If you thought the release of Facebook’s highly anticipated smart glasses was a great chance to throw some shade at Mark Zuckerberg, you’re not alone because Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey thought the same thing.
Like Instagram and Facebook Stories, the glasses — officially called the Ray-Ban Stories — are essentially a rip off of Snapchat’s Spectacles. Surprisingly, they’re not as ugly as what you’d expect from sunscreen enthusiast Mark Zuckerberg, but that doesn’t mean they’ve escaped the meme treatment.
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Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth, the VP of Facebook Reality Labs, shared a POV clip wearing the glasses, in which he throws various pillows at Mark Zuckerberg. Naturally, this prompted the Twitter CEO to respond with what we were all thinking.
“Throwing pillows of various sizes at Mark Zuckerberg looks fun,” he quote retweeted the video.
Throwing pillows of various sizes at Mark Zuckerberg looks fun https://t.co/fJdKbuYymv
— jack⚡️ (@jack) September 9, 2021
The aim of the footage — presumably recorded with the Ray-Ban Stories — appears to be to try and make Zuckerberg look like a human who does human things like fishing, laughing, breathing and… just like, not being the weird lizard person everyone thinks he is. Honestly, you have to give Facebook points for this PR move.
But does the video distract from the fact that Facebook spent literally years promising us a pair of schmick AR glasses, only to deliver a slightly more stylish version of a product Snapchat pumped out years ago? Not particularly.
The Stories don’t have built-in displays, nor do they have anything particularly revolutionary. Instead, Zuckerberg has essentially just merged Snapchat Spectacles and Bose Frames, slapped a Ray-Ban logo on it and called it a day.
So perhaps Jack Dorsey is right — maybe Mark Zuckerberg does deserve to be hit with a bunch of pillows for giving us such a lacklustre product after years of hype.
Facebook’s Ray-Ban Stories glasses are available in six colours, with prices starting at $449. You can purchase them now via the Ray-Ban website.