Just when Millennials and Gen Z were starting to get along, or at least agreeing to mutually cringe at Baby Boomers, another generational spat has broken out on the internet. And honestly, at this point, it’s basically a hobby. Skinny jeans, side parts, whatever “cheugy” is, if there’s a cultural difference to fight about, these two generations will find it and they will not let it go.
The latest battlefield? The Gen Z stare. That serene, unbothered, completely unreadable blank expression that has older generations convinced they’re being judged, and has Gen Z completely unbothered by that concern. Naturally.
More info: Reddit
#1
This literally happened to me again yesterday. Went to a chocolate shop to pick up a birthday gift. The young person working at the counter just stared blankly at me as I said smiled and said “Hi!” She said nothing, even when I said thank you after the interaction. It makes me self conscious, I start wondering if I did something wrong.
Image source: anon, drobotdean
#2
LOL yes, I’ve been experiencing this *everywhere* from cashiers, waiters, even random encounters. I’m honestly so over it. The awkward energy makes every interaction uncomfortable.
Image source: Necessary-Chance7602, Alina Matveycheva
#3
I can’t say i have ever experienced this or done this. i am gen z, but every gen z person i know is very respectful and has a “customer service” personality that they can toggle on or off lol.
Image source: feckingelf, stokkurs
The Gen Z stare is exactly what it sounds like , and somehow also so much more. It’s the blank, neutral, completely affect-free expression that Gen Z deploys in situations where previous generations would have nodded enthusiastically or laughed politely. Instead, there is just a face. Waiting. Giving absolutely nothing away. It’s not angry, it’s not sad, it’s not bored. It simply is.
The phenomenon went viral after people started posting videos online capturing the expression in the wild, mostly in customer service, classroom, or workplace settings. The person on the receiving end of the stare is usually mid-sentence, visibly waiting for a social cue that is simply never going to arrive. The contrast is, depending on your perspective, either deeply funny or mildly destabilising.
What makes it particularly interesting is that Gen Z doesn’t seem to think they’re doing anything at all. And that might actually be the whole point. Where older generations were raised to be attentive, Gen Z apparently skipped that chapter entirely. Whether that’s emotional honesty or just really effective passive aggression is, as of publication, still completely up for debate.
#4
It’s driving me crazy. Something similar I’m experiencing on a weekly basis is, I walk up to the counter at a business, let’s say a coffee shop. I walk up and they just continue what they’re doing and ignore me like I don’t exist. It’s not that they are so busy with other orders. They’re just filling napkins, wiping a counter and very commonly talking with a coworker. I get no acknowledgement. I expect a hello, I’ll be right with you at least. Then when I ask can you do xyz …. They say nothing and don’t make eye contact. Like hello? Yes or no? Then they end up doing it but why don’t they say anything?
Image source: OrangeCat5577, freepik
#5
When i used to be a cashier, older individuals like boomers etc would do this as well, simply ignore my greeting and proceed to just look at me as if im talking to myself.
I dont get why people are trying so hard to differentiate generations. We aren’t all the different, we are just at different stages of life with some maturing fast and slower than others.
Image source: anon, wayhomestudio
#6
I need to know if this is real because my teenage daughter does this and we are really on her case about it. If it’s a generational thing and not a personal thing I would like to know. She still needs to change it but at the moment we think she’s some kind of psychopath.
Image source: sumostuff, pvproductions
To understand the stare, you have to understand the generation behind it. Gen Z grew up chronically online, tethered to smartphones, and navigating more digital noise before breakfast than most Millennials experienced in a whole week. When your entire existence is one long stream of overstimulation, the logical response is, apparently, to become extremely selective about where your energy goes.
According to etiquette expert Kate Heussler for Body+Soul, what looks like rudeness is actually something closer to self-preservation. She classifies it as a generational shift from performing politeness to protecting peace. Which, when you say it like that, sounds less like a character flaw and more like something a therapist would charge you $200 an hour to work towards.
Where Millennials were out here apologizing before asking questions, prefacing every work email with “hope this finds you well,” and smiling through every uncomfortable interaction to keep the peace, Gen Z simply did not absorb that particular lesson. They watched the people-pleasing generation burn out in real time, and quietly decided they’d rather just stare.
#7
I’m gen z and I say hi back or hello first, but honestly it’s because they don’t want the responsibility of whatever may come after the hello.
Image source: Salt-Gap-8397, garetsvisual
#8
They aren’t sure how to act in pressured, real-life situations because most a lot of their early lives were online.
The Gen Z woman I manage is a completely normal and competent person, but when a person of authority that she isn’t familiar with asks her something or speaks to her on a professional capacity, she freezes up and does the stare.
It’s very specific, and not necessarily representative of social awkwardness.
Rather odd indeed.
Image source: SignificanceOld1751, Getty Images
#9
I think the funny thing about that is:
1. it’s a bit overblown on just *how* often it happens.. it’s not like every young person does it.
2. It’s not an at work thing or customer service thing. It’s mostly just anytime you need to address a younger person as a stranger to stranger. Where it’s common they’re insanely flustered over being spoken to when they aren’t expecting an interaction.
I don’t think it’s really a Gen Z thing. Just a young person thing with little social skills.
Image source: rocketmadeofcheese, freepik
If you think the Gen Z stare is a lot to process, buckle up, because Gen Alpha is already in the waiting room, and they did not come to play nice. Born from 2010 onwards, this is the first generation to have grown up with a smartphone essentially as a fifth limb. They have never known a world without TikTok, algorithmic content, or the ability to skip an ad in five seconds.
Weirdly, Gen Alpha are actually pulling back from screens in ways nobody predicted. According to GWI, physical toy wishlists are up 16% since 2023, board game interest has climbed 8%, and cinema has become their single favorite way to watch a film. A generation raised entirely on streaming apparently decided the big screen was cool again.
What’s particularly fascinating is how they handle social media. They are mostly watching it rather than participating in it. Only 1 in 10 Gen Alpha kids say they post everything they do. They have grown up watching cancel culture, viral pile-ons, and the full chaos of the internet at its worst, and decided that maybe they won’t be putting themselves out there like that. Honestly? Respect.
#10
24yo Gen Z dude here.
Honestly, this is the first I’ve heard of of the “Gen Z stare but I think I do it too, upon retrospect.
I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, here’s why;
At work: I am about as much of a fish out of water as I can get, I won’t get into details but I have found myself working in a complete opposite field as I trained for, and received less than bare minimum onboarding and training. And my boomer boss expects perfection at every turn, so being asked a question I don’t immediately understand or know the answer to is an extremely sudden and high-stakes situation for me. Consider it my “deer in headlights” situation.
Otherwise, chalk it up to conditioning. I wouldn’t call myself antisocial or anything, definitely introverted but plenty sociable. But people just didn’t really ask me questions much growing up. It was always for school quizzes, or a prelude to getting grilled for messing something up ala “what did you do!?”
And then of course the online thing. But that’s a whole can of worms I don’t care to get into seeing as nobody ever really seems to discuss it past a “laying blame” framework, while severely misunderstanding how the cause and effect actually plays out.
Reading some articles about this, it’s suggested it’s not as new a phenomena as people are acting. Probably just more prevalent because of scale due to events like COVID, and the existence of internet makes it easy to spread news/ideas at a disproportionate scale compared to actually importance. Lot of stuff gets blown out of proportion at the drop of a dime these days.
Image source: Busted_Cranium, Ambreen
#11
I have this theory that so many of these folks don’t feel like their lives have really started yet…so you (an adult) couldn’t possibly be talking to *them*. They’re just a kid.
Image source: glitterlok, pressfoto
#12
Edit because people keep commenting abt my status as gen z: I’m aware I’m gen z, like five years ago there was discourse abt the generations because those of us who were born around the 98-02 era didn’t like being called “zoomers” so there was a period of time where it was debated. It’s not now, which is why I’m gen z and consider myself as one. Thank you for the ample amount of comments mentioning it, I’ve now seen it 100 times.
I think I’m technically “elder” gen z as an 01 baby, that’s up in the air to some people but I’m fine with being categorized as gen z.
I’m really bad about zoning out. I work retail and I’m constantly surrounded by hundreds of people every day I work so unless someone hits me with the “excuse me, miss?” I usually don’t register conversation because people are chatting all around me. But when I do I’m always attentive and polite and pretty energetic in my speech.
Some of my younger coworkers are exactly as you described. I train people who are probably 4-5 years younger than me and the entire time I’m talking to them and training them 90% of them do not say a single word back. They just look at me and I’m basically talking to a wall.
“So when you’re looking for this item you’re going to want to check both this location and the one we just saw, okay?”
“O__O”
“Okay. Any questions?”
“O__O”
“Alrighty.”
Merciful lord just say OKAY. A YES OR A NO. I don’t understand what causes it or why it’s happening. I might be getting old because my go to is “it’s the phones.”.
Image source: AggressiveDistrict82, freepik
Here’s a comforting thought: none of this is new. Aristotle complained that young people “think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.” A letter in an eighteenth-century magazine raged about a generation of “effeminate, self-admiring fribbles.” Every single generation, without exception, has looked at the one behind them and thought: What is wrong with these people?
The Millennial playbook is almost too on the nose. Lazy, entitled, a crippling avocado toast addiction. This is until everyone acknowledged that a global financial crisis, student debt, and an impossible housing market might have had something to do with it. According to The Ringer, blaming an entire generation for being broke during a historically devastating economic collapse was, in hindsight, a little reductive.
And yet, we learned absolutely nothing. Gen Z is now “boring” and “antisocial,” which somehow ignores a pandemic that hit during their most formative years, and alcohol prices at a 40-year high. Sociology professor Pamela Aronson says that the blame doesn’t recognize the larger picture about the way Gen Z came of age, and the incredible stresses they face. And then need to speak to a therapist about.
#13
Its crazy how the generation you are a part of completely changes the way you observe things
im gen z and i genuinely have never seen this “phenomenon” occur even once in real life. At least i have never noticed it from me or other people my age.
Image source: ibridoangelico, freepik
#14
Yes. It’s weird. My daughter plays soccer and after the game I always say good game girls to the girls around her at the bench. The stare. The delay. And then a look at the ground while walking away quickly, ‘thanks’ but sometimes nothing at all. When I played sports as a kid parents always said it to us and we said thank you instantly. Sometimes even had a chat about the game. Like what the actual heck kids?
Image source: barnibusvonkreeps, The Yuri Arcurs Collection
#15
I get this stare at gas stations and other service locations like that. Unfortunately there used to be a social veneer of politeness that was barely hanging on, but COVID pretty much destroyed that. I don’t think it’s just generational. I’ve seen the same stare from all ages and it usually corresponds to jobs that are minimum wage and basically the only positive interactions I’ve had are from the perspective of trying to cheer them up, as sad as it sounds.
Image source: eldentings, eakkachaihalang
Here’s a wild idea: what if we just… talked to each other? Not in a “let me explain why your generation is doing it wrong” way, but in an actual, curious, genuinely interested way. Millennials have a lot to learn from a generation that decided burnout wasn’t a personality trait. And Gen Z, occasionally, could extend a small mercy nod to the person who just told them something mildly interesting. Just one.
The generational divide looks a lot more dramatic on the internet than it does in real life, mostly because the internet’s entire business model relies on making everything a fight. In reality, most people across generations want the same things: to be understood, to not be dismissed, and to get through the day without someone asking them to do something that isn’t in their job description.
The truth is, every generation is handed a world they didn’t design and then blamed for how they cope with it. Boomers could stand to acknowledge that. Millennials, currently in the process of becoming The Establishment, really could stand to acknowledge that. And Gen Z’s stare, as it turns out, might just be the most honest response to inherited chaos that anyone has managed yet.
Respect it. Or don’t. They’ll just stare at you either way.
Have you encountered the Gen Z stare in the wild? Tell us all about it in the comments!
#16
One aspect to consider is that many interactions with Gen Z are at their jobs, often in retail or other service industries. These places have gone though years/decades of enshittification since you were their age.
I didn’t instinctively understand customer service standards when I was a kid working a service job, I had to have a good manager delivering good company policies. Today these places are horrendously understaffed, the managers are working for peanuts, and the staff for less. Even if these companies don’t care about customer service anymore (they don’t), they’re not funding the capacity to train to it.
High stress job with zero support and minimal pay lets the Gen Z employee know the job is worthless and no one is there to train them to do proper customer service despite it.
#17
And before that it was called the lead paint stare. Same behavior, different generation.
Image source: Calx9, thejarrodbenson
#18
I feel like I see people talk about this online all the time and I’ve honestly never noticed it. I’m 30 and I talk to people in public all the time, the people I meet who are younger than me mostly seem normal. I’ve never had anyone just do this blank stare thing.
Image source: timothythefirst, krakenimages.com
#19
It’s a confluence of technology and the fruits of 2 preceding generations of bad socialization.
Gen X decided that any display of sincerity was worthy of mockery. This is when you started seeing a lot of movies about ‘maverick kids’ being pitted against ‘old stiffs’. They made their mark on society by attacking sacred cows, saying things that weren’t supposed to be said, and going out of their way to challenge societal norms.
By the time you get to the millennials the structures of society are still there, but they’re basically hollow. How many millennials remember going to church mostly to keep up appearances? Gen X was checked out of most institutions so virtually everything was run by boomers which Millennials were taught to only tolerate as long as it took to get in, make and appearance, and get out. Millennials saw the rise of social media and the internet but they knew how to ‘act the part’ in the world and institutions that preceded it, even if they chose not to do so.
By the time we get to Gen Z the pretense is gone. They don’t even know what an organization like a Civic Club is, let alone what it does in the community, and they’d never consider joining it. They have no common institutions to fall back on, and when they do encounter those institutions they don’t know how to meaningfully interact with them. Their life experience is almost entirely atomized and commodified, unconnected to anything and anyone they don’t want to interact with, and they resent any interactions they aren’t actively seeking.
If you encounter a stranger asking for directions:
A boomer will give them directions combined with a story about how they got lost one time and make the encounter about them.
A Gen X will give them directions and talk to them for a bit, enjoy the company, then make fun of them after they leave.
A Millennial will try to get out of the interaction with the stranger but put on a smile and give directions if they can’t avoid them. They’ll actually enjoy the conversation and brag to all their friends about how they helped someone.
A Gen Z will tell them to look it up on their phone and walk away and put “Some a-hole walked up to me and demanded that I tell them where the Post Office was, I told them I didn’t owe them anything.” on their Instagram.
Image source: anon, dyshlivenkojulia
#20
Speaking from the flip side of this, I’m gen z (26) who works in the service industry. I’ve been in retail full time with the same company since I was 18 in 2017. Since 2020, customers have completely lost all sense of how to act in public. I will greet them smiling, and they stare blankly at me. I ask if they’d like to scan their rewards card, they get angry with me. I ask if they want a box for their items, they ignore me without answering and then yell at me when I don’t get one for them. Customers have become so irrational and unpredictable, a lot of my colleagues (not just genZ) have taken to not engaging unless engaged with, to better be able to read a customer’s attitude. You can’t get yelled at by a customer/manager for saying the wrong thing if you just say nothing.
Anecdotally, in my experience, the customers who have the best sense of readiness & situational awareness tend to be those in the 18-35 range. Anywhere up from there, they’re most often in lala land and can’t conceptualize that they’re in public & the cashier standing in front of them is a real human being. I’ve received the “stare” from my customers far further often than I’ve received it from any employee elsewhere when I’m doing errands.
Image source: chaosdrools, mediaphotos
#21
It’s not a generational thing, you’re just noticing it in young people. I deal with older/middle aged people more than young people and they do the same thing all the time. Some people just weren’t raised right. It’s not a requirement for getting older, being raised with manners and how to understand social queues/norms.
#22
The vacant stare of the moron transcends all generations. Quit trying to make something new out of nothing.
Look back at every single 80’s slacker movie and witness the horror of the GEN. Z. STARE. decades before the generation was even born!
Image source: BriscoCounty-Sr, akiromaru
#23
I find it weird that people think it’s unique to GenZ.
It’s not the GenZ stare, it’s the service-industry employee stare. 10 years ago it was Millennials giving you that stare, and 20 years ago it was GenX giving you that stare. It’s the stare that says, “I am not paid enough to pretend to care”.
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