Silicon Valley Street Style is a weekly feature that looks at the intersection of fashion, technology and taste.
Barry Bonds uploaded a photo on Twitter on Monday in which the former big-league superstar looked over the city of San Francisco—coffee cup in hand, Google Glass on his face, deep introspection in his eyes.
https://twitter.com/BarryBonds/status/516662195086581760/photo/1
“I’m glassing,” reads the superimposed caption.
It’s a message I imagine said in Bonds’ voice, as if he were looming behind me and whispering “I’m glassing” into my ear with hot breath.
And yet … why?
Google, as we know, is doing its darndest to make its face computers socially acceptable to the masses, yet according to the myriad of flummoxed users, Bonds has nothing to do with the anti-Glasshole campaign.
Bonds, it seems, is doing a solid for his pal, “visual storyteller” Anthony Phills, the guy behind “I’m Glassing,” a project and magazine about the wearable—a project not sponsored by Google.
Glassing is a term referring to wearing and using Google Glass, a word that Phills is trying to force into the modern day lexicon—joining the ranks of tech-words-turned-canon like “Googling” and “tweeting.”
Phills and Bonds have a tough road ahead of them. What is the consensus about people wearing Google Glass? Google Glass has become the symbol of privilege and shamelessness, and willing to wear the device on your face conveys a sense of pseudo-intelligence, pseudo-clout.
From The Daily Show ripping apart Glass-wearers to the emergence of the term “Glasshole”, people who wear Google Glass are now seen as more of a punchline than anything. A person wearing Google Glass in public, especially in the Bay Area or at a tech event, exudes some sort of invisible people-repellant force that just makes everyone hate you. Everyone except your fellow Glassholes, that is.
Still … I think it works on Bonds.
As a guy who is not of the tech world, he’s trying. I’ll readily roll my eyes at the people already invested in the Silicon Valley tech lifestyle who throw on a pair of Google Glass like a sign that says, “I know tech. And I’m wealthy.”
But Bonds is just getting into the whole social media thing, slapping Google Glass on, adapting to the times. As a figure so very integral to San Francisco culture, I feel as though Bonds is adopting Google Glass as if it were a peace offering to the city’s techie landscape. And I can’t fault him for that. Our tiny Silicon Valley bubble can be an angry, elitist bully sometimes and frankly I just want to take Barry Bonds by the hand and let him inside.
Looking at this picture, I get the exact same feeling I get when I see old people who are happy. My heart swells. I tear a little.
So “Glassing” is not a thing. So “Glassing” is a made-up term that Google doesn’t even want to associate with. So “Glassing” could already be in reference to totally unrelated things like using glass bottles as weapons or an attack move in Halo.
So what? There’s a mixture of enthusiasm and being so out of touch that is reminiscent of every #dadjoke that’s ever been told. I have my doubts, but I support you, Barry. Keep on doing what you do.
