On a chilly winter day, Julius Mondragon stepped into a half-empty car on the Metra train line in Chicago.
“Computah, activate hyperspeed typing,” he commanded a random woman typing away on her laptop. “Computah, make these two guys friends forever,” he said to two men sitting together, as they looked up, smiling.
“Computah, make sure this man feels confident and sexy at all times of the day,” he instructed. “Computah, make sure this woman has a wonderful day.”
Before opening the door between cars, heading off in his Meta Ray-Ban glasses to find the next group of unsuspecting commuters, he announces: “You’ve been programmed!”
Mondragon has been “programming” people all over Chicago — and beyond. The 26-year-old has gone viral on TikTok while summoning his weirdly accented “Computah” character, wearing Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses and recording people’s reactions to his bot-like commands.
I think it’s the best use of Meta’s Ray-Bans that I’ve seen, so I asked to meet up when he was in New York this week so I could see the “Computah guy” in action.
Meeting ‘Computah’ in real life
I met up with Mondragon in a Harlem café near the hotel where he was staying. Unlike the bizarre persona in his videos, he’s genial and soft-spoken. (The voice he does in his videos is a fake accent based on an imitation of a character in “The Sopranos” dreamed up by him and his roommates.)
This is where the Meta Ray-Bans come in: Mondragon got a pair this past Christmas. He started posting videos recorded by the glasses to TikTok in January. The “Computah” idea initially came from an Eric André sketch where André, wearing a black leotard with electronic parts glued to it, pretends to be Google as he approaches strangers on the street.
“When I got the Metas, I was coming up with ideas,” Mondragon told me. “What if I’m Meta and I’m pretending I’m just an AI and I can transform anything in my surroundings?”
That’s where “Computah” came from.
Mondragon grew up in the Chicago suburbs and currently lives on the South Side of Chicago. For the last few years, he’s been a music producer — something he still pursues — while working a day job in retail. He has recently been able to quit his day job at Foot Locker thanks to the money he’s earned through social media. He told me that Cameo, where he charges $40 to send a personalized message to fans, has also been particularly helpful in getting him to a financial position where he can pursue “Computah” full-time.
Along the way, he’s become something of a Chicago star. He was profiled in the Chicago Tribune and appeared on the local TV news. In his videos, it’s clear people are recognizing him, leading to funny interactions where they mimic his catchphrases and tactics, like saying “Firewall up!” to block his “programming.”
The Meta Ray-Bans are something of a reverse Clark Kent for Mondragon — people only recognize him when he puts on the glasses.
Meta Ray-Ban glasses make the surveillance state funny
These smart glasses are not without controversy. From their launch in 2021, there has always been some concern about people using them as “creep glasses” to record people surreptitiously.
Since then, Meta’s glasses have sold decently. In 2025, Meta said it sold more than 7 million pairs — triple the amount it sold in 2024.
Presumably, people use them for private photos and videos, but some of the footage that gets posted onto social media tends to fall into two buckets: trolls who make videos harassing service workers, and men making videos of themselves trying to pick up women on the street. Neither is a particularly positive outcome for the technology.
“My feed is mostly Meta [videos]. It’s just mainly pickup artists and people trying to ragebait people,” Mondragon said. “I knew when I started, I didn’t want to do that. Obviously, I’m looking to get a reaction, but I’m not looking to mess up this person’s day. I didn’t want it to be like, this person leaves this interaction feeling shitty about themselves or anything.”
When asked about “Computah’s” popularity, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Business Insider: “Local hero wears Ray-Ban Metas is a great story!”
And “Computah” is funny.
It’s hard to explain why something is funny other than just pointing out, “This is funny.” I mean, you all get the joke. But I’ll try to explain what I think makes it work so well: Doesn’t it feel like we’re all being “programmed” somehow by some unseen computer? That our worldview and the trajectory of our days, and even our bodies, are being shaped by some unfeeling algorithm? Sure it does!
Mordragon sees a deeper meaning to it beyond just being funny. “It’s like a pattern interruption,” he said. “That’s really what I’m trying to go for.”
Katie Notopoulos/Business Insider
‘Computah’ has one weird catch phrase that’s caught on
A particular “Computah” phrase has become a meme in its own right.
One of Mondragon’s catch phrases has been a lighthearted command: “Computah, make these guys super gay and horny!” (He made sure to tell me he means this in the spirit of fun, not as something antigay.)
Another TikToker made a catchy song using the lyric over and over.
Mondragon told me he wasn’t really sure why that particular phrase has caught on so much, or why girls seem to have latched onto it. Personally, I think it hits something in the gender and sexuality zeitgeist that simply just works in 2026.
On the day we met this week, the comedian and YouTuber Druski announced a rally for the New York Knicks in Washington Square Park.
Mondragon and I took the subway downtown together from Harlem. Just before our final stop on the train, he donned his Meta Ray-Bans and started to program the people in the car. As you might expect from typical New Yorkers, they didn’t react much to the man speaking loudly and saying strange things on the subway.
When we reached the rally, where a few hundred young men had gathered to chant various permutations of “Knicks in four,” we hung on the outskirts of the crowd.
Suddenly, someone recognized him: “Hey, it’s Computah!” and excitedly shook his hand.
A young couple visiting from Florida, Amanda Rivera and her boyfriend, Diego Casanova, approached “Computah” and asked him to program them. Casanova told me that he was inspired by Mondragon to buy his own pair of Meta glasses. (He was wearing the frames with clear lenses while I chatted to him. I didn’t even realize he was wearing them until he mentioned it. His recording light was on, but he didn’t seem to realize he’d been recording our interaction.)
Mondragon started programming the Florida visitors, and heads turned.
More cheers erupted as people recognized him, and a crowd formed. The people who showed up to a spontaneous gathering for a social media comedian were the perfect chronically online cohort who had also all seen Mondragon’s antics on TikTok and Reels.
While he might slip by on city streets unnoticed, in this crowd, he was a star.
