Blindness is Hot? Why do People Wear Glasses Performatively?

By Rachel Brown

Once upon a time, glasses meant you’d lost the genetic lottery. You were “four-eyes,” the kid squinting at the whiteboard, the one who had to push your frames up your nose before saying something clever.  

Glasses were shorthand for vulnerability or intellect, depending on who you asked, but definitely not for cool. Fast-forward a few decades, and suddenly, impaired eyesight is hot. People with perfect vision are walking around in tortoiseshell frames like they’ve just finished editing their novel in a Paris cafe. 

The non-prescription glasses trend has quietly become one of fashion’s strangest optical illusions. What started as a quirky accessory for a few influencers and indie musicians has evolved into a multi-million-dollar market of “fake” frames, worn not to correct sight, but to project personality. Glasses are no longer about what you see; they’re about how you want to be seen. 

Eyewear has joined the path of performative accessories, alongside tote bags that scream ‘Feminist Book Club’ and enamel pins declaring ‘Anxious but Trying.’  

Glasses now signify something between irony and aspiration, a visual cue that says, I’m thoughtful, I read theory, but I also know how to dress. 

Historically, glasses weren’t glamorous. In the early 20th century, they carried connotations of fragility or academic isolation - think of the bookish spinster trope or the “before” version of every #makeover montage.  

It wasn’t until the 1950s and ’60s, with the rise of cultural icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Buddy Holly, that eyewear started its slow crawl toward chic.  

By the 2000s, when hipsters reclaimed “nerd” culture, the look had been reborn. Thick frames became shorthand for authenticity. Proof that you were different from the airbrushed masses.  

As reiterated by Daily Eyewear Digest: “Glasses and attractiveness are subjective, but they undeniably add intrigue. Some people love the intellectual, sophisticated vibe glasses bring - think ‘mysterious writer’ or ‘hot librarian’.”  

The combination is seductive in the age of social media. Seductive? Maybe. But also complicated. Because while a beret or a vintage cardigan can be worn without ethical confusion, glasses have long been a disability-coded item.  

For those who genuinely need them, glasses aren’t aesthetic props; they’re medical devices. So, when people buy clear lenses purely for style, are they celebrating visual diversity or co-opting it?  

There’s an uncomfortable irony in treating a corrective aid as a costume. It’s like how people have aesthetic braces or mobility aids in fashion shoots. It can feel dismissive when something essential to someone else’s daily life becomes a trendy accessory.   

This obsession with “authentic imperfection” speaks to a deeper cultural anxiety. In an age of hyper-filtered beauty, people crave symbols of realness - even if that realness is fake.  

Wearing non-prescription glasses lets you project intellect without the burden of reading glasses strength 2.0. You can look like a tortured writer without having to finish the first chapter. 

On TikTok, #GlassesCheck videos rack up millions of views, with users trying on different frames to see which version of themselves they prefer: the brooding artist, the vintage academic, the “sexy librarian”.  

In a way, the performative glasses trend is just a microcosm of modern identity - selfhood as outfit, authenticity as filter. 

Still, it’s hard not to chuckle at the absurdity. Humanity spent centuries developing corrective lenses to overcome biological limitations. Only for Gen Z to wear them because they “complete the look”. Somewhere, Benjamin Franklin is rolling his monocles. 

But perhaps that’s the paradox of fashion; the power to transform symbols of weakness into emblems of strength. Glasses, once the mark of a misfit, now sit proudly on the noses of runway models and CEOs.  

The irony may sting, but it’s also strangely poetic - a reminder that what we wear always says more about who we want to be than who we actually are. 

So yes, I guess blindness is hot. But only when it’s metaphorical.