When the first stills for The Drama starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya were released last year, there was one thing in particular that caught everyone’s attention: his round, horn-rimmed glasses. Or, to use common internet parlance, his “slutty little glasses”. When he was asked about them during a press junket last week, he was bemused, simply asking: “What makes glasses slutty? What’s a non-slutty one?” Both are fair questions.
Pattinson’s glasses are just the latest example of a phenomenon that has taken on a life of its own during the past six years, in which a male A-lister’s accessory or piece of jewellery is fetishised and sexualised. It all started back in 2020, when the journalist Billie Bhatia started her parody fan account, @connellschain in homage to the thin silver chain that Paul Mescal wore as the nation’s crush in Normal People. The account took on a life of its own, garnering 125K followers for its 100 posts. It’s bio reads: “We stan Connell’s chain 💦” with the thirst emoji. Soon there were 1,500-word essays about the chain on Vice, while The Cut dubbed it: “a delicate piece of jewellery at odds with the rest of his Achillean body.” Ahem.
What Bhatia had done in creating her parody account was to seize on the collective national obsession with the show and, in particular, how it had sexed up lockdown significantly. The Connell’s chain phenomenon kickstarted a new niche in internet culture for sexualising men’s jewellery (and now glasses). Since then, we’ve had: Leo Woodall’s signet ring in One Day; Chris Briney’s watch in The Summer I Turned Pretty; Jacob Elordi’s eyebrow stud in Saltburn and Jonathan Bailey’s glasses in Jurassic World: Rebirth. Mescal has been fetishised too for his single hoop earring in Hamnet, proving he really is the king of this sort of thing.
Tanya Horeck, Professor of Film and Feminist Media Studies at Anglia Ruskin University, is fascinated in our relationship to celebrities within internet culture, and believes this is what is at play when we fetishise an actor’s accessory. “There’s a strong parasocial element,” she says. “People aren’t just attached to the characters — they’re attached to the actors themselves. Social media amplifies this. These props — chains, glasses, watches — become ‘sticky’ symbols that circulate easily online. They’re highly visual, which makes them perfect for platforms like TikTok and Instagram. It’s not just individual engagement either, the algorithm plays a big role in boosting these images and turning them into trends.”
There’s also another incredibly obvious reason why we associate jewellery with romance in particular. “These pieces highlight the well-established idea of the keepsake of an imagined lover — an accessory or other object that comes to symbolise a person that someone longs for, for example, a necklace, a watch, a piercing, glasses, or something else that sits close to their skin,” explains Dr Francesca Sobande, Reader in Digital Media Studies at Cardiff University. “Today's digital discussions about famous men, and what the characters that they play wear, often embrace humour. But they also reflect earnest investments in romance, including contemporary twists on a locket.”
So what is it about men in jewellery (or wearing glasses) that is so sexy right now? A large part of the appeal seems to lie in the fact that jewellery has traditionally been seen as a feminine thing. In wearing jewellery, these men — or the characters that they are playing — are showing a confidence in their masculinity that is extremely attractive. They aren’t worried about being seen as unmanly, or feminine. There’s also a vulnerability to it, a softness, that is appealing. And in the case of glasses, it’s also leaning into that hot geek aesthetic too — see Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Matt Damon in The Talented Mr Ripley.
“Jewellery has traditionally been seen as less masculine or more feminine, so this trend is part of fashioning a new kind of masculinity,” says Professor Horeck. “These actors represent a softer, more emotional version of masculinity. That shift really took off with Connell’s chain in Normal People. It was a turning point — suddenly, this gentle, emotionally open male character became highly desirable. This softer masculinity is now seen across other actors too. It’s about star persona, but also about how characters are written and how audiences connect with them both on and off screen.”
For Professor Horeck, even if the trend for fetishising earrings or glasses fades, these themes of new masculinity online will continue to be explored. “While the specific ‘object’ might change — chains, glasses, earrings — the broader cultural dynamics will keep resurfacing,” she says. “We’re in a moment where ideas of masculinity are shifting, and social media gives us a kind of laboratory to observe that in real time.”
“The symbolic power of what people wear is enduring,” agrees Dr Sobande. “Some audiences will continue to express their attraction to on-screen men in ways that involve romanticising and sexualising what adorns them.”
We’ve got dibs on the next hot object being Harris Dickinson’s slutty little John Lennon glasses…
