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.
mainstream media likes attributing negative things about younger generations and to try and keep this stupid generational war alive. i wouldn’t bother. talk to the kids and you will see they are fine.
Step 1: Get rid of these generational names.
Europe doesn’t have them. The USA only has them because whoever comes up with one gets invited to talk about what defines that generation, and with that a lot of money.
feels like dividing to conquer doesn’t it?
I think that’s just a “happy little accident”.
Don’t know about mainland Europe but, in the UK, generational names are definitely a thing. Stupid newspaper headlines about Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, are very common, unfortunately.
Agree about the idea of getting rid of them, judge people on what they do (the content of their character, if you will) rather than what age they are.
Do you know what the stupid thing about this is? Those generations are not the same between countries. Babyboomer for example are defined as people born between 1946 and 1964 in the USA. In Germany it’s 1955 till 1969. There are also people around talking about “Boomer” in asian countries, which had totally different experiences and demographics. The whole concept of those “generations” is trash and people thinking that there is a specific stare for everyone who was born in a certain timeframe is also an idiot
In Italy they are not really a thing. The media uses it sometimes but most people really don’t care
no. it’s just another thing to make people upset at each other. ignore what they say.
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.
I’ve always interpreted the stare as a consequence of growing up where cameras (phones) are everywhere and nothing ever disappears from the internet. And as a result people who grew up under that are ALWAYS cognizant of this. So they express nothing because it could make for embarrassing video or photos. Being extra or try-hard are also considered bad. Everything is tamped down, socially. They are seriously just repressed, internalized.
Yes, there is a feeling of the world is now a panopticon and anything you do or say will be used against you and taken out of context.
I also think their lack of facial expressions is a result of growing up staring at screens instead of interacting face-to-face with people.
I have absolutely seen this and experienced this. Although, I don’t think it’s much different from any teenager or young person working shitty jobs in any decade I’ve lived or seen in media. The silent teen staring you down at fast food is timeless.
alienation of labor
It’s collective PTSD. 1997. Keeping up with things feels like a marathon. It’s hard smile rn. It doesn’t feel appropriate rn. You Stonewall until the other person indicates how they feel, but sometimes you get two blank faces going back and forth. In general, we live in interesting times and I don’t want to het punched in the face because I smiled about Trump being a bitch.
I wish that term would not get thrown around so much like when a fat chick complaining she was delivered the wrong pizza, now she has PTSD. What you’re describing is not PTSD.
PTSD is from more than just war and sex abuse.
https://www.charliehealth.com/post/gen-zs-mental-health-crisis-collective-trauma
I’m well aware of what PTSD is, and that article is about depression. I dont give a shit about this supposed “collective trauma”. Edit- most of the people described in the article would be ethically diagnosed as having depression and/or potentially Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). I have a BSc in Psychology and used to treat victims of serious crimes where the offfender(s) was convicted and received federal sentences at minimum 4 years +.
K. Well me and multiple of my friends are diagnosed with cptsd because of the insanity that is our world.
That’s why I specified ethical diagnosis. No ethical doctor in North America is going make a diagnosis of PTSD as per the DSM-5 simply because of upsetting world events. It would end up as (like I said) depression and possibly with generalized anxiety. People like yourself are being overdiagnosed with “CPTSD” as per ICD-11 and it’s not doing anyone any favors. You and your friends need to visit a war zone or a 3rd world country if you think you got it so bad. You don’t know what real trauma is; not by a long shot.
If you ended that with:
“lets turn that frown upside-down :)”
it would have been perfectionYou dont know what lead us to these diagnoses and it is incredibly ignorant and disrespectful to pretend you know better than actual doctors. I hope you never have a practice. You will do lasting damage.
You missed the collective memo! Everything that happens that is mildly upsetting is now traumatic and requires years of therapy to cope with… and yes, the barista who mispronounced your name at Starbucks did it DELIBERATELY to mess with you because they secretly HATE you… and it’s not at all your projection…
Simple answer: no
Why do you think that? :)
😐
It’s not the sort of thing where we have clear statistics on. If we had statistics on the “Gen Z stare” then those would be of limited use due to the lack of historical data which could give us contextualised information in conjunction with contemporary statistics.
There seem to be only anecdotes. The above post marks my first hearing of such a phenomenon and I do therefore think not much of it. I would stipulate that any discussion around the “Gen Z stare” has more in common with folklore retold for nice musings than information which interfaces with the world as it is lived.
Well I appreciate you sharing the timeline of your learning about the subject matter, it’s not relevant and wouldn’t fall within contemporary statistics.
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. :)
If any young Blahaj users are reading this, I want you to know that this is exactly what my cat would do; and doing this supposed behavior makes you look like a cat. You are a cat if you do this. Carry on.
Being compared to a cat sounds like a wonderful compliment. I should go nap in a sunbeam tbh
and it’s not just any cat, his cat is famous!
Really strange how many attribute their anecdotes to a wide ranging phenomenon afflicting only one specific generation.
I’ve run into it, I think. Went out to eat with the wife and as we walked into the restaurant the hostess just stared at us, then picked up two menus and started walking. We were like, “Do we follow her or…?” And so, sheepishly, we followed her and she did indeed lead us to our seats. It was a couple weeks later when I first heard of the Gen Z stare. I showed my wife and we were like, oh… That was it, we guess.
I’ve seen it a couple other times - recently at CVS the guy at the pharmacy counter would just sort of stare at each customer without really acknowledging them until after they said what they needed. No greeting or pleasantries of any kind, and then he would go into his standard cvs scripted questions.
why words wen none good
(I’m GenX, [1980] but I’ve always thought a lot of “polite” “social” habits are dumb.)
refusal to engage in smalltalk is laziness
small talk is fake conversation
not being able to accept that you have nothing interesting to say
It’s letting the other person know that you consent to discussion and that you appreciate their company. People who don’t do this are lazy and selfish.
Laziness is my choice and a virtue in my profession and my preferred operational method.
Laziness is selfishness when your actions negatively affect other people. Selfishness is not a good person’s trait.
You don’t get to blame me for your reactions, only my (in)actions.
When no words accomplishes the task just as well, it’s not selfish to avoid small talk. The fact that you find it rude or impolite is your problem, not mine.
Which is selfish of you :) QED friendo. Have a day!
how does absence of small talk negatively affect other people
It might make them uncomfortable. If you don’t make polite small talk, they won’t know if you’re a safe person to be around. Did you not know that?
Whether someone makes polite small talk seems like a weird way of judging people’s trustworthiness, although, people will reveal stuff about themselves in conversations. But the things that reveal trustworthiness are more likely to be mentioned in serious conversation than in small talk.
Funnily enough, the only time I’ve experienced this was also at a CVS.
I am a millennial mom to a gen Z teenager and have noticed this as well actually. I wasn’t sure if it was just that my kids friends are weird or what lol. I said hello and they stare with a small “hey” or don’t say anything back while avoiding eye contact?? Lol… Like I am your friends mom? You should probably at least take a “hello”???
Edit: Now that I am reading these comments as a therapist it actually sounds like trauma? The zoning out and being lost in thought happens with chronic trauma victims. It sounds like disassociating from growing up with COVID and other systemically traumatic environments during crucial development periods. Sad
zoning out and being lost in thought
I started doing this a lot several years ago and I don’t know what the cause is or what can be done about it
Also, wanted to add stuff like Niagara App for clean tech and Finch which is a cute wellness app that can help build positive habits and it’s super adorable. Maybe it will help? Just some ideas to throw out there that have worked for me.
Taking breaks away from technology. Camping? When you are able to - sit with your thoughts and accept them instead of fighting against them. The more we avoid and deny ourselves the ability to feel we end up oppressing and disassociating. You are worthy of love and you are allowed to feel anger and sadness as well. It’s normal. Especially lately. Humans have gone through collective trauma for years now, not even counting COVID, and that was a huge one too. It’s normal to feel like shit sometimes. Lean on the local community more than ever before. View your local community as a tribe, it helps after natural disasters. There is collective healing that needs to be done.
Also, this breathing technique daily for a few weeks even outside of stressful situations: “Box breathing is a deep breathing technique that involves inhaling, holding the breath, exhaling, and holding again, each for a count of four seconds. It helps reduce stress, improve focus, and calm the nervous system, making it useful in high-pressure situations.”
chronic trauma victims
makes sense with the world we are in not just covid, and not just young people.
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.
like the stare I got when I told a grandson he should shovel snow for his grandma. did as much for my grandparents, regretably.
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