

The styling is similarly obnoxious, with their website listing them at “5.66 inches wide in merika” and almost 2.35 screeching bald eagle AR-15 unprotected sex inches tall. Naming a pair of belligerent sunglasses that are sure to attract the ire of anyone with a rocker on their rank after Article 15 of the UCMJ shows that Pit Viper knows their target audience, and is in keeping with their in-your-face branding. These modern successors to the SPECS now come in a variety of colors: there’s “Black Ops,” which are black, obviously, “ Sandstorm,” which has a flat dark earth hue, and the olive drab green “NJP,” the latter of which is my favorite specifically because I can now match my 6105 watch with my NJP glasses. So now with your barracks lawyer legal precedent in hand - after all, how can something that looks identical to a pair of officially sanctioned military shades be “faddish or eccentric” - let’s return to the present with the Pit Viper BALL-ISTIC line of products. They’re basically identical, save for the branding and frame color. You don’t need 20/20 vision to realize that the Army’s SPECS and Pit Viper’s glasses share a striking resemblance. This thing even had an NSN (National Stock Number), meaning you can look it up and even still buy them if you know where to look. Finally, in 1997, the first set of SPECS was put into production, and in a totally 90s move, the Army wanted to make it the host for a heads-up display unit. They called this program “SPECS” or Special Protective Eyewear Cylindrical System, which is even more rad. Army instituted a fittingly-futuristic requirement for eyewear that was protective against both ballistic and laser threats. Rewind to the rad year of 1984, when the U.S. Thing is, we found out that these “belligerent” servicemembers were actually inadvertently following a nearly four-decades-old Army tradition by wearing these deliberately ugly sun-blocking eyesores. The Special Protective Eyewear Cylindrical System, as part of the Land Warrior concept, 2001, DARPA. Or so every staff noncommissioned officer with a raging high and tight would have you believe. There’s only one problem with Pit Viper’s glasses: They’re out of regs. This is particularly true among younger service members, the zoomer demographic that Pit Viper specifically targets. With slogans like “the 69th most popular sunglasses brand, according to your mom” and “put your face between a pair,” they’re basically telling their customers “go fuck yourself, buy our product,” and it seems to have worked out hilariously well for them. Featuring mulleted, scantily clad men, sometimes-mulleted scantily clad women, fully dressed men and women with mullets - lots of mullets - as well as dogs, babies, farm animals, and mannequins, all wearing what could be described as the douchiest glasses known to humanity.

The entire marketing strategy of Pit Viper is designed to be raunchy, provocative, and hilarious in every way possible. In the military, the term for this is “belligerent.” Apparently, I have a reputation for belligerence, because roughly 50 people tagged me in the announcement posts on various social media platforms for the Pit Viper “BALL-ISTIC” line of military-themed eyewear. The entire purpose of Pit Vipers, at least from my experience, is to get people to ask why you have a rainbow-colored car windshield on your face, or if Macho Man Randy Savage wants his glasses back. Pit Viper sunglasses fall into an interesting category of accessories that I like to call “memewear,” meaning stuff you wear to make a point. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs.
