Lorde tells festival crowd to reject Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses

Lorde's on-stage criticism arrives as Meta contends with renewed public scrutiny over its smart glasses venture. The company's strategy of embedding recording cameras into eyewear has drawn concern about privacy and consent—core anxieties the artist articulated by invoking uncertainty about whether someone nearby is wearing ordinary sunglasses or a device that may be recording. The fact that the performance took place at a festival sponsored by Ray-Ban, and that Blackpink's Jennie—a paid Ray-Ban Meta AI ambassador—performed immediately afterward with accompanying advertising, underscores an emerging disconnect: celebrity endorsement campaigns for the product are unfolding in parallel with grassroots celebrity resistance. Meta's reported commitment to launching an even more surveillance-capable version (continuously recording "super sensing" glasses) suggests the company is not backing away, despite the mounting social friction. This positions the glasses at a cultural and commercial inflection point where brand ambassadors must navigate the perception gap between their endorsement roles and broader public sentiment.