because they’re capturing everyone around the wearer too. The people nearby haven’t agreed to be filmed, and most of them won’t even realise it’s happening. There’s a small light that comes on when the camera is recording, but it’s subtle enough that most people don’t notice it.

That’s the core of the criticism. It’s not that the glasses do anything particularly unusual, phones have cameras too. It’s that a camera worn on your face, pointing outward, is much harder for bystanders to spot and respond to than a phone being held up. Anyone in a café, a school playground, or a shop could be recorded by someone wearing them nearby without any real way of knowing.

If your child does get a pair, it’s worth having a conversation about when and where it’s appropriate to record, and that the responsibility sits with the wearer, not the people around them.