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🎧 Nobody wants to see your Birkin anymore · Open Tabs

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to OpenTabs,
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: our twice-weekly conversation where we talk about the stories taking up space
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  SPEAKER_01: in our tabs, our feeds, and our brains.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Megan.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Melissa.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Morning.
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  SPEAKER_01: Or afternoon.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to say.
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  SPEAKER_01: On the East Coast.
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  SPEAKER_01: But okay, a lot on the docket today.
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  SPEAKER_01: First, this is going to be like another kind of pat on the back to ourselves.
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  SPEAKER_01: A few weeks ago,
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  SPEAKER_01: we talked about how meta glasses have a branding problem and that they are largely,
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  SPEAKER_01: at least online, associated with creeps.
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  SPEAKER_01: Weird guys who are filming people on the street without their consent
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  SPEAKER_01: and like largely harassing women and that their meta was kind of trying
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  SPEAKER_01: to make fetch happen and it just wasn't working.
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  SPEAKER_01: And recently,
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  SPEAKER_01: if you live in New York,
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  SPEAKER_01: London, or D.C., you may have seen these satirical anti-meta-glasses ads.
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  SPEAKER_01: They're plastered everywhere from an activist group.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, saying like secret surveillance.
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  SPEAKER_01: They pulled the images from their campaign with Kylie Jenner.
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  SPEAKER_01: So it was like Kylie Jenner's face with the glasses.
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  SPEAKER_01: It said designed for secret surveillance.
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  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Meta, what's her full name and address?
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  SPEAKER_01: And this kind of sparked Meta to finally address the elephant in the room.
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  SPEAKER_01: So now they're responding to people misusing them.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of been known that when you turn the camera on, an LED light is supposed to flash.
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  SPEAKER_01: So the people around you know that you're filming.
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  SPEAKER_01: But people of course have ways to hack that so they could film people without that light.
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  SPEAKER_01: So they're trying to now address that.
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  SPEAKER_01: And Instagram is putting in moderation tools to try to flag this harassment on
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  SPEAKER_01: the street content.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to know if you guys think like Could this work?
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  SPEAKER_01: Or do you think we're kind of too far down the road of like meta glasses equal creepy?
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think, I don't know if we're too far down the road to course correct.
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  SPEAKER_00: I just don't have confidence in meta to course correct.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think also that there's a larger kind of conversation happening around surveillance.
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  SPEAKER_00: Do you guys see the Central Park couple that was caught making out?
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  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so there was a video where somebody with a phone went up to two people
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  SPEAKER_00: who were making out on a park bench and was like, hey, stop, there's kids around.
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  SPEAKER_00: And people are calling it the Coldplay couple over again because they immediately separate.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then people on the internet found, they were like, they're being suspicious.
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  SPEAKER_00: So they found where they work and were like, he's married, not to her.
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  SPEAKER_00: What's going on here?
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  SPEAKER_00: And it sparked a really big conversation around surveillance and what's acceptable
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  SPEAKER_00: and what's not.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes, these people might on the surface be doing something outside of social norms,
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  SPEAKER_00: but like we don't know them and we don't know their lives and we don't know
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  SPEAKER_00: the context under which they are having this relationship, you know?
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  SPEAKER_00: So I think that there's
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  SPEAKER_00: a larger conversation happening right now around surveillance
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  SPEAKER_00: and I actually think Meta being
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  SPEAKER_00: so pro these glasses is actually making people more Weary of surveillance culture as
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  SPEAKER_00: a whole just because there's a lack of trust in Mark Zuckerberg and Meta to do
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  SPEAKER_00: the right thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I think I remain staunch in my position that Facebook's biggest hurdle
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  SPEAKER_00: and Meta's biggest hurdle is Mark Zuckerberg himself and not their actual platform
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  SPEAKER_00: or the product.
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  SPEAKER_02: That's, you know, interesting.
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  SPEAKER_02: I agree with you, Megan.
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  SPEAKER_02: And I was also going to say I feel like this is a scenario where it's like
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  SPEAKER_02: the alignment of tech and culture isn't there, at least at this moment.
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  SPEAKER_02: A thousand percent.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's really reminding me of like in a different way,
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  SPEAKER_02: like the Quibi moment where it was like make Quibi happen and it was like
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  SPEAKER_02: for this like short form video movement and Culture wasn't ready for it.
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  SPEAKER_02: And technology wasn't there.
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  SPEAKER_02: And, like,
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  SPEAKER_02: actually today,
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  SPEAKER_02: I think Quibi, like,
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  SPEAKER_02: might work,
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  SPEAKER_02: you know,
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  SPEAKER_02: with the way that we consume short-form video,
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  SPEAKER_02: the way we produce it, and
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  SPEAKER_00: the way that, like, it's... You could argue it's working.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like, micro-dramas are a thing now.
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  SPEAKER_00: Micro-dramas
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  SPEAKER_02: are a thing.
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  SPEAKER_02: And it feels like it was just...
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  SPEAKER_00: People are not yet paying for,
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  SPEAKER_00: like, a full subscription, but we're very, very close.
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  SPEAKER_02: That's what I was going to say.
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  SPEAKER_02: I do think that, like,
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  SPEAKER_02: We talk about it in Digital Strategy,
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  SPEAKER_02: too, just training one's audience to do a certain thing.
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  SPEAKER_02: And so I just don't think audiences were trained enough for that.
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  SPEAKER_02: And I think when I think of meta right now with these glasses,
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  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, it's just not part of culture.
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  SPEAKER_02: This is great that the tech exists, but it's not ubiquitous.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's disconnected.
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  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean,
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  SPEAKER_02: my dad even talks about, like,
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  SPEAKER_02: and it's not just my dad, but, like,
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  SPEAKER_02: you know,
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  SPEAKER_02: people will say, like, okay, like,
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  SPEAKER_02: technology is going to evolve so much that,
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  SPEAKER_02: like, there will be, like, it's almost like we will be Android at some point.
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  SPEAKER_02: Like, where there will be, like,
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  SPEAKER_02: a version of this where there's, like,
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  SPEAKER_02: the tech is on you and then it's in you and,
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  SPEAKER_02: like, it can, you know, the connectivity.
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  SPEAKER_02: Like, you can envision that.
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  SPEAKER_02: Like, it's not wildly crazy.
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  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, like, if I were...
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  SPEAKER_02: I would think of it in a much
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  SPEAKER_02: more contained way.
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  SPEAKER_02: Again, from a branding perspective,
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  SPEAKER_02: could you really think about a community in a meaningful way
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  SPEAKER_02: where this tech would be valuable?
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  SPEAKER_02: Where could it make sense?
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  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's something a little bit out of the box.
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  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's the birdwatching community.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's like artists.
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  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's like,
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  SPEAKER_02: how can the tech, I mean,
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  SPEAKER_02: it always goes back to,
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  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I was saying this last night,
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  SPEAKER_02: like to a friend and I was just like spouting.
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  SPEAKER_02: I had a martini and I was like talking about digital strategy and I was like,
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  SPEAKER_02: it all comes back to how do you help?
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  SPEAKER_02: How do you help them?
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  SPEAKER_02: How do you make someone's life better?
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  SPEAKER_02: How are you adding value?
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  SPEAKER_02: These glasses aren't doing that right now.
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  SPEAKER_02: Like it's a mismatch of like maybe it works,
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  SPEAKER_02: but it's not connecting to like the cultural stream, you know?
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in fact,
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  SPEAKER_00: I would argue that like even the like The impetus of the glasses is
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  SPEAKER_00: to extract value.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's part of why people are so like,
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't want this because it's so clearly like this is to extract your data,
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  SPEAKER_00: to extract people's faces,
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  SPEAKER_00: and they haven't made their value proposition case at all.
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  SPEAKER_00: You're totally right.
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  SPEAKER_02: At all.
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  SPEAKER_02: Well, and it's funny because then it has been a whole,
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  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, I think it's like a core fundamental issue with the company at large.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's the same thing with, like,
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  SPEAKER_02: if you think about, like,
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  SPEAKER_02: the concept before it even started,
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  SPEAKER_02: like, that is value to participants because it's like connectivity, right?
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  SPEAKER_02: It's like you get to see other people at your college or surrounding colleges.
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  SPEAKER_02: And, like,
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  SPEAKER_02: it's the first time you were sharing sort of in a public forum,
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  SPEAKER_02: less of, like, amongst friends.
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  SPEAKER_02: And it was sort of a very new, innovative thing at the time.
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  SPEAKER_02: And again,
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  SPEAKER_02: to hit it with the right community,
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  SPEAKER_02: college students, was the right way to make it take off, right?
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  SPEAKER_02: You build appeal among that set.
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  SPEAKER_02: When you think ahead to like Mark and their plan around meta,
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  SPEAKER_02: like building a metaverse, I don't think it's wrong.
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  SPEAKER_02: I think like the forward thinking, I think it's, the concept is there.
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  SPEAKER_02: Again, I always go back to Ready Player One.
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  SPEAKER_02: Like it's not, It's unfathomable.
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  SPEAKER_02: But it's not,
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  SPEAKER_02: to your point,
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  SPEAKER_02: Megan, it's not centered around how is it making people's lives better?
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  SPEAKER_02: What benefit are you, what is this tool doing for people?
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  SPEAKER_02: And I think if they just reset that,
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  SPEAKER_02: it would completely restructure their product and all of that.
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  SPEAKER_02: I think it's like a, I don't know.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
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  SPEAKER_00: And one thing I've been thinking about with the glasses,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I think I kind of said it on here before,
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  SPEAKER_00: is that so much of the internet right now is very narcissistic.
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  SPEAKER_00: People want to see themselves reflected back to them.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so much of the glasses is about what you're seeing.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you're not seeing yourself in there.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's like your perspective,
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  SPEAKER_00: but you're not really in there in a way that I feel like is part
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  SPEAKER_00: of why it's not compelling to people.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I actually saw a video, this is like the first time I was like, wait, do I want this?
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  SPEAKER_00: Was someone had put them on their dog and then the dog was wearing the meta glasses.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then they were like, they were seeing what the dog sees.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I was like,
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  SPEAKER_00: if they had dog goggles,
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  SPEAKER_00: meta glasses,
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  SPEAKER_00: I could see me being like,
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I would buy them,
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  SPEAKER_00: but if somebody gave them to me,
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  SPEAKER_00: I would definitely put those on my dog and be like, okay, you're a vlogger now.
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  SPEAKER_00: What do you see?
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  SPEAKER_00: A dogger.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like the GoPro.
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  SPEAKER_00: Remember when everyone was putting GoPros on their dog?
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  SPEAKER_00: It's like that.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I think we're saying the same thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's ways into this.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a hard sell, and they did not do a good job of selling it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in fact,
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  SPEAKER_00: they chose a very detrimental way that now has left them on their back foot
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  SPEAKER_00: of selling this product into culture.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Just one more add to that also is just like the elephant in the room of like,
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  SPEAKER_02: we're all trying to get off and away from tech too.
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  SPEAKER_02: Like there's just this like movement.
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  SPEAKER_02: We know it's not healthy.
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  SPEAKER_02: We're all so addicted to the phone.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so again,
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  SPEAKER_02: I know I've talked about this before,
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  SPEAKER_02: but like as a mom,
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  SPEAKER_02: like the idea of those glasses,
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  SPEAKER_02: like if I'm wearing them and I'm driving and like I'm seeing notifications come up
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  SPEAKER_02: and I'm already overstimulated as it is, like it is so unappealing.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like it could not be like, like I'm like, I, you know, and also have they thought about that?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like lawsuits and like, Just, I just feel like it's a really, it's not additive at all.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's just more distracting, which is, I don't know.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's just like there's a way to completely rethink this and how, like, again,
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  SPEAKER_02: it should be tech enhancing, like,
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  SPEAKER_02: actual living and real life and, like,
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: analog and, like,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
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  SPEAKER_02: that's how it should be and,
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: like, I think the comparison I made last time was the wearables.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think the Whoop band, it's so lo-fi.
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  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't even seem like tech.
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  SPEAKER_02: And the material of most of the band is real material.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's not a piece of hardware.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where I actually think that the right Yeah.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the one thing.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've never gotten into the wearable tech.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have an Apple Watch.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, not everything needs to be optimized.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't need to optimize my sleep, you know?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: But it will be interesting.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Snapchat is launching their specs,
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  SPEAKER_01: which will have the,
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  SPEAKER_01: like, on, I want to say, like, on-screen notifications in glasses.
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  SPEAKER_01: Notifications come up on the screen.
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  SPEAKER_01: They're doing that in September, so it'll be interesting to see.
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  SPEAKER_02: Those guys take a really interesting approach to stuff, too.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever Snapchat or Snap is releasing something,
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  SPEAKER_02: I always pay attention because I do think it's done very thoughtfully.
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  SPEAKER_02: So I'm curious what they do.
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  SPEAKER_02: They keep it small.
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  SPEAKER_02: They keep it narrow.
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  SPEAKER_00: They know
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  SPEAKER_02: their audience.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they're just focused on retaining that audience rather than getting a bigger one.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like they're a lot more strategic and focused with what they do.
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  SPEAKER_01: They are.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: And real creative original thought comes from their platform,
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: whereas Meta is typically ripping off Snapchat.
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  SPEAKER_01: So say, okay,
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: our second topic we're going to talk about right now and then we'll be
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: behind our paywall tomorrow.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: This really Interesting article from Rebecca Jennings, who we love.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: She's an amazing intern.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: We love you, Rebecca.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: She's our fave.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she is.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: I like Google her name at least once a week to like track her latest writing.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: So she wrote this piece just released this morning about lifestyle influencers
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: and how they used to be able to post cute photos, luxury content, and make millions.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And now they're having to pivot.