Did Google Glass Wearers Actually Get Punched in the Face?

Remember back in 2014 when early adopters of Google Glass, the widely ridiculed face computer, were constantly getting punched in the face? That seems to be the internet’s collective memory of what happened to “glassholes” as they were dubbed, but the number of people who were physically assaulted was actually quite small. In fact, Gizmodo couldn’t find a single instance of someone getting properly punched in the face. And it perhaps speaks to how a small handful of incidents can come to define the backlash against a product as Meta’s smartglasses experience a similar kind of public anger.

To be clear, the backlash against Google Glass was very real. There were reports of some bars already banning Google Glass users in 2013 even before the products were officially released. The fear, of course, was that people would be recorded without their consent.

There were two big incidents where people could reasonably be described as having been physically impacted in some way. The first was in San Francisco, California, in Feb. 2014 when tech writer Sarah Solcum was confronted for wearing Google Glass at Molotov bar on Haight Street.

From an SFGate article in 2014:

When a woman at the bar told Slocum, “You’re killing the city,” a reference to a larger backlash against tech workers in San Francisco, Slocum announced that she wanted to “get this white trash on tape.” A man then ripped the device from her face.

Slocum posted video of the incident on YouTube, though it only shows two people waving their hands in front of her, not actually taking the glasses from her face. That happened later, according to her.

By one account, a woman who was with Slocum was the one who actually got physical, throwing a punch. As the L.A. Times put it:

But as the night wore on, a group of patrons reportedly became upset about the potential for being recorded by the eyewear, CBS San Francisco reported. The confrontation reportedly turned violent when a friend she was with responded to one heckler by throwing a punch.

A couple of months later, another physical altercation happened in San Francisco when Kyle Russell, a reporter for Business Insider, was wearing his Google Glass out in public. As Russell tells it, he was walking home from covering a protest against a Google executive when someone put their hand on his face and yelled “Glass”!

The woman took them off his face and smashed them to the ground. Technically, he was never punched.

Both Slocum and Russell were featured in a segment on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” that mocked their ordeals.

Other Glass users on the panel complained about being discriminated against by being denied admission to businesses, something that was ridiculed by interviewer Jason Jones. Slocum in particular was mocked for calling her experience a “hate crime.”

Try as we might, we couldn’t find a single instance of someone literally getting punched in the face. The two big incidents that made national news involved some property theft or destruction. But the anger at other users was either just verbal or based on societal vibes. People really didn’t like the idea of being recorded by a stranger. And at least one person received a ticket for distracted driving while wearing the product, though that was dismissed in court for lack of evidence.

Google announced Glass as an upcoming product on April 4, 2012 and it seemed doomed from the jump. The product caused eye strain and it had an extremely short battery life. When they were finally released, what were supposed to be called “Explorers,” according to Google, turned out to be “Glassholes” based on popular sentiment.

Meta’s smartglasses don’t suffer from technical limitations in the same way as Google Glass but they’re certainly following a similar path socially. People are referring to them as “pervert glasses,” and influencers are posting videos of people (often women they try to pick up) without their knowledge or consent.

Even today, it seems like people aren’t getting punched in the face when wearing Meta smartglasses. The most confrontational videos, like this one in Pacific Beach, San Diego, never actually rise to people throwing punches. The man grabs for the glasses but mostly gets the influencer to leave the area through talk and simply being an intimidating physical presence.

If you thought people who wore Google Glass were constantly getting punched in the face, your memory is slightly off. But that doesn’t mean people really liked them.

There wasn’t polling specifically about Google Glass in 2014, but 53% of Americans said that it would be a bad thing if people were fed info via implants or devices like Glass, according to Pew Research. Just 37% said it would make the world better.