The TikTok user, with a face that anyone would want to punch, calling himself eth8n, posted a video whining, “she just broke my Meta glasses,” and the clip pulled in millions of views. He hollered “you’re going to be famous on the internet!” at her through the train window, although she stared back without a flicker of remorse, which suggested she thought he had earned it.

He later insisted in a follow-up caption that “I was making a funny noise, people were honestly crying laughing at” and claimed she was the only one annoyed. However, we suspect that this is the sort of twat who sees a trapped train carriage as an audience for his unique brand of humour. The fact that observers might see him stalking a woman with perve specs did not appear to occur to him. 

The Internet did not buy it and instead treated the woman as a folk hero, which says plenty about how the public feels toward these daft surveillance-friendly specs.

One user said, “Good, people are tired of being filmed by strangers.” Another pointed out “the fact that no one else on the train is defending him is telling,” their comment said.

Others smelled embellishment. One sceptic wrote: “‘People were crying laughing’ I’ve never heard a less plausible NYC subway story.”

Eth8n admitted in a comment that he had filmed the woman and even zoomed in. He argued her only options were “asking nicely not to post it or blur my face,” which will raise a few eyebrows among anyone familiar with basic manners.

He puffed himself up by saying she could be arrested for breaking the glasses if he “felt like it” and claimed “I filed a claim with the police and it’s a misdemeanour charge.” Unfortunately, we doubt even American police would arrest a stalker for installing spyware on a woman who could not escape.

His next video showed him unboxing fresh Meta glasses with the caption “and I’m about to do my thing again... no crazy lady can stop me now.”  Hopefully someone else will do it.