Google 'Glassholes' Tell 'Daily Show' They're Victims of 'Hate Crimes'

Jason St. Amand READ TIME: 2 MIN.

I've only seen about four people wear Google Glass, the search engine giant's controversial wearable cell phone. And each time I walked by them on the street, or sat across from them on the bus, I wondered, at least for a fleeting moment, if they were recording me. Apparently, I'm not alone.

A group of Google Glass wearers, called "Explorers," spoke about their experiences wearing the $1,500 technology on their face to "Daily Show" correspondent Jason Jones and revealed that they are often "discriminated" against and victims of "hate crimes" because of the device.

"I was denied services at several establishments," one Explorer says.

"I was mugged," another said.

"It seems like in this day and age you can still be treated different just because of how you look -- wearing a $1,500 face computer," Jones says.

Jones says the Explorers all have stories of being denied service at restaurants and bars and some have even been assaulted because others thought they were being "surreptitiously filmed, which sometimes they were."

"I was at a bar and people started verbally accosting me," Explorer Sarah Slocum told Jones. "They started getting physical immediately when I started recording. They ripped them off my face and ran outside. It was a hate crime."

When Jones makes his own bootleg version of Glass (basically an instant camera and a cell phone tapped to some wires on his head), he starts to "understand their pain."

But his understanding doesn't last long when he finds out that Google Glass wearers are called "Explorers."

"Magellan was an explorer...you guys have a fucking camera on your face," he says. "And that's something that they have to live with everyday of their lives -- unless of course they just take them the fuck off."

You can watch the full clip over at Gawker's Valley Wag.


by Jason St. Amand , National News Editor

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