Glasses can be a major part of personal expression, from the extravagance of Elton John and Dame Edna Everage, from Groucho Marx to Buddy Holly to Woody Allen to John Denver to Elvis Costello to Drew Carey to Lisa Loeb all the way to the varied professional personas of eyeglass-wearing knowledge workers.

For some celebrities, glasses form part of their identity. American Senator Barry Goldwater continued to wear lensless horn-rimmed spectacles after being fitted with contact lenses because he was not recognizable without his trademark glasses. British soap star Anne Kirkbride had the same problem: her character on Coronation Street, Deirdre Barlow, became so well-known for her big frames that she was expected to wear them at social gatherings and in international tours, even though Kirkbride has always worn contact lenses. Drew Carey continued to wear glasses for the same reason after getting corrective laser eye surgery. British comedic actor Eric Sykes, who became profoundly deaf as an adult, wears glasses that contain no lenses; they are actually a bone-conducting hearing aid. Masaharu Morimoto wears glasses to separate his professional persona as a chef from his stage persona as Iron Chef Japanese. John Lennon wore his round-lens 'Windsor' spectacles from some of his time with the Beatles to his murder in 1980.

In popular culture, glasses were all the disguise Superman and Wonder Woman needed to hide in plain view as alter egos Clark Kent and Diana Prince, respectively. An example of halo effect is seen in the stereotype that those who wear glasses are intelligent or, especially in teen culture, even geeks and nerds. Some people who find that wearing glasses may look nerdy turn to contact lenses instead, especially under peer pressure.

Another unpopular aspect of glasses is their inconvenience. Even through the creation of light frames, such as those made of titanium, very flexible frames, and new lens materials and optical coatings, glasses can still cause problems during rigorous sports. The lenses can become greasy or trap vapour when eating hot food, swimming, walking in rain or rapid temperature changes (such as walking into a warm building from cold temperatures outside), reducing visibility significantly. Scraping, fracturing, or breakage of the lenses require time-consuming and costly professional repair, though modern plastic lenses are almost indestructible and very scratch-resistant.

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