There's no better way to cover a World Cup summer in New York City than through a pair of specs that do half the work for you — and Highsnobiety clearly agreed.
The publication handed their editor Jason Meggyesy a pair of Meta Glasses and sent him straight into the thick of it as the global sporting spectacle descended on NYC. The brief was simple: capture the moment. The tool was very much of its time.
Tech Meets Terrace Culture
We've watched wearable tech get hyped and binned more times than we can count. Google Glass. Every smartwatch that promised to replace your phone. Most of it landed with a thud. But the Meta Glasses feel like a different proposition — less about replacing what you carry, more about freeing up your hands so you can actually be present in the thing you're trying to document.
For a football summer in New York, that matters. The city was already a circus of kits, flags, and block parties. Having an editor move through that with a pair of glasses rather than a phone permanently welded to his face changes what you capture. It changes what you see. Meggyesy wasn't pointing a lens at the culture — he was inside it, recording as he went.
That's the pitch, anyway. And in this context, it's a convincing one.
The World Cup as Cultural Moment
Here's the thing about a World Cup on American soil: it isn't just a football tournament. It's a collision of identities, aesthetics, and communities that only happens once every four years, and right now it's happening in one of the most photographically rich cities on the planet.
NYC in World Cup summer is exactly the kind of environment where football and culture blur into something that goes well beyond the ninety minutes. The streets become the story. The kit you're wearing on the way to a fan zone is a statement. The food, the noise, the flags hanging off fire escapes — that's what a publication like Highsnobiety is built to document.
Sending Meggyesy out with Meta Glasses rather than a traditional camera crew is a deliberate editorial choice. It keeps things street-level and immediate. No tripod, no staging — just a bloke moving through the city with a frame around what he's looking at.
For those of us obsessed with the crossover between football and culture, it's exactly the right instinct. The [Nike Gato N7 in Coconut Milk/Dusty Peach](/getohedz/fashion/nike-gato-n7-coconut-milk-dusty-peach-is-a-proper-textural-flex) didn't become a talking point because someone photographed it in a studio — it became one because people were actually wearing it. Same logic applies here. You capture a World Cup summer by living it, not standing outside it with a camera bag.
MLS is in the middle of its own identity shift — [the search for a new commissioner](/getohedz/football/source-mls-down-to-3-names-to-replace-garber) is ongoing and loaded with meaning for where American football is headed — and that backdrop makes this summer feel even more significant. Football is not visiting the US anymore. It's planting a flag.
Our Take
Meggyesy walking New York with Meta Glasses on is a smart piece of editorial thinking dressed up as branded content. The tech is incidental — the point is that football culture deserves to be documented the way it actually lives, from inside the moment. This summer in NYC is one worth getting right.