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.
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.
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…
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.
You 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.
Every generation is like this at that age. The hallmark of my generation, GenX, was apathy. Not that I care. Whatever. Never mind.
Me, an aging Xennial: “The hwat?”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
no. it’s just another thing to make people upset at each other. ignore what they say.
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.
I’ve had 1 experience with 1 younger employee that encapsulates what is considered to be the “Gen z stare”. She was prolly just bored at working in a beef jerky shop. Not gonna get my ruffles in a feather (I like em crunchy).
Ive worked with younger folk at my work. Half are "oh my lord , we are so screwed " the other half is “damn, this kids smart, I like em”
Soo nothing has changed in the last thousand years.
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.
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.
In Italy they are not really a thing. The media uses it sometimes but most people really don’t care
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
Nope. It’s always safe to ignore any articles about “kids these days”
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
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.
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.
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. :)
