Everyone knows what the Gen Z stare is. But apparently, Gen Z themselves missed the memo.
The idea of the "Gen Z stare" (or the "Gen Z gaze") has been a hot topic on social media lately. Older generations had broached the topic in recent months, and zoomers on TikTok started responding with skits and videos in which they made it clear they thought the stare was a natural and earned reaction.
"Yes. Somebody says something stupid and you're just like—" TikToker @madelinewatson said in a recent video, pulling a blank look across her face. "Because it's so incomprehensible that you just have to not respond or you're going to say something that might start World War 3."
Watson was far from alone in her interpretation of the look. Many members of her generation saw the complaints and believed the Gen Z stare to be something deployed, often in retail or service settings, when dealing with dumb or rude questions.
And now millennials are having to break it to Gen Z that they're totally missing the mark.
What is the Gen Z stare?
"The stare we're talking about is not the one everyone under the age of 40 gives a boomer," @185dashuaige said in a video debunking this misunderstanding. "We're talking about the stare when anyone tries to have just a normal human interaction with you, like in the flesh, and you guys freeze the fuck up."
It seems to be a common—and often frustrating—phenomenon among Gen Z. The conversations seemed to begin in relation to dealing with Zoomer employees who say absolutely nothing when a customer approaches them.
We're talking about restaurant hosts, coffee shop baristas, cashiers—the sort of jobs where a big chunk of your responsibility is interacting with customers. You smile, you greet them, you make small talk if necessary, and you move on. But people started collectively realizing that zoomers in these positions would just offer a blank, expressionless stare and wait for the customer to speak. And even then, they might not respond.
"I've seen the flip side, too, of people who work in these establishments having Gen Z customers come in and not responding when being asked the basic questions," @nathankoopa shared. "That's the issue. The fact that you're not verbally responding to basic interactions. The very bare minimum interactions."
Why does the Gen Z stare exist?
People have pointed the finger at different possible causes for Gen Z acting this way. Having too much screen time growing up and never learning how to properly socialize is one popular theory.
The long-term effects of COVID lockup are another. Although a third of the generation were already adults by the time COVID hit, and many more had theoretically already had the opportunity to learn basic social skills as children and teenagers by then.
Some of Gen Z is really, really defensive about this
Even after having the real meaning of the stare explained to them, a lot of Gen Zers have doubled down in the comments of various TikTok videos, either insisting that their version of a term they didn't coin is correct, or somehow even the same thing, or just pivoting fully to getting upset with the idea of extremely basic social norms.
"They don't owe you energy nor time," one person wrote on @185dashuaige's TikTok.
"People mad over this stare bc Gen Z can't communicate are the same people who never taught their kids proper communication or the same parents who never [tried] to communicate with their kids," another challenged, seemingly not understanding that millennials generally did not raise Gen Z.
Another simply suggested, "We all have social anxiety."
Other generations remain unimpressed
Gen Z crashing out over being called out on their dead stare is earning them the very look so many of them believed we were talking about in the first place. It's also garnering a lot of amusement.
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here.
