Kylie Jenner has debuted as the new face of Meta’s AI glasses. But it’s no coincidence that billionaire tech companies lean on the powerhouse of female consumer influence to push products that would otherwise be met with resistance, writes Jovilyn Rabino.
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Imagine walking down the street after a long day of work and, just as you’re about to step into nature, Kylie Jenner whispers “Rise and Shine”, into the back of your neck.
No, you’re not at a wellness retreat, you’re just wearing a chic surveillance system-and you opted in!
Last week I was in bed, scrolling on TikTok, trying to avoid the digital landfill of bad headlines and Hanson slop, when I was stopped mid-scroll by a Meta ad. This ad though, was different.
Gone was the usual sterile Silicon Valley optimism, or Mark Zuckerberg insisting he’s about to revolutionise human connection by replacing your friends with AI. No. Something weirder - and sneakily more sinister. Kylie Jenner flipping through a rack of designer clothing. Soft lighting. Shiny fabrics. A Meta glasses ad, completely repackaged as an aesthetic fashion campaign.
Surveillance tech is no longer being sold as technology, but as fashion. Increasingly through people like the Jenners, wrapped in the language of self expression and desirability.
Scroll through Meta’s glasses TikTok account and you’ll see it everywhere: “Spend the day with me during Milan Fashion Week”, young models talking about their routines, their personal style. But underneath it all? A device built to swiftly record, collect, and transmit information.
That distinction matters a lot. Because the way this kind of technology is being sold and who it’s being sold to - isn’t neutral.
Fashion has always been political, historically a site of protest, and resistance. But increasingly, it’s becoming a vehicle for the normalisation of technologies that demand far more scrutiny than they’re getting. It’s no coincidence that billionaire tech companies lean on the powerhouse of female consumer influence to push products that would otherwise be met with resistance.
Zuckerberg doesn’t just need users. He needs to be permeated into the cultural zeitgeist. He needs aspiration. And in 2026, aspiration seems to look like Kylie Jenner in soft lighting.
These surveillance risks aren’t theoretical. Their real, immediate and deeply consequential. Earlier this year, reports surfaced that Meta had explored deeper facial recognition in wearable devices. At the same time, analysis of its software showed that facial-recognition capability could already be embedded in apps downloaded to millions of phones.
When questioned, Meta points to a small blinking light that signals when recording is active. But online forums and video platforms are already full of quick instructions on how to disable it. In practice, the “safeguard” becomes optional. Meanwhile, Australia’s fragmented privacy laws offer limited protection, leaving people with little recourse if they’re recorded without their consent.
How is it that devices whose role in enabling overwhelmingly gendered stalking and harassment earned them nicknames like “creeper glasses” and “stalker glasses” are now drawing comment sections calling them “chic” and “stylish” and “cool girl”?
Perhaps the great irony is that Kylie Jenner has also spent much of her adult life describing the psychological toll of being watched.
On Jake Shane’s podcast, she described the anxiety of leaving her LA home as photographers gathered outside her front yard. Yet she now stands to make millions promoting technology that makes it easier to discreetly record people in public - contributing to the very surveillance culture that has followed her since childhood.
Fashion and technology have been converging for years, and some of that innovation serves a clear purpose. Researchers at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, for example, are developing sustainable wearable cooling systems that respond to extreme heat, helping people adapt to rising temperatures as climate change makes heat waves more frequent and severe.
These aren’t just glasses. They’re devices packed with lithium-ion batteries, microprocessors, microphones, cameras and components that rely on extractive mining practices across the globe. Their destructive environmental footprint begins long before they reach a consumers face.
And like most consumer electronics, they’re designed with obsolescence built in. Another cycle of extraction, another addition to the growing mountain of electronic waste we’re learning to ignore.
Yet while researchers around the world are using technology to tackle increasingly urgent challenges, some of the world’s largest and most powerful technology companies are more focused on ensuring we remain connected to their platforms at every waking moment, even in the rare seconds we’re outside, sitting in the sun, trying to forget they exist.
Which brings me back to Kylie.
But this isn’t really about her. It’s about how Meta and other technology companies are using culture to sell surveillance. Kylie becomes a vehicle in a much larger strategy, helping curate surveillance as aesthetic and aspirational.
Fashion doesn’t just reflect culture, it shapes it. And women, who drive a significant share of global consumer spending and trend adoption, are being positioned as the entry point through which these technologies creep into the mainstream.
So the question isn’t whether the glasses are chic, it’s who is being used, and who benefits when surveillance is reframed as fashion.
It’s certainly not the people being recorded without knowledge or consent, or the communities bearing the environmental costs of extraction. Nor is it the average consumer left to navigate increasingly invisible systems of data collection and extraction with few visible safeguards or protections.
The winners are large corporations like Meta, who’ve realised that the easiest way to normalise surveillance is not through technology itself, but through aesthetics, culture and desire.
And I urge everyone to opt out of this version of chic.
About the author
Jovilyn Rabino is a communications advisor based in Melbourne. She currently works as an advisor to Anasina Gray-Barberio MP. Jovilyn holds an undergraduate degree in Human Rights and is passionate about anti-racism, multicultural youth advocacy, and increasing the participation of diverse young people in civic, academic, and political spaces.
This was a really great read! Subscribing!
As a female consumer, these glasses genuinely concern me for all the reasons you already mentioned. From my POV, they make surveilling vulnerable groups in particular far too easy.
As an attorney, I’m very curious to see how the law will adapt in response. In the U.S., the strongest protection currently comes from two-party consent laws, but those exist only at the state level, not federally. Visual indicator laws are starting to emerge, requiring devices to have lights like Meta’s (and preventing users from tampering with them). Does this offer much legal protection for those impacted? Not really. Time will tell.
I write about all things fashion, culture, and the law on my Substack!