It's a twisted kind of foresight, a lot like prophesies in ancient stories, that both predict the future and steer their subjects toward it. Neal Stephenson wrote books that appealed to (many, but not only) nerdy boys during their formative years. Lo and behold, 30 years later some of those boys have achieved wealth and power, and are trying to make random aspects of those books real.
Keep that in mind if you ever write a YA novel...
I get the sentiment, but I really enjoyed the Oakley Flak series, the fit was superb. BUT, I hated the feeling that it was perceived as a statement rather than utility. I bought them originally for high field of vision and blocking glare when riding bikes.
I lost a couple pairs and one got scratched really bad - and I don’t have a nice alternative in mind that fits a reasonable budget. *Am open to suggestions, I need ONE nice pair of polarized sunglasses that’l last.
Oh for sure, they were quite good, there was a real reason they became popular. But like you said, it got to be annoying that wearing Oakleys was a statement. (Plus, at least where I lived, they were part of the "douche uniform.")
In terms of recommendations, I'm still getting lots of mileage out of my Ray-Ban Wayfarers, and they're polarized.
In my mind it was inevitable that we would reach this point. The novel Snow Crash predicted this exact phenomenon (along with the Metaverse, of course, which is where they are trying to drive this). It’s the same with companies issuing cryptocurrencies and the like.
We aren’t totally locked in to the techno-feudal state just yet, but we’re getting there. Pretty fascinating how foreseeable these last many years and decades have been.