As an early 90’s millennial, I’ve never noticed a “gen z stare” as described in news articles like a “blank face that shows lack of social skill or ability to think”. The only times I’ve witnessed it happen and seen the older person accuse them of “gen z stare” is when the older person says something off hand or dumb but isn’t self aware enough to realize they’re being weird. Hell, I’ve given people a blank face countless times because I was taught it was better to say nothing at all sometimes. Especially when it came to talking to older people at work.
I remember when I was 16, some middle aged guy at work accused me of having no personality. In reality, I kept all conversations short as possible with him (like almost everyone in the store) because they were casually racist and misogynistic.
Yes. I encountered it a few times this year, but never really noticed it prior to '24.
I have literally had to yell at gen z baristas and shop clerks to get their attention, they are just ZONED OUT. Like you walk up to the counter and they are two feet away from you and don’t acknowledge you unless you break them out of their spell they are in. They are terrible with taking orders too.
I’ve also had it training new hires at work who are under 25. They simple cannot focus and zone out, and then totally forget everything you just trained them on a day or two ago.
stares
Hey man if you’re going around yelling at service employees I think it’s clear who’s in the wrong.
It’s like you didn’t read the message and understand the context.
It’s like there’s never a good reason to yell at anyone, let alone a minimum wage service employee who’s barely scraping by.
There are absolutely good reasons to yell at people.
Seriously, what kind of performative crap is saying things like “it’s never right to yell at anyone”?
I can’t seriously think you either believe or have thought this through.
Okay, tell me about one situation where yelling at someone achieves anything. I can’t remember the last time I yelled at anyone.
“Help, we are being attacked”
“Stop fighting!”
“Watch out, there’s a bus coming!”
“Leave me alone, leave me alone!”
“Are you proud of working for ICE? Do you go to bed proud of what you do?”
if you aren’t serving people you aren’t doing your job. do your job and stop spacing out when someone wants to buy something from you. If you don’t show basic decency and respect for your customers, you shouldn’t be surprised to get any back.
Also we have had to fire many of our gen z employees because they can’t learn and the break rules. Clearly we are in the wrong for requiring our employees actually have to do their job and do it according to company policy and the US legal requirements! How dare we impose the law on them man! They should totally be able to just do whatever they want, whenever they want, as poorly as they want, without any consequence.
Gen Z and I work in customer service. The average consumer has become such an entitled, idiotic, immature prick that you cannot reason with. Guess what age range these pricks tend to be?
If people are consistently breaking an internal rule, that means the rule should probably be looked at. I work with gen z, I manage gen z, they’re just people that society has kicked in the balls over and over and over again and their will to do anything has been eroded since they were conscious. Their primary social years cut off in the middle of a global pandemic. Maybe work with empathy and someone will want to work with you.
the rule is work 40 hours a week and do not travel out of the country while working for us.
we have had to fire 6 people in the last 12 months failing to meet both these very basic ‘show up and don’t be an entitled idiot’ rules.
Idk how strict you guys are with the 40 hours a week. Does 39 count? 38? 35?
I also struggle to see why travelling out of the country is not allowed. Unless it’s some sort of really secretive and sensitive work, why can’t employees leave the country? Are we talking vacation? Time off?
40 hours is 40 hours. it’s not that hard of a concept. slacking off gets you fired.
and it’s breaking company policy and USA law to work overseas. it is sensitive work that is under constant threat by attackers.
but slack jawed gen z people can’t take themselves or our very serious work, seriously.
And do you pay them enough to deal with bullshit?
If you’re not paying enough to motivate them, and you don’t make the experience of working enjoyable, of course you’re going to be stuck with the worst of the worst employees. They sound like they don’t want to be there, if they had any motivation they’d probably spend it looking for a better job
our job has no bullshit. all they have to do is do the work. and they can’t do it and not fuck up it. so they get fired.
10 years ago we never fired anyone. 5 years ago, we never fired anyone. the last 3 years we have had to fire 12 people all under the age of 25 because they fuck up repeatedly and refuse to cooperate when they are warned. they also violated common sense rules, like if you work from home, you can’t travel and you still have to turn in your work on time. and yet they fail to do these things.
Nah. The “Gen Z stare” is the blank-faced look we give people that we think are idiots. It’s not that we lack self-awareness…it’s you. Gen Z doesn’t tolerate stupid. We just can’t be bothered to call you out on it, because that’s drama we don’t need. So we just stare at you, instead.
I’m in my 40s and give dad that look when he lectures me about knowing more than the politicians. He’s been unemployed and supported by my grandparents for most of his life.
In fairness to him, most politicians are both stupid and paid to make bad decisions, so he’s sadly probably still right…
The issue is when people are so self-absorbed they treat everyone like idiots, so the “stare” becomes a default.
Congratulations, you’ve described a common human behavior that humans have been doing for all of human history. 😐
All this nonsense about this or that generation doing something incomprehensible to other generations is just distraction and noise meant to keep us attacking each other instead of coming together against the oligarchy that’s been systematically grinding us down for ever increasing profits.
This is the proverbial scrolled-too-far-down-for-this-comment
Regardless of how you phrase it, it’s still a lack of social engagement.
Do you think you’re the only generation surrounded by idiots? Most humans have been idiots for all of history. Is just that without digital media you’re forced to live with those people your whole life. Retreating into a digital world for your social and intellectual support isn’t the flex you think it is.
I don’t think you fully appreciate what it’s like to grow up with boomers for parents. Your generation can basically ignore them, without any direct interaction. All you lose, is a birthday card. We grew up with them in our face, every single day. You can’t argue with these people. All you can do, is stare at them like they’re fucking idiots…because they are. Confronting them, is next to impossible, unless you are prepared to go to war over the stupidest shit imaginable.
This isn’t our “social deficiency”. It’s theirs. We grew up with no way of communicating with a generation of Karens, other than deliberate non-engagement.
Boomers aren’t really the parents of Gen Z if that’s what you’re saying, except on the extremes (the youngest boomers with the oldest Gen Z and they had kids past around 40 years old). That’s mostly Gen X and older millennials who had kids young. I, as a younger millennial, have boomer parents and even they almost aren’t.
~(I typed this and had one of those “god, I don’t care anymore” moments, but it’s typed already so here you go)~
Gen X forgotten again 😭
Stares into the abyss…
That’s exactly my experience growing up as a millennial. I think what you (and hater articles) are describing as a gen z thing is normal human behavior when caught in a situation with emotionally unhealthy people, especially if it’s an abusive power imbalance.
Why should someone put up with dickheads who aren’t worth it?
Because society has decided parental rights override teenage autonomy. Runaway and they’ll call the cops, who will return you to them, or if they want to be asses, throw you in juvie. So you maliciously comply while expressing your utter disdain for them until you attain the age of majority, then you abandon them and move on with your life. At that point you become a wage slave, have to live somewhere, and much like Dark Helmet, realize you’re surrounded by assholes.
Exactly: society is full of dickheads, then people fuss when they’re treated as who they are like they’re entitled to more.
That’s the “tradition”
We put up with our parents shit so now you get the same shit. But in a more mental health conscious society we understand passing on the shittiness to the next generation is abuse, not a right of passage. Also the whole worldwide lead poisoning from gas thing messed with a lot of peoples brain chemistry (allegedly)
It’s how you end up with sociopaths in powerful positions, noone calls them out on their shit and then one day they have fuck you money then you really won’t say anything unless you feel like mysteriously dying with no follow up investigation
If it’s not social engagement, then why are you experiencing a particular social signal from it?
A boycott or a strike is political engagement. Deliberately ignoring you is social engament. A blank stare sends a stronger signal than small talk: It means actually engaging with your ideas and judging you for them. Where small talk seeks to neutralize tensions with noncommittal affirmations, a blank stare communicates a boundary clearly and efficiently.
My sister in law is a conservative millennial and she does this anytime you mention anything negative about Trump
There are women Trump supporters? My God…
- 45% of women voted for Trump in 2024.
- Those 45-64 mostly voted for Trump.
- 80% of white evangelical women voted for him. https://cawp.rutgers.edu/blog/gender-differences-2024-presidential-vote
The last one makes some sense, since people who call themselves Christians are usually the ones who are least likely to live according to the sermon on the mount, and religiosity requires being dishonest and/or too stupid to distinguish between reality and wishful-thinking fairy tales.
If someone says “good morning” and you just stare, you’re not “not tolerating stupid”, you’re rude. You know how much better you can make someone’s day by giving a friendly response? It’ll make your own day better too.
Yes it’s rude, but there are some people who think that insincerity, dishonesty, and wasting time is rude. They’re probably a minority even within Gen Z, and possibly just see the world differently from extraverts.
Young people in customer facing positions seem fairly unemotive in general, I’m not necessarily sure it’s a new trend. The positions these young people are in are generally minimum wage (or effectively minimum wage). They aren’t really being paid enough to smile lol, or don’t really have much to smile about.
I tend to avoid all eye contact with folks in public so I’m probably not really the best to answer it. It’s sort of something I’ve noticed, but I’m really not convinced it’s new.
That said, I do get that there’s a lot of folks who missed out on a lot of socialization opportunities during the pandemic. Whether that’s enough to lead to an epidemic of young people doing a “stare” I’m not sure.
Every young generation gets clowned on. As a millennial I remember us getting it. So it’s hard to really say if this is something real or just more “youth bad” rhetoric.
a lot of people try as much as possible not to acknowledge the humanity of service workers, its completely normal for those workers to become numb to the endless stream of jackasses. Even if the next guy coming up does acknowledge them and treat them like a human, its hard to fault any perceived carelessness. Its also not limited to young people, any supermarket I go to has older peole working and you will encounter the same phenomenon. Its the alienation of labor under capitalism.
i worked in customer service positions as a teen and 20 something. it is not hard to just say hello to people when they are in your store. it’s a basic requirement of the job.
yes, it is novel for them not to do this. and no it’s not a majority, but it’s a markedly new experience to go into a store and see a 22 year old who basically ignores customers who re actively seeking their attention/help.
I have no clue what people are going on about it’s timeless or whatever, i never dealt with it my entire life until very recently. like i have been going ot the same coffee shop for 20 years, and only in the past year have I had a barista be spaced out when i come up to the counter to order, and it’s always these young baristas, it’s not the older ones who ever do this.
and also we have issues at my job with gen z employees that we have never had ever before. i have been working there 10 years, and only in the past 2 years have we ever had to fire anyone for lack of performance or violated basic company policies… and we have had to five 6 people in the past year or so, all new hires, because they back the most basic social and work skills that we have never ever had an issue with before.
like we literally give them the rules of employment, they actively violated them and get caught, and act all confused like they didn’t understand what they did wrong. so we then terminate them and they are SHOCKED. they seem to totally lack the concept that actions have consequences and if you can’t show up to work and follow basic common sense instructions, you don’t get employeed.
and like a lot of the posters here they are massively entitled and think they are owed 100K jobs at 22 for entry level jobs and skills.
I’m going to take a shot in the dark and assume it’s been about 20 years since you have been a young 20-something? I’m not Gen Z, I’m old enough to remember a pre-911 America. I get on to my girlfriend all the time for this same thing. Yes it is their job working in customer service to make your experience pleasant, but it’s also hard to take pride in the work that you do when your employer offers no health benefits, pays you poverty wages, and the cost of everything is constantly on the rise.
The material conditions in which they are growing up are very different than what were present when we were. This kids/young adults do not know what it is like to live in a world without the constant threat of terror or an endless stream of information that seeks to use our anxiety and outrage to keep us engaged.
Have some empathy and try to put yourself in their shoes. I’m well established in my career at this point, and I can’t imagine how hard it must be for someone fresh out of college now. If I had that much student loan debt and couldn’t find a job using that degree; I’d be mentally checked out making someone’s coffee too. I’d be thinking about how the hell I’m going to pay back those loans.
No, 10 years. I have dealt with all the crap you are whining about. I worked for ‘poverty wages’ until I was in my mid 30s. And yet I never felt I was in poverty… weird. Maybe because I didn’t expect to travel, to party, and to own the latest electronic gadgets… because yeah any wage is a poverty wage when you spend more than you make, and you don’t save and invest.
It’s hard to take pride in your work when you’re whiny, entitled, and refuse to take responsibility for yourself, yes. I worked customer service jobs since i was 14, they are ridiculously easy and bare minimum effort. They are not hard back-breaking work, nor are they cognitively demanding. Acting like it’s some heroic difficult job to sling coffee or sell clothes is just sad and disrespectful to people who actually have difficult jobs.
I am so sick of being told to have ‘empathy’ for entitled lazy people who think they are owed a six figure job for doing the bare minimum. I’m glad you think life is so ‘hard’ for them. I don’t. I am not very far removed and I interact with them regularly and a lot of them are just lazy entitled nitwits, a lot of them just depended on the bank of mom and dad. I was help paying family bills at the age of 16 and many of them are still in their 20s and 30s, financially dependent on their parents. It’s pathetic. Nobody owes them anything. They have to go otu and actually make an effort… and funnily enoguh… the gen z kids I know who are making an effort at life… are succeeding and happy. They get jobs, promotions and move up the ladder. They save rather than spend recklessly and they invest and they… become financaily stable and independent?
Nobody is going to become financially successful or independent when they take their 40-50K a year job and blow 10-20K of it on ubereats, traveling, and boozing. But boy do the people who do do that love to whine about hard and unfair and awful life is.
Nobody in their 30’s are a member of Gen Z. The first birth year of Gen Z is 1997. Look I get it, I had to cut my own path in life too. My mom was a single mom so I learned how to cook because I was taking care of my siblings while my mom went to school and when she started working. I didn’t take any of the fun classes in High School so I could double up on core classes to graduate early. I also got EMT Basic certified during this period so I had a job I could easily work at night when I graduated. EMTs don’t get paid shit, and its emotionally and physically exhausting work. I do well now as a software engineer, but I’m not so far removed from that time that I don’t remember what it was like to only have dried beans and rice in my pantry.
I just don’t understand how someone could go through that and come out on the other side so bitter. But you know sometimes hurt people hurt people. Just like children who are abused sometimes become the abusers themselves. Some people struggle and instead of being mad at the system they get angry at people who try to fight against it.
I genuinely hope you can let go of that resentment for your sake, because it has a way of eating away at you. I work with Gen Z all the time and don’t find them to be any more or less objectionable to work with. If anything some of the most problematic people from our department have all been Gen X and I had to let go of one individual because he had repeated behavioral issues. Although I don’t think that’s a reflection on his entire generation. He’s just a person, just like us.
As an aside, several years ago I discovered powerlifting and it has been a great outlet for many of my frustrations. Plus growing muscle and increasing bone density is great for longevity as you age. Come join the community if you’re interested or have questions about how to get into the sport. :)
I feel like I got this at the dentist office with the receptionist once but could bro was the idiot in the situation. Late for an appointment by a little bit, two options seemed to be ask them if there’s still time or schedule a new appointment. All I got was a blank stare instead of seemingly anything reception related.
I’m an older millennial and I’ve been doing the gen z stare since the late nineties. I often find the stupidity that spews forth from not just my peers, but what seems all humans, to be disarming to the point of disbelief. That translates to me staring at you blankly for a second. The times i don’t stop and recover for that second results in insults spewing from mine own mouth before my brain can restrain. The pause is for both our sake.
We’re actually giving them a second to tell us they’re just kidding
Exactly, it keeps me from quoting Forrest gump. “You stupid or somethin?”
No, hacks keep writing generation war articles because they’re stupid and lazy.
Even the “stare” is just a hack’s memories of general teenager movie tropes. I bet right now if I said “80’s bored teenage stares at character saying something stupid and weird” you know exactly what I’m talking about.
no. it’s just another thing to make people upset at each other. ignore what they say.
Only encountered it once maybe two years ago. Was in a part of town I am not often around anymore and dropped in a coffee shop I used to frequent. The staff couldn’t have been much older than 20, all with bare midriffs that I have never seen in food service before (this is kind of a grungy art district spot, but still). Ordered my coffee and asked about their food which used to have some gluten free options, and got a blank stare for maybe 10 seconds.
That’s it. Just once. Not a general stereotype but I’m not exactly well traveled so maybe more regional?
Oh my god leave the poor fuckers alone.
Thank you. stares
As an elder millenial I might have some insight. You know how when we were kids people used to get all up in their feelings when you weren’t smiling. That’s this. “Gen Z stare”, is just “Resting Bitch Face” or “You look prettier when you smile darlin’” repackaged and rebranded. They’re mad that the young people in general and women in particular aren’t running around with goofy forced smiles on their faces to make them feel special.
GenX here. I think it’s the name that’s given to a small collection of social mismatches between the generations’ expectations of one another and their social behaviors.
Gen Z in my view do not place much value on social graces as I define them. I define them as things like “greet someone before you ask for something,” and “say thank you before you leave.” I try to do these things at all times and I find GenZ do not always return them or give any sign they even saw them. When a cashier hands me my change and it’s time for me to go, I will say “thank you,” and imho it’s good social graces for them to say “thank you” as well or “you’re welcome” or even just “have a nice day.” But with GenZ cashiers, I say thank you, and then realize they had stopped paying any attention to my presence even before I said it. The second the change has been handed to me, it seems they consider the transaction over, period.
I also think that for this generation, being a retail worker is much more of a misery than it was when I was their age. Wages suck more now. People may be less polite now. And corporations have really tried to squeeze the most out of every employee. They have to do a bunch of different things. It seems they schedule the bare minimum number of people they can get away with. Maybe in my day kids enjoyed their job more because they could literally only stand at the register talking to customers when there were some, and in between horse around with their friends. I think a lot of that slack has been squeezed out of the system.
The bit about the Stare is not always true or even most of the time. But it’s something that happens often enough to notice as a pattern. Once you’ve heard the stereotype of the “GenZ stare” you can start to experience confirmation bias of it. And really you never know if the person you’re facing is GenZ or not.
So it’s not a thing one should over-think. But yes I think there is something real behind it. Like a lot of stereotypes, it’s not fair to apply to everyone, but it may have some origin in reality somehow.
But with GenZ cashiers, I say thank you, and then realize they had stopped paying any attention to my presence
Generally, what works for me is to say it like you mean it. Say it like they just walked across the store to pick up a can that rolled off your cart. throw a little ‘unexpected’ in there, light smile, and then tell them to have a good day. If you don’t sell it, they’re going to assume you’re going through the motions just to feed the machine. They’ll blip back to you for a second from the next mundane task, get a smirk or a little grin, and say you’re welcome. Then GTFO, don’t tie em up, don’t make em think you’re flirting.
I doubt it makes their day noticeably better. It hasn’t seem to make them noticeably worse. They’re probably burned out and don’t want to emotionally invest further into their job.
and then tell them to have a good day
Might this be an extravert thing? Do extraverts enjoy being told to have a good day?
I prefer not to, and I also don’t want to be told to smile. I’ll put up with banalities like “Hi” even when there’s no need to actually get attention, and “Thanks” when the person clearly isn’t thankful; but if asked “How are you?” I might actually answer and they probably won’t like my answer if they didn’t mean it.
Maybe introverted people put more value in honesty and not wasting time?
I’ve seen it before from retail workers. The first time I thought they were on drugs.
They don’t activate until they decide to act. They don’t engage in formal greeting. Like, “Hi, how can I help you?” Like an idle NPC that hasn’t been triggered to run its script yet.
It’s probably related to the perpetual screen use that causes derealization or whatever. Like how streamers walk around in real life but their mind is engaged in the virtual world of their chat channel, and the real world to them is the virtual one.
It feels pretty odd to describe someone seeming to not be focused until they realize someone else is there as them being stuck in a fantasy world as a result of screen usage. Putting a smile on and being engaging can be exhausting. I don’t think we should fault folks for not doing it for 8 hours while they work.
I think there is a case that could be made for ‘screen time’ having some kind of impact for how someone might come to value the presentation of persona for the sake of others’ comfort.
Like if you spend less time in person-to-person interactions, its might mean you won’t value it enough to constantly keep it up.
it’s your job to do that. jobs are exhausting… if you can’t do that basic task then you shouldn’t have that job.
i’m confused. like you expect to not do your job and still get paid? if you work in customer facing jobs it’s your job to greet customers.
I’ve seen a lot of this over the last few years, esp since covid.
Part of it is: “That’s the most absurdly stupid thing I’ve heard in a while, let’s allow this to echo for a bit and maybe when the speaker thinks on what they said, they’ll reconsider.” But there’s a range, from that to grey rock - just deny the other party any kind of reaction, much less satisfaction. just be a blank space. grey rock is really useful vs narcissists and people who feel entitled (why don’t you just smile more).
we weren’t as sophisticated in this way when I was a kid; if your parent was emotionally manipulative or abusive, we generally had to just eat shit. kids these days can do research and find strategies, and I respect that. on the other hand, I’ve never had a problem just picking up the phone and calling someone, which my kid thinks is absolutely deranged. when I told her we’d call people on purpose for pranks - just dumb fun - she thought I was full of shit; pointed out all the bart-calls-moe as examples - well yeah that’s a cartoon…
it’s funny how times change.
I’m a millennial too and tbh I’ve done the gen z stare, sometimes there are just things that dumbfound you.
Nobody is always going to have the answer to everything and be immediately quick on their feet at all times.
I’ve encountered what I think of as the Gen z stare once or twice.
It skews more towards the younger end of Gen z, and honestly might even be more of an older gen alpha thing.
What I’m talking about isn’t the blank look given after being asked a stupid question, although they are absolutely masters of that as well (and I love that look and use it as myself)
It feels like more of a lack of understanding that someone is asking you a question and expecting an answer, or perhaps an inability to process that question and come up with an appropriate answer.
My friend who works at a bank has what I think is kind of the quintessential story that shows this version of the stare looks like, a younger person walked up to the counter, he asked some variation of “How can help you today?” And just got a stare back, like it never crossed their mind that they’d have to answer a question and say “I need to make a deposit/withdrawal,/etc.”
And I don’t think it’s necessarily a feature of the generation as a whole, not that gens z and alpha don’t have their quirks, but I have plenty of Gen z friends and coworkers and I don’t think they’re much worse off in any particular way than my fellow millennials. I have somewhat less exposure to gez alpha, but overall my opinion of them is largely the same so far.
I think it’s a very specific subset of the generation with a perfect storm of social isolation/anxiety issues, maybe some neurodivergence, probably some overbearing helicopter parents, and COVID kind of hitting at exactly the wrong point in their lives so that they missed out on some kind of social development milestones.
Yeah. Totall agree with you interpretation.
You know who also gives me the gen z stare? My mom with dementia. She literally can’t understand or process things anymore… and she exhibits the same spaced out behavior and often you have to ask her things a few times before it registers. And just like Gen Z stare kids… they don’t ask ‘can you say that again’ or show any indication they had misheard or not heard what you said, it just didn’t register at all that you said something.
I think it is a cognitive thing where basic language interactions just don’t register due to issue with attention and focus. I have nephews who are teenagers, and they never do it… but they are basically banned from social media and other phone obsessive stuff and their screen time is limited to 2 hours a day.
