One features an optical illusion parody of “They Live.”
Amid a growing backlash against Meta’s smart glasses, a group of activists have taken over two London bus stops with fake adverts for the product, including one that uses clever optical illusions to transform Kylie Jenner’s face into a dystopian PSA about surveillance.
At first glance, the “ad” seems almost indistinguishable from a legitimate ad showing Kylie Jenner wearing a pair of smart glasses. But if you look at it from a different angle, the image turns black and white and Jenner’s face takes on a creepy, skeletal look. Instead of “Meta AI Glasses,” the text becomes “Meta: We’re Always Watching.”
Constantly recording everything we see and do? It gives fascism, not fashion
It’s just been revealed that Meta plans to make the glasses “continuously record audio while taking photos every few seconds” without any warning lights*
Literally NO ONE asked for this
#nonceglasses
*Source: the FT
– Everyone Hates Elon (@everyonehateselon.bsky.social) 2026-07-13T15:57:17.393Z
As Hyperallergic points out, the ad appears to be a cheeky nod to They liveJohn Carpenter’s 1988 sci-fi classic in which a strange pair of sunglasses plays an important role. It also follows another, even less subtle, fake Meta glasses advert that appeared in London earlier this month. “The greatest perverse technological advancement since the trenchcoat,” is written above a pair of glasses. “Hey Meta, start filming.”
Both ads are the work of Everyone Hates Elon, an activist group that has waged similar guerrilla-style campaigns to protest Elon Musk and other tech oligarchs. The group was behind a series of posters on the New York subway to protest Jeff Bezos’ attendance at this year’s Met Gala.
“Just because you CAN create sunglasses that record people without their consent and use the images to train robots…,” the group wrote in an Instagram post about the campaign. The group also highlighted a recent report from the Financial Times which claimed that Meta was testing a new type of glasses intended to continuously record audio and video.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company recently announced that it would disable the cameras in its smart glasses if it detected that the recording LEDs had been physically tampered with. Meta said it would “continue to work on ways to make them even safer and more reliable.”
