London Activists Hijack Kylie Jenner’s Meta Glasses Ad to Sound the Alarm on Surveillance

When Kylie Jenner’s smiling face popped up on a digital screen advertising Meta’s new Ray‑Ban AI glasses, the vibe was unmistakably glossy – a blend of celebrity glamour and futuristic tech. But a few blocks away, on a ordinary London bus stop sitting right next to Meta’s UK headquarters, the ad took a very different turn.

Somewhere between the morning rush and the late‑afternoon lull, a lenticular poster was slipped into the frame. From one angle, it still looked like the original Jenner campaign: bright, clean, the kind of image you’d expect on a billboard. Rotate the poster, however, and the whole scene distorts into a stark, high‑contrast portrait of the influencer turned menacing, with a skeletal grin and the caption “We’re always watching.”

The prank was the work of a loosely organized collective that calls itself “Everyone Hates Elon” (EHE). In a short statement to Hyperallergic, a spokesperson for the group explained the motive: “Meta has spent years tracking us online. Now it wants to track us in the real world too.” The group also warned that the glasses could be abused – “used to secretly record women and young people for sexual reasons… simply put, that’s abuse,” they added.

The visual cue is a direct nod to John Carpenter’s 1988 cult classic They Live. In the film, a pair of sunglasses reveals hidden propaganda and alien invaders scrawling eyes across everyday scenes. By swapping Jenner’s glossy smile for a skull‑like visage, the activists are saying: the same technology that makes you look cool could also let corporations see things you’d rather keep private.

Meta’s AI glasses, a collaboration with Ray‑Ban, are marketed as a blend of fashion and function – think voice‑activated assistants, real‑time translation and AR overlays. Yet the tech has a darker side. In June 2024, Wired reported that Meta quietly slipped facial‑recognition software into the glasses’ firmware, a feature that remained dormant at launch but could be activated later. That revelation, combined with the ever‑growing data‑harvest ecosystem of the parent company, has fed a chorus of privacy concerns.

EHE isn’t new to these kinds of street‑level protests. Formed in 2025, the group originally targeted Elon Musk with graffiti and spoof posters, and has since broadened its scope to any tech “over‑reach” they deem invasive. Their London stunt – timed just days after Futurism ran a piece about the Jenner ad – pulled the conversation back onto the streets, reminding passersby that these debates are not just online talk.

Whether the lenticular poster will stay up long enough for commuters to notice is uncertain; the Met Police typically remove unauthorized advertising within hours. Still, the image has already gone viral, resurfacing on social feeds and sparking heated comments about consent, surveillance capitalism, and the role of celebrity endorsements in normalising intrusive tech.

One thing is clear: when a celebrity‑driven marketing push collides with a guerrilla art piece that flips the script, the conversation about where the line between innovation and intrusion lies becomes impossible to ignore.