Smart Glasses Are Eyeing the One Thing People Hate More Than Being Spied On
If you don’t like the idea of someone recording you discreetly, you probably don’t like smart glasses. Video and photo capture are easily some of the most divisive aspects of the form factor, if not the most divisive. However divisive the recording part is, though, there are unifying aspects of smart glasses with cameras—things that fans and critics can hate together. Take subscriptions, for example.
As noted by Wired, L’Atitude 52°N, a smart glasses company that successfully crowdfunded last year, just launched its Berlin model of AI specs, which is set to go on sale May 26, and they have one tiny little quirk that I haven’t seen yet, or at least not to this extent: the AI features on the smart glasses (a good deal of the stuff that might actually convince you to buy them) will all be paywalled after a year’s trial.
Per Wired, which spoke to L’Atitude 52°N CEO Gary Chen, there’s no word on how much the $399 smart glasses’ subscription will cost, but if you don’t pay up, Berlin will be limited to “base features,” which include playing music and capturing media. I guess anyone interested in buying Berlin will have to be okay with a looming, unknown cost down the road.
It’s an interesting choice for a company that positions its smart glasses as being ideal for travel, pitching stuff like an “AI tour guide” that uses computer vision to provide information on your surroundings as a centerpiece of that travel functionality. Outside of a tour guide, the Berlin smart glasses also appear to lean into translation and a voice assistant in the AI department.
On the bright side—call it transparency if you want—at least Chen is being honest about future ambitions to squeeze recurring profits out of anyone who buys the company’s smart glasses. A lot of the time, that’s just an unacknowledged minefield customers unknowingly step onto when buying any gadget with a cloud service.
If you’re okay with potentially having to cough up a monthly sum to get the most out of your smart glasses, the Berlin look like a decent pair, but not quite the best. There’s no screen, but there’s a 12-megapixel camera, which is the same as the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses, though there’s a significant difference in capture resolution. The Berlin have a max recording resolution of 1080p, while the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses can record in 3K. They do look stylish, or at the very least unique, and if they can compete on open-ear audio, they might be a worthy consideration even with that very annoying subscription caveat.
I’m skeptical that smart glasses are practical enough to justify paying for monthly, but I guess the only way to find out is by adding to everyone’s already Sisyphean monthly subscription budget.
If you don’t like the idea of someone recording you discreetly, you probably don’t like smart glasses. Video and photo capture are easily some of the most divisive aspects of the form factor, if not the most divisive. However divisive the recording part is, though, there are unifying aspects of smart glasses with cameras—things that fans and critics can hate together. Take subscriptions, for example.
As noted by Wired, L’Atitude 52°N, a smart glasses company that successfully crowdfunded last year, just launched its Berlin model of AI specs, which is set to go on sale May 26, and they have one tiny little quirk that I haven’t seen yet, or at least not to this extent: the AI features on the smart glasses (a good deal of the stuff that might actually convince you to buy them) will all be paywalled after a year’s trial.
Per Wired, which spoke to L’Atitude 52°N CEO Gary Chen, there’s no word on how much the $399 smart glasses’ subscription will cost, but if you don’t pay up, Berlin will be limited to “base features,” which include playing music and capturing media. I guess anyone interested in buying Berlin will have to be okay with a looming, unknown cost down the road.
It’s an interesting choice for a company that positions its smart glasses as being ideal for travel, pitching stuff like an “AI tour guide” that uses computer vision to provide information on your surroundings as a centerpiece of that travel functionality. Outside of a tour guide, the Berlin smart glasses also appear to lean into translation and a voice assistant in the AI department.
On the bright side—call it transparency if you want—at least Chen is being honest about future ambitions to squeeze recurring profits out of anyone who buys the company’s smart glasses. A lot of the time, that’s just an unacknowledged minefield customers unknowingly step onto when buying any gadget with a cloud service.
If you’re okay with potentially having to cough up a monthly sum to get the most out of your smart glasses, the Berlin look like a decent pair, but not quite the best. There’s no screen, but there’s a 12-megapixel camera, which is the same as the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses, though there’s a significant difference in capture resolution. The Berlin have a max recording resolution of 1080p, while the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses can record in 3K. They do look stylish, or at the very least unique, and if they can compete on open-ear audio, they might be a worthy consideration even with that very annoying subscription caveat.
I’m skeptical that smart glasses are practical enough to justify paying for monthly, but I guess the only way to find out is by adding to everyone’s already Sisyphean monthly subscription budget.
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#Smart #Glasses #Eyeing #People #Hate #Spied
L’Atitude 52°N’s glasses is called Goya, named after Francisco Goya, the famous Spanish artist who painted renowned masterpieces of romanticism.
CEO and founder Gary Chen, who has worked on wearable devices for companies like Oppo, OnePlus, and HTC, says his company’s glasses are focused on travelers, with AI features that act like a tour guide and talk about all the paintings in famous museums.
“Basically, you can say, ‘Hey, Goya, what is the story about Mona Lisa?’” Chen says. “You can ask anything and, with your permission, they will take a photo to analyze what’s in front of you.”
I ask if you could quiz it about perhaps the most famous Goya painting, the terrifying, Gothic horror-esque image of Saturn devouring his own son.
“Yes, yes,” Chen says, “It can also give you some recommendations about restaurants.”
Berlin-based L’Atitude 52°N is a new player in the smart glasses space, selling its first pairs on Kickstarter in September 2025, where the campaign surpassed its funding goal and raised more than $400,000. There have been some bumps since then, as shipments were delayed from an originally announced release date in February 2026, and one model in development was scrapped outright. Now, L’Atitude 52°N has announced an official release date for its smart glasses.
Preorders for one model, called Berlin, start on May 19. The glasses actually go on sale on May 26. This might be a disappointment for Kickstarter backers, as the most recent official update from the campaign came in March and said shipping would begin on April 15 for Berlin units and June 7 for the second model, called Milan. L’Atitude 52°N still hasn’t set an official launch date for the Milan, except to say that it will be “arriving in the second quarter of 2026.”
The Berlin glasses cost $399. Add another $50 for the photochromatic lenses. There is one very big catch: The AI features enabled on the device will only work for 12 months, which L’Atitude 52°N calls an “AI feature trial.” After that, customers have to pay for a subscription service, or will be limited to the base features, like playing music and capturing media.
How much will that subscription service cost? Chen says he doesn’t know.
L’Atitude 52°N’s glasses is called Goya, named after Francisco Goya, the famous Spanish artist who painted renowned masterpieces of romanticism.
CEO and founder Gary Chen, who has worked on wearable devices for companies like Oppo, OnePlus, and HTC, says his company’s glasses are focused on travelers, with AI features that act like a tour guide and talk about all the paintings in famous museums.
“Basically, you can say, ‘Hey, Goya, what is the story about Mona Lisa?’” Chen says. “You can ask anything and, with your permission, they will take a photo to analyze what’s in front of you.”
I ask if you could quiz it about perhaps the most famous Goya painting, the terrifying, Gothic horror-esque image of Saturn devouring his own son.
“Yes, yes,” Chen says, “It can also give you some recommendations about restaurants.”
Berlin-based L’Atitude 52°N is a new player in the smart glasses space, selling its first pairs on Kickstarter in September 2025, where the campaign surpassed its funding goal and raised more than $400,000. There have been some bumps since then, as shipments were delayed from an originally announced release date in February 2026, and one model in development was scrapped outright. Now, L’Atitude 52°N has announced an official release date for its smart glasses.
Preorders for one model, called Berlin, start on May 19. The glasses actually go on sale on May 26. This might be a disappointment for Kickstarter backers, as the most recent official update from the campaign came in March and said shipping would begin on April 15 for Berlin units and June 7 for the second model, called Milan. L’Atitude 52°N still hasn’t set an official launch date for the Milan, except to say that it will be “arriving in the second quarter of 2026.”
The Berlin glasses cost $399. Add another $50 for the photochromatic lenses. There is one very big catch: The AI features enabled on the device will only work for 12 months, which L’Atitude 52°N calls an “AI feature trial.” After that, customers have to pay for a subscription service, or will be limited to the base features, like playing music and capturing media.
How much will that subscription service cost? Chen says he doesn’t know.
#Smart #Glasses #ExOnePlus #Engineers #Hidden #Costsmart glasses,wearables,design,gadgets">These New Smart Glasses From Ex-OnePlus Engineers Have a Hidden Cost
Lots of smart glasses have AI bots inside them now. The one in L’Atitude 52°N’s glasses is called Goya, named after Francisco Goya, the famous Spanish artist who painted renowned masterpieces of romanticism.
CEO and founder Gary Chen, who has worked on wearable devices for companies like Oppo, OnePlus, and HTC, says his company’s glasses are focused on travelers, with AI features that act like a tour guide and talk about all the paintings in famous museums.
“Basically, you can say, ‘Hey, Goya, what is the story about Mona Lisa?’” Chen says. “You can ask anything and, with your permission, they will take a photo to analyze what’s in front of you.”
I ask if you could quiz it about perhaps the most famous Goya painting, the terrifying, Gothic horror-esque image of Saturn devouring his own son.
“Yes, yes,” Chen says, “It can also give you some recommendations about restaurants.”
Berlin-based L’Atitude 52°N is a new player in the smart glasses space, selling its first pairs on Kickstarter in September 2025, where the campaign surpassed its funding goal and raised more than $400,000. There have been some bumps since then, as shipments were delayed from an originally announced release date in February 2026, and one model in development was scrapped outright. Now, L’Atitude 52°N has announced an official release date for its smart glasses.
Preorders for one model, called Berlin, start on May 19. The glasses actually go on sale on May 26. This might be a disappointment for Kickstarter backers, as the most recent official update from the campaign came in March and said shipping would begin on April 15 for Berlin units and June 7 for the second model, called Milan. L’Atitude 52°N still hasn’t set an official launch date for the Milan, except to say that it will be “arriving in the second quarter of 2026.”
The Berlin glasses cost $399. Add another $50 for the photochromatic lenses. There is one very big catch: The AI features enabled on the device will only work for 12 months, which L’Atitude 52°N calls an “AI feature trial.” After that, customers have to pay for a subscription service, or will be limited to the base features, like playing music and capturing media.
How much will that subscription service cost? Chen says he doesn’t know.
Take the release date, for starters. Tales From ’85 airs just four months after the Stranger Things series finale. That gives fans barely any breathing room between the end of the flagship series and the beginning of this animated spin-off, proof of Netflix’s ambitious, nonstop designs to turn one of its most original shows into a massive franchise. (It’s already got a stage play, books, and games to its name.)
There’s just one big wrinkle in that plan: Stranger Things‘ final season was so controversial, it left distraught fans theorizing about a secret surprise episode and accusing the Duffer Brothers of writing Season 5 with ChatGPT. The outrage is still too fresh for another TV trip to Hawkins, Indiana, to go the way Netflix hoped.
That trip back to Hawkins doesn’t actually move the story of Stranger Things forward. Instead, Tales From ’85 returns to the past, sandwiching itself between Seasons 2 and 3 and raising tons of questions about the series. Namely, why?
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is a bewildering trip to the past.
Credit: Netflix
Tales From ’85 is set during the winter of 1985, many months before the Hawkins kids ever set foot in Starcourt Mall. It’s winter break, and Mike (voiced by Luca Diaz), Eleven (voiced by Brooklyn Davey Norstedt), Dustin (voiced by Braxton Quinney), Lucas (voiced by Elisha Williams), Will (voiced by Ben Plessala), and Max (voiced by Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) are excited to enjoy the snow, the Hawkins winter festival, and of course, some Dungeons & Dragons.
But the Upside Down has other plans, as a strange new wave of creatures descends on Hawkins. A “snow shark” burrows through snowdrifts, its relentless motion reminiscent of the Graboids from Tremors. “Jerk-O-Lanterns” plague the pumpkin patch that proved pivotal to Season 2.
Encounters with these beasts range from frightening to full-on fun, thanks to dynamic, vivid animation from Flying Bark Productions. The painterly style is reminiscent of Netflix’s smash hit Arcane, and while that series certainly isn’t the first to pioneer that look, there is a sense that Netflix is trying to recreate that same magic in what could be a blockbuster new animated series.
However, as inventive as each creature or fight gets, there’s a larger issue hanging over Tales From ’85. None of this has any bearing on future seasons of Stranger Things itself. In Season 3 and beyond, no one brings up the perilous winter of ’85, or discusses how the strategies they used while solving this mystery could help them in their current investigations. Dustin even makes a full-on push to start a Hawkins Investigators’ Club, something that would definitely come up in later seasons were Tales From ’85 more than an afterthought.
Plus, not to be too much of a stickler for canon, but Eleven is pushing her psychic abilities here to almost Season 5 levels of superhero-dom, all without breaking a sweat. (Nosebleeds are still included, of course.) That comes down to the magic of animation, which allows Tales From ’85 to go wild with its portrayal of Eleven’s powers. As epic as it is, it’s also divorced from the reality of the main series. For something that’s meant to fit into Stranger Things, Tales From ’85 winds up feeling woefully disjointed. Nowhere is that clearer than when it introduces a new key character whom we know has to disappear from Hawkins before Season 3.
Nikki is the heart of Stranger Things: Tales From ’85… and its biggest problem.
Credit: Netflix
That new character is Nikki Baxter (voiced by Odessa A’zion). A brawny punk accustomed to moving towns with her scientist mother Anna (Janeane Garofalo), Nikki’s not used to putting down roots. But when she gets caught up in a snow shark attack and witnesses Eleven’s powers firsthand, she’s welcomed into the Hawkins party and quickly becomes fast friends with them.
Despite her intimidating appearance, Nikki proves to have a heart of gold (as well as a keen ability for tinkering that makes her indispensable to the party’s investigation). While she often serves as the friend group therapist, mediating arguments with ease, she also bonds with Will over their outsider status, encouraging him to embrace what makes him different. Tales From ’85 overtly ties Will’s “difference” to his supernatural troubles in Seasons 1 and 2, although given his coming out as gay in Season 5, Nikki’s advice takes on new meaning here. Does Tales From ’85 act further on that subtext, or do anything in its power to reflect more meaningfully onto the show’s next seasons? No.
In rewinding us to the time period between Seasons 2 and 3, Tales From ’85 traps its characters in an odd arrested development. We know where their character arcs lead them, but here, we’ve taken several leaps back in their journeys. That none of the original actors lend their voices to the series doesn’t help either. While the voice cast does a solid job, even nailing several of their live-action counterparts’ mannerisms, there’s no denying how important the original cast was in establishing these characters. Without them, the Tales From ’85 versions of the Hawkins party wind up as uncanny simulacra of the real thing.
That’s why Nikki is so important to Tales From ’85. As an original character, she’s a breath of fresh air in an ensemble we’ve spent a decade with. It’s exciting to shake up the Hawkins party with a new face, even if her worries about moving away or not fitting in are fairly cliché.
Given that Nikki doesn’t appear or even get mentioned in future Stranger Things seasons, audiences will know she eventually exits the narrative. Does she continue Stranger Things‘ proud tradition of introducing a beloved side character only to kill them off? (See: Barb, Bob, Alexei, and Eddie.) Does she move away as she’s always feared? Does she get wiped from everyone’s memories somehow?
I tried to banish these questions from my mind as I watched Tales From ’85, hoping to meet the show more on its level. But when its level is awkwardly shoehorning itself into a broader show in order to keep a franchise chugging, how can I not be thinking of how it will all eventually connect, and why this exists in the first place?
Of course, we already know why it exists: franchising. More than that, though, it’s an attempt to stir up easy nostalgia for earlier Stranger Things seasons, which fans might be more willing to digest following their reaction to Season 5. But a franchise needs more than nostalgia to survive, and it’s clear from Tales From ’85 that Stranger Things still needs to learn that lesson.
Take the release date, for starters. Tales From ’85 airs just four months after the Stranger Things series finale. That gives fans barely any breathing room between the end of the flagship series and the beginning of this animated spin-off, proof of Netflix’s ambitious, nonstop designs to turn one of its most original shows into a massive franchise. (It’s already got a stage play, books, and games to its name.)
There’s just one big wrinkle in that plan: Stranger Things‘ final season was so controversial, it left distraught fans theorizing about a secret surprise episode and accusing the Duffer Brothers of writing Season 5 with ChatGPT. The outrage is still too fresh for another TV trip to Hawkins, Indiana, to go the way Netflix hoped.
That trip back to Hawkins doesn’t actually move the story of Stranger Things forward. Instead, Tales From ’85 returns to the past, sandwiching itself between Seasons 2 and 3 and raising tons of questions about the series. Namely, why?
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is a bewildering trip to the past.
Credit: Netflix
Tales From ’85 is set during the winter of 1985, many months before the Hawkins kids ever set foot in Starcourt Mall. It’s winter break, and Mike (voiced by Luca Diaz), Eleven (voiced by Brooklyn Davey Norstedt), Dustin (voiced by Braxton Quinney), Lucas (voiced by Elisha Williams), Will (voiced by Ben Plessala), and Max (voiced by Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) are excited to enjoy the snow, the Hawkins winter festival, and of course, some Dungeons & Dragons.
But the Upside Down has other plans, as a strange new wave of creatures descends on Hawkins. A “snow shark” burrows through snowdrifts, its relentless motion reminiscent of the Graboids from Tremors. “Jerk-O-Lanterns” plague the pumpkin patch that proved pivotal to Season 2.
Encounters with these beasts range from frightening to full-on fun, thanks to dynamic, vivid animation from Flying Bark Productions. The painterly style is reminiscent of Netflix’s smash hit Arcane, and while that series certainly isn’t the first to pioneer that look, there is a sense that Netflix is trying to recreate that same magic in what could be a blockbuster new animated series.
However, as inventive as each creature or fight gets, there’s a larger issue hanging over Tales From ’85. None of this has any bearing on future seasons of Stranger Things itself. In Season 3 and beyond, no one brings up the perilous winter of ’85, or discusses how the strategies they used while solving this mystery could help them in their current investigations. Dustin even makes a full-on push to start a Hawkins Investigators’ Club, something that would definitely come up in later seasons were Tales From ’85 more than an afterthought.
Plus, not to be too much of a stickler for canon, but Eleven is pushing her psychic abilities here to almost Season 5 levels of superhero-dom, all without breaking a sweat. (Nosebleeds are still included, of course.) That comes down to the magic of animation, which allows Tales From ’85 to go wild with its portrayal of Eleven’s powers. As epic as it is, it’s also divorced from the reality of the main series. For something that’s meant to fit into Stranger Things, Tales From ’85 winds up feeling woefully disjointed. Nowhere is that clearer than when it introduces a new key character whom we know has to disappear from Hawkins before Season 3.
Nikki is the heart of Stranger Things: Tales From ’85… and its biggest problem.
Credit: Netflix
That new character is Nikki Baxter (voiced by Odessa A’zion). A brawny punk accustomed to moving towns with her scientist mother Anna (Janeane Garofalo), Nikki’s not used to putting down roots. But when she gets caught up in a snow shark attack and witnesses Eleven’s powers firsthand, she’s welcomed into the Hawkins party and quickly becomes fast friends with them.
Despite her intimidating appearance, Nikki proves to have a heart of gold (as well as a keen ability for tinkering that makes her indispensable to the party’s investigation). While she often serves as the friend group therapist, mediating arguments with ease, she also bonds with Will over their outsider status, encouraging him to embrace what makes him different. Tales From ’85 overtly ties Will’s “difference” to his supernatural troubles in Seasons 1 and 2, although given his coming out as gay in Season 5, Nikki’s advice takes on new meaning here. Does Tales From ’85 act further on that subtext, or do anything in its power to reflect more meaningfully onto the show’s next seasons? No.
In rewinding us to the time period between Seasons 2 and 3, Tales From ’85 traps its characters in an odd arrested development. We know where their character arcs lead them, but here, we’ve taken several leaps back in their journeys. That none of the original actors lend their voices to the series doesn’t help either. While the voice cast does a solid job, even nailing several of their live-action counterparts’ mannerisms, there’s no denying how important the original cast was in establishing these characters. Without them, the Tales From ’85 versions of the Hawkins party wind up as uncanny simulacra of the real thing.
That’s why Nikki is so important to Tales From ’85. As an original character, she’s a breath of fresh air in an ensemble we’ve spent a decade with. It’s exciting to shake up the Hawkins party with a new face, even if her worries about moving away or not fitting in are fairly cliché.
Given that Nikki doesn’t appear or even get mentioned in future Stranger Things seasons, audiences will know she eventually exits the narrative. Does she continue Stranger Things‘ proud tradition of introducing a beloved side character only to kill them off? (See: Barb, Bob, Alexei, and Eddie.) Does she move away as she’s always feared? Does she get wiped from everyone’s memories somehow?
I tried to banish these questions from my mind as I watched Tales From ’85, hoping to meet the show more on its level. But when its level is awkwardly shoehorning itself into a broader show in order to keep a franchise chugging, how can I not be thinking of how it will all eventually connect, and why this exists in the first place?
Of course, we already know why it exists: franchising. More than that, though, it’s an attempt to stir up easy nostalgia for earlier Stranger Things seasons, which fans might be more willing to digest following their reaction to Season 5. But a franchise needs more than nostalgia to survive, and it’s clear from Tales From ’85 that Stranger Things still needs to learn that lesson.
Take the release date, for starters. Tales From ’85 airs just four months after the Stranger Things series finale. That gives fans barely any breathing room between the end of the flagship series and the beginning of this animated spin-off, proof of Netflix’s ambitious, nonstop designs to turn one of its most original shows into a massive franchise. (It’s already got a stage play, books, and games to its name.)
There’s just one big wrinkle in that plan: Stranger Things‘ final season was so controversial, it left distraught fans theorizing about a secret surprise episode and accusing the Duffer Brothers of writing Season 5 with ChatGPT. The outrage is still too fresh for another TV trip to Hawkins, Indiana, to go the way Netflix hoped.
That trip back to Hawkins doesn’t actually move the story of Stranger Things forward. Instead, Tales From ’85 returns to the past, sandwiching itself between Seasons 2 and 3 and raising tons of questions about the series. Namely, why?
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is a bewildering trip to the past.
Credit: Netflix
Tales From ’85 is set during the winter of 1985, many months before the Hawkins kids ever set foot in Starcourt Mall. It’s winter break, and Mike (voiced by Luca Diaz), Eleven (voiced by Brooklyn Davey Norstedt), Dustin (voiced by Braxton Quinney), Lucas (voiced by Elisha Williams), Will (voiced by Ben Plessala), and Max (voiced by Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) are excited to enjoy the snow, the Hawkins winter festival, and of course, some Dungeons & Dragons.
But the Upside Down has other plans, as a strange new wave of creatures descends on Hawkins. A “snow shark” burrows through snowdrifts, its relentless motion reminiscent of the Graboids from Tremors. “Jerk-O-Lanterns” plague the pumpkin patch that proved pivotal to Season 2.
Encounters with these beasts range from frightening to full-on fun, thanks to dynamic, vivid animation from Flying Bark Productions. The painterly style is reminiscent of Netflix’s smash hit Arcane, and while that series certainly isn’t the first to pioneer that look, there is a sense that Netflix is trying to recreate that same magic in what could be a blockbuster new animated series.
However, as inventive as each creature or fight gets, there’s a larger issue hanging over Tales From ’85. None of this has any bearing on future seasons of Stranger Things itself. In Season 3 and beyond, no one brings up the perilous winter of ’85, or discusses how the strategies they used while solving this mystery could help them in their current investigations. Dustin even makes a full-on push to start a Hawkins Investigators’ Club, something that would definitely come up in later seasons were Tales From ’85 more than an afterthought.
Plus, not to be too much of a stickler for canon, but Eleven is pushing her psychic abilities here to almost Season 5 levels of superhero-dom, all without breaking a sweat. (Nosebleeds are still included, of course.) That comes down to the magic of animation, which allows Tales From ’85 to go wild with its portrayal of Eleven’s powers. As epic as it is, it’s also divorced from the reality of the main series. For something that’s meant to fit into Stranger Things, Tales From ’85 winds up feeling woefully disjointed. Nowhere is that clearer than when it introduces a new key character whom we know has to disappear from Hawkins before Season 3.
Nikki is the heart of Stranger Things: Tales From ’85… and its biggest problem.
Credit: Netflix
That new character is Nikki Baxter (voiced by Odessa A’zion). A brawny punk accustomed to moving towns with her scientist mother Anna (Janeane Garofalo), Nikki’s not used to putting down roots. But when she gets caught up in a snow shark attack and witnesses Eleven’s powers firsthand, she’s welcomed into the Hawkins party and quickly becomes fast friends with them.
Despite her intimidating appearance, Nikki proves to have a heart of gold (as well as a keen ability for tinkering that makes her indispensable to the party’s investigation). While she often serves as the friend group therapist, mediating arguments with ease, she also bonds with Will over their outsider status, encouraging him to embrace what makes him different. Tales From ’85 overtly ties Will’s “difference” to his supernatural troubles in Seasons 1 and 2, although given his coming out as gay in Season 5, Nikki’s advice takes on new meaning here. Does Tales From ’85 act further on that subtext, or do anything in its power to reflect more meaningfully onto the show’s next seasons? No.
In rewinding us to the time period between Seasons 2 and 3, Tales From ’85 traps its characters in an odd arrested development. We know where their character arcs lead them, but here, we’ve taken several leaps back in their journeys. That none of the original actors lend their voices to the series doesn’t help either. While the voice cast does a solid job, even nailing several of their live-action counterparts’ mannerisms, there’s no denying how important the original cast was in establishing these characters. Without them, the Tales From ’85 versions of the Hawkins party wind up as uncanny simulacra of the real thing.
That’s why Nikki is so important to Tales From ’85. As an original character, she’s a breath of fresh air in an ensemble we’ve spent a decade with. It’s exciting to shake up the Hawkins party with a new face, even if her worries about moving away or not fitting in are fairly cliché.
Given that Nikki doesn’t appear or even get mentioned in future Stranger Things seasons, audiences will know she eventually exits the narrative. Does she continue Stranger Things‘ proud tradition of introducing a beloved side character only to kill them off? (See: Barb, Bob, Alexei, and Eddie.) Does she move away as she’s always feared? Does she get wiped from everyone’s memories somehow?
I tried to banish these questions from my mind as I watched Tales From ’85, hoping to meet the show more on its level. But when its level is awkwardly shoehorning itself into a broader show in order to keep a franchise chugging, how can I not be thinking of how it will all eventually connect, and why this exists in the first place?
Of course, we already know why it exists: franchising. More than that, though, it’s an attempt to stir up easy nostalgia for earlier Stranger Things seasons, which fans might be more willing to digest following their reaction to Season 5. But a franchise needs more than nostalgia to survive, and it’s clear from Tales From ’85 that Stranger Things still needs to learn that lesson.
On top of that, almost immediately after Trump’s announcement, Mizan, an Iranian state news agency, called the president a liar. “Last night, Donald Trump, citing a completely false news story, called on Iran to overturn the death sentences of eight women.” Mizan said that some of the women had already been released and others were facing prison time but not execution, and furthermore said that Tehran had made no concessions — presumably, the status of the women has not changed.
The X account for the Iranian embassy in South Africa, perhaps the most relentless shitposter among Iran’s state-affiliated accounts, was quick to pile on by generating its own set of eight women:
The collage that Trump posted is, at the very least, AI-modified, Mahsa Alimardani, the associate director of the Technology Threats & Opportunities program at WITNESS, told The Verge. But the women themselves are real. The woman in the top right corner of the collage is Bita Hemmati, whose photograph appeared in several news stories in various right-leaning news outlets last week. Hemmati is confirmed to have received a death sentence issued by Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court for “operational action for the hostile government of the United States and hostile groups.”
Alimardani named six of the women (Bita Hemmati, Mahboubeh Shabani, Venus Hossein-Nejad, Golnaz Naraghi, Diana Taherabadi, Ghazal Ghalandri), and said that the identities of the final two (said to be Panah Movahedi and Ensieh Nejati) were still unverified. The six verified women participated in protests against the government in January. Aside from Hemmati, none of the other women are reported to have received death sentences.
It’s not surprising that Trump has a careless disregard for the truth; it’s not surprising, either, for the Iranian regime to fudge the details to suit its own narrative, or to make light of real political prisoners in order to dunk on the United States.
The additional wrinkle is that the account mocking Trump for coming to the rescue of “8 AI-generated women” is the very same one that landed South Korean president Lee Jae-myung in hot water when he quoted a misleading labeled video posted by that account. Israeli officials have accused the account of being “well-known for spreading disinformation.” The case of the sketchy Lee Jae-myung quote-post is a story of mingled truth and misinformation, where the post got facts very wrong, but the video — of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers shoving a limp body off a rooftop in Gaza — was real, documenting an event that possibly implicates Israeli forces in a violation of international law.
The case of the eight Iranian protesters also features that same mingling of fact and fiction into a fuzzy distortion that fuels an endless disputation of real human rights violations. Their lives have been reduced to glossy pixels and quote-dunks, the stuff of propaganda and parody. While known liars fight with each other on the internet about who these women are and what will happen to them, they — verifiably six of them, at least — remain real people who exist beyond the Iranian internet blackout.
On top of that, almost immediately after Trump’s announcement, Mizan, an Iranian state news agency, called the president a liar. “Last night, Donald Trump, citing a completely false news story, called on Iran to overturn the death sentences of eight women.” Mizan said that some of the women had already been released and others were facing prison time but not execution, and furthermore said that Tehran had made no concessions — presumably, the status of the women has not changed.
The X account for the Iranian embassy in South Africa, perhaps the most relentless shitposter among Iran’s state-affiliated accounts, was quick to pile on by generating its own set of eight women:
The collage that Trump posted is, at the very least, AI-modified, Mahsa Alimardani, the associate director of the Technology Threats & Opportunities program at WITNESS, told The Verge. But the women themselves are real. The woman in the top right corner of the collage is Bita Hemmati, whose photograph appeared in several news stories in various right-leaning news outlets last week. Hemmati is confirmed to have received a death sentence issued by Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court for “operational action for the hostile government of the United States and hostile groups.”
Alimardani named six of the women (Bita Hemmati, Mahboubeh Shabani, Venus Hossein-Nejad, Golnaz Naraghi, Diana Taherabadi, Ghazal Ghalandri), and said that the identities of the final two (said to be Panah Movahedi and Ensieh Nejati) were still unverified. The six verified women participated in protests against the government in January. Aside from Hemmati, none of the other women are reported to have received death sentences.
It’s not surprising that Trump has a careless disregard for the truth; it’s not surprising, either, for the Iranian regime to fudge the details to suit its own narrative, or to make light of real political prisoners in order to dunk on the United States.
The additional wrinkle is that the account mocking Trump for coming to the rescue of “8 AI-generated women” is the very same one that landed South Korean president Lee Jae-myung in hot water when he quoted a misleading labeled video posted by that account. Israeli officials have accused the account of being “well-known for spreading disinformation.” The case of the sketchy Lee Jae-myung quote-post is a story of mingled truth and misinformation, where the post got facts very wrong, but the video — of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers shoving a limp body off a rooftop in Gaza — was real, documenting an event that possibly implicates Israeli forces in a violation of international law.
The case of the eight Iranian protesters also features that same mingling of fact and fiction into a fuzzy distortion that fuels an endless disputation of real human rights violations. Their lives have been reduced to glossy pixels and quote-dunks, the stuff of propaganda and parody. While known liars fight with each other on the internet about who these women are and what will happen to them, they — verifiably six of them, at least — remain real people who exist beyond the Iranian internet blackout.
#Iranian #women #Trump #saved #execution #simultaneously #real #AImanipulatedPolicy,Politics">The Iranian women Trump ‘saved’ from execution are simultaneously real and AI-manipulated
Only the night before, he had posted on Truth Social about the imminent executions of these women, quoting a screenshot that included a collage of eight glamorously backlit, soft-focus portraits. The photos of the women were immediately accused of being AI-generated. “Trump is begging Iranian leaders to not execute 8 AI-generated women. This is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” said one viral X post.
On top of that, almost immediately after Trump’s announcement, Mizan, an Iranian state news agency, called the president a liar. “Last night, Donald Trump, citing a completely false news story, called on Iran to overturn the death sentences of eight women.” Mizan said that some of the women had already been released and others were facing prison time but not execution, and furthermore said that Tehran had made no concessions — presumably, the status of the women has not changed.
The X account for the Iranian embassy in South Africa, perhaps the most relentless shitposter among Iran’s state-affiliated accounts, was quick to pile on by generating its own set of eight women:
The collage that Trump posted is, at the very least, AI-modified, Mahsa Alimardani, the associate director of the Technology Threats & Opportunities program at WITNESS, told The Verge. But the women themselves are real. The woman in the top right corner of the collage is Bita Hemmati, whose photograph appeared in several news stories in various right-leaning news outlets last week. Hemmati is confirmed to have received a death sentence issued by Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court for “operational action for the hostile government of the United States and hostile groups.”
Alimardani named six of the women (Bita Hemmati, Mahboubeh Shabani, Venus Hossein-Nejad, Golnaz Naraghi, Diana Taherabadi, Ghazal Ghalandri), and said that the identities of the final two (said to be Panah Movahedi and Ensieh Nejati) were still unverified. The six verified women participated in protests against the government in January. Aside from Hemmati, none of the other women are reported to have received death sentences.
It’s not surprising that Trump has a careless disregard for the truth; it’s not surprising, either, for the Iranian regime to fudge the details to suit its own narrative, or to make light of real political prisoners in order to dunk on the United States.
The additional wrinkle is that the account mocking Trump for coming to the rescue of “8 AI-generated women” is the very same one that landed South Korean president Lee Jae-myung in hot water when he quoted a misleading labeled video posted by that account. Israeli officials have accused the account of being “well-known for spreading disinformation.” The case of the sketchy Lee Jae-myung quote-post is a story of mingled truth and misinformation, where the post got facts very wrong, but the video — of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers shoving a limp body off a rooftop in Gaza — was real, documenting an event that possibly implicates Israeli forces in a violation of international law.
The case of the eight Iranian protesters also features that same mingling of fact and fiction into a fuzzy distortion that fuels an endless disputation of real human rights violations. Their lives have been reduced to glossy pixels and quote-dunks, the stuff of propaganda and parody. While known liars fight with each other on the internet about who these women are and what will happen to them, they — verifiably six of them, at least — remain real people who exist beyond the Iranian internet blackout.
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