
The ‘Gen Z stare' is another act of teenage rebellion
According to a Times report over the weekend, young parents now continually protest at having to confront this pose among their offspring, a demeanour that manifests itself in lack of eye contact and disregard for basic social niceties.
This won't come as a surprise to those who recognise that modern technology, particularly smartphones, has had a deleterious influence on the youngest members of society. The increasing inability of Gen Z to engage in forms of ordinary social engagement is one widely accepted symptom of our technological revolution.
There may be other factors, too. The lockdown years of 2020-21 severely stalled and stilted the socialisation and development of a youth at a crucial stage. Some people, speaking in their defence, say that the 'Gen Z stare' reflects a justified gloom and pessimism in that, in relation to future job prospects or the likelihood of ever owning their own home, the youth today have much reason to look disenchanted.
In truth, teenagers and those in their early twenties have always been prone to behave like this. Geoff Beattie, a psychology professor at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, explains this perceived disengagement as 'a generational marker, an attempt to project the generation's values of authenticity and individuality'.
It's always been thus with teenagers, ever since that word became common parlance in the 1950s. That was the decade which saw the publication of The Catcher In The Rye and the release of the film Rebel Without A Cause. These are two works that encapsulated a generational conflict between rebellious adolescents whose elders didn't understand them – a mutual misunderstanding hindered by teenagers never being masters at expressing themselves articulately or coherently.
Affected nonchalance or genuine anomie has been a rite of passage for youths making their first, difficult and sometimes traumatic steps into the mental and physical grown-up world. It's why it's featured prominently in another offshoot of the 1950s: rock 'n' roll. Since then, pop groups have been fond of gazing from the front cover of their albums with looks of distraction, whether it be the Beatles appearing jaded and distorted on the sleeve of Rubber Soul (1965), or The Cure appearing in warped, morbid infra-red on the cover of Pornography (1982), their ultimate tribute to adolescent misery.
Along with The Smiths, The Cure appealed most to the alienated and disaffected youths in the 1980s, and to judge by their undimmed popularity to this day, to adolescents of succeeding generations. This is a demographic eternally prone to existential angst. It was no coincidence that songs by The Cure referenced Albert Camus ('Killing an Arab') or Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series ('The Drowning Man').
Robert Smith, their lead singer and intellectual driving force, did what David Bowie and Patti Smith had done in the 1970s, when they had drawn inspiration from Rimbaud and William Burroughs: appeal to a romantic or introspective artistic inheritance. The Goths, of whom The Cure were the undisputed figureheads, assumed that name for a good reason. Their heirs of the 21st century, Emo kids, came to dress in black and lock themselves in their bedrooms for the same reasons: they hated a world that didn't understand them.
This spirit of disenchantment has continued to manifest itself over the years. We witnessed it in grunge in the 1990s, whose aficionados bore an appearance of world-weary disaffection – the dishevelled hobo uniform of that scene was not accidental. Tragically, it turned out that Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain was deadly serious when he sung in 1993 'I Hate Myself And Want To Die', but that track did encapsulate a mood of detachment and indifference. Oasis even immortalised in song that decade's youthful declaration of nonchalance: 'whatever'.
The 'Gen Z stare' is, in many respects, the latest manifestation of a decades-old phenomenon. As the sociologist Dick Hebdige wrote in his 1979 work on youth culture, Subculture, The Meaning of Style, in respect of this tendency:
Punk represents the most recent phrase in this process. In punk, alienation assumed an almost tangible quality. It could almost be grasped. It gave itself up to the cameras in 'blandness', the removal of expression (see any photograph of any punk group), refusal to speak and be positioned… the solipsism, the neurosis, the cosmetic rage.
Teens will forever present themselves as bored. Those mired in that troubling transitional point in life will often do so out of defiance and self-differentiation, in rebellion against a world they often don't understand, and one which will seldom understand them.
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Metro
3 days ago
- Metro
Gen Z are making their tea without a kettle and it's an 'absolute violation'
As Brits, we're famous the world over for enjoying a good cup of tea — and proud of it. However, it appears that some of us have begun taking a rather, erm, creative approach to preparing our morning cuppa. While getting the kettle on might be one of the first things most of us do on any given morning, it appears that isn't the case for every age group. New statistics, which almost made us spit out our tea, reveal over half of Gen Z (those aged 18 to 27) makes their brew (brace yourself) in the microwave. The research, carried out by comparison experts USwitch, found that three-fifths of Gen Z (58%) admitted to the practice, with a shocking one in six (17%) doing so every day. In news that probably has Earl Grey himself spinning in his grave, they aren't even the only ones at it. Millennials (aged 28-43) were the next most likely age bracket to prefer a nuked brew, with 32% of them admitting to the practice, and Gen X (aged 44-59) took third place, with 15% of them choosing to prepare tea radiation-style. Rounding out the list are the Baby Boomers (those aged 60 to 78) and the Silent Generation (aged 79 and above), with just 10% of the former and only 6% of the latter using a microwave to make tea. Gen Z (18-27) – 58% (18-27) – 58% Millennials (28-43) – 32% (28-43) – 32% Gen X (44-59) – 15% (44-59) – 15% Boomers (60-78) – 10% (60-78) – 10% Silent Generation (79+) – 6% Unsuprisingly, the practice of microwaving tea has disturbed many. The practice is actually surprisingly common in America, and when stateside content creators have filmed themselves making tea in this way, it's caused quite the backlash from Brits. 'I think I just witnessed a crime,' and KerryManyLetters commented on one such video, 'How? How can people not know how to make tea?'. While another called it an 'absolute violation' and a third said that microwaving tea fell under the category of 'things that should be illegal but aren't!' Others had a more emotional reaction. User @sillybillylilly wrote: 'This physically hurts its not even funny there are tears in my eyes.' Meanwhile those who have attempted to make tea 'American-style' in the microwave were less than impressed, with Irish creator Garron Noone (garron_music), describing it as tasting like 'sterilised baby bottles'. As someone who considers themselves a self-styled brew connoisseur, it's a question that I personally never thought I'd have to ask. However, it appears that there is, at least, some reasoning behind why the younger demographic might be turning to the microwave to make a brew. Natalie Mathie, energy expert at remarks: 'It's possible that many younger people use a microwave because kettles are often banned in student accommodation, but this is a trend that's growing with each passing generation. More Trending 'While it seems like an affront to basic tea-making traditions, if it works for people, who are we to argue? 'However you're boiling your water, make sure you only put in the amount of water you need, as heating excess water can waste a lot of electricity' Whatever option you prefer – kettle, hob, microwave – the cost of boiling your tea water is still only about 1p per cuppa. View More » If you are really counting the pennies, then technically, a covered pan on a gas hob is the cheapest way to make tea, at just 0.74p. However, you're gonna be waiting a while for that brew. Gas hob (covered pan) – 0.74p (in 217 seconds) Gas hob (uncovered pan) – 0.84p (in 245 seconds) Microwave – 1.03p (in 180 seconds) Electric kettle – 1.11p (in 52 seconds) Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@ MORE: Bizarre theory around Trisha Paytas' superhero-inspired name of third baby MORE: Mum-of-six reserves sun beds then leaves resort to go shopping and get breakfast MORE: People are wearing 'five finger shoes' to the office in a fashion move we never saw coming Your free newsletter guide to the best London has on offer, from drinks deals to restaurant reviews.


The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
Must your life be ruined just because you had an affair?
Love knocks the rough edges from you, it smooths you out. If you claim to be in love, but have refused to change for the person you love, then that is not love. No two people can live as one until the day they die and not alter some aspect of their personality or behaviour. So love is hard, and love makes you different. That should be celebrated. For if love is indeed the most blessed aspect of life, then those costs are cheap. If loves makes you a better person, I welcome the admission price. The world, when considered rationally, is frightening and lonely. Love makes life bearable. Love makes life joyous amid the dark. Love is a candle burning in a distant window on a dark night as you walk alone; it lets you know there's someone out there for you, and you just need to make straight for that flickering flame. In its perfect form, love is a transcendental dance, a mystical ritual almost. It takes you out of yourself, your ego ebbs, part of you dissolves into another's soul. It's two earthly creatures made of flesh melding the sublime part of themselves. But we make love so bloody hard. Look at the stories we tell ourselves: Adam and Eve, Paris and Helen of Troy, Romeo and Juliet. Read more by Neil Mackay Each couple would have been happy, would have died smiling in the arms of their adored, if other fools had not trampled all over their love. God wouldn't leave our biblical lovers in peace. Helen and Paris couldn't find a hiding place secret enough to protect them. Romeo and Juliet were cursed by tyrannical, hateful parents. Today, just look at how we hem in love. Desire and courtship are now mostly found in some hellish digital marketplace, on apps where you decide the possibilities of love and sex with a finger swipe. That's damnable. Dating apps are, in effect, limitless Lonely Hearts pages. As so many now seek love through an app, then so many of us must be desperately, painfully lonely. I find that very saddening, but it doesn't surprise me. The avenues of modern love have been bulldozed. Not so long ago, we fell in love at school, university, at work, or in pubs and clubs. These were the places were love was sought and found. Only a minority ever really find their partner for life at school or university. First love, even second or third love, is mostly experimental, a testing of the form as we seek to understand our heart and the hearts of others. Early romance trains us for the real thing. So few people go to pubs and clubs any more that love through the ancient chat-up line – through the lost art of socialising with strangers – seems nearly extinct. GenZ so often mourns its inability to connect with the unknown other beyond the limit of the screen. That leaves work. But workplace romance is now all but banned. I'm not in the business of feeling sorry for rich CEOs, but I found the story of "the kiss-cam" couple both extremely modern and therefore extremely anti-human in its treatment of love. In short, married Andy Byron, chief executive of a digital company called Astronomer, was filmed with his arms around the firm's HR head Kristin Cabot on what's known as the "Jumbotron" camera at a Coldplay concert in Massachusetts. I don't know what is worse. Getting caught cheating or getting caught at a Coldplay — Eric Matheny 🎙️ (@ericmmatheny) July 17, 2025 They ducked, and hid their faces, to escape the lens, and the internet exploded in gales of laughter at the pair seemingly caught in an affair before the world. Astronomer issued a vinegar-faced statement saying 'our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability'. The story was splattered across every newspaper and TV channel on Earth. Both were placed on leave; Byron later resigned. Perhaps I'm some moral bankrupt, but I find it very cruel and absurdly puritanical to condemn anyone for being either in love or in lust. I would say: let he or she who is without sin cast the first stone. We should, of course, pay mind to any wounded parties and betrayed spouses. Yet the sad truth is that there are millions of affairs happening in every corner of the planet right now. Affairs may be cruel and dishonest, but they're simply about love at the end of the day, and love cannot be constrained. It won't be constrained. To constrain love is to kill a part of yourself. Evidently, there are problems with workplace romances if any power imbalance is exploited, but to try to outlaw love is like trying to ban the breeze. Try catching either and putting the handcuffs on. I see nothing that instructs or amuses about this story. People were betrayed. There's nothing funny in that. People were in love and they hid it. There's nothing funny in that. People's careers have been ruined for the simple reason that they loved each other. There is certainly nothing funny in that. A world which cannot be soft and forgiving when it comes to love is by definition dark. If love brings light into the world, then trying to extinguish that light is profoundly anti-human. Love is our greatest asset. No other creature feels as we do. It's our emotions which raise us up, far beyond the mere animal, towards an existence as a creature bearing what some call a soul. Love is the best, and most perfect, of those emotions. Mock love and we mock ourselves. Deny love and we deny ourselves. Neil Mackay is The Herald's Writer-at-Large. He's a multi-award-winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs, cultural commentary, and foreign and domestic politics.


Spectator
5 days ago
- Spectator
The ‘Gen Z stare' is another act of teenage rebellion
The latest complaint made against Generation Z is that its members now frequently assume a blank, glassy-eyed expression of indifference and boredom. The 'Gen Z stare', as it's known, has become so prevalent among those born between 1997 and 2012 that it's now a source of habitual frustration and annoyance among their elders – the millennials who coined this term. According to a Times report over the weekend, young parents now continually protest at having to confront this pose among their offspring, a demeanour that manifests itself in lack of eye contact and disregard for basic social niceties. This won't come as a surprise to those who recognise that modern technology, particularly smartphones, has had a deleterious influence on the youngest members of society. The increasing inability of Gen Z to engage in forms of ordinary social engagement is one widely accepted symptom of our technological revolution. There may be other factors, too. The lockdown years of 2020-21 severely stalled and stilted the socialisation and development of a youth at a crucial stage. Some people, speaking in their defence, say that the 'Gen Z stare' reflects a justified gloom and pessimism in that, in relation to future job prospects or the likelihood of ever owning their own home, the youth today have much reason to look disenchanted. In truth, teenagers and those in their early twenties have always been prone to behave like this. Geoff Beattie, a psychology professor at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, explains this perceived disengagement as 'a generational marker, an attempt to project the generation's values of authenticity and individuality'. It's always been thus with teenagers, ever since that word became common parlance in the 1950s. That was the decade which saw the publication of The Catcher In The Rye and the release of the film Rebel Without A Cause. These are two works that encapsulated a generational conflict between rebellious adolescents whose elders didn't understand them – a mutual misunderstanding hindered by teenagers never being masters at expressing themselves articulately or coherently. Affected nonchalance or genuine anomie has been a rite of passage for youths making their first, difficult and sometimes traumatic steps into the mental and physical grown-up world. It's why it's featured prominently in another offshoot of the 1950s: rock 'n' roll. Since then, pop groups have been fond of gazing from the front cover of their albums with looks of distraction, whether it be the Beatles appearing jaded and distorted on the sleeve of Rubber Soul (1965), or The Cure appearing in warped, morbid infra-red on the cover of Pornography (1982), their ultimate tribute to adolescent misery. Along with The Smiths, The Cure appealed most to the alienated and disaffected youths in the 1980s, and to judge by their undimmed popularity to this day, to adolescents of succeeding generations. This is a demographic eternally prone to existential angst. It was no coincidence that songs by The Cure referenced Albert Camus ('Killing an Arab') or Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series ('The Drowning Man'). Robert Smith, their lead singer and intellectual driving force, did what David Bowie and Patti Smith had done in the 1970s, when they had drawn inspiration from Rimbaud and William Burroughs: appeal to a romantic or introspective artistic inheritance. The Goths, of whom The Cure were the undisputed figureheads, assumed that name for a good reason. Their heirs of the 21st century, Emo kids, came to dress in black and lock themselves in their bedrooms for the same reasons: they hated a world that didn't understand them. This spirit of disenchantment has continued to manifest itself over the years. We witnessed it in grunge in the 1990s, whose aficionados bore an appearance of world-weary disaffection – the dishevelled hobo uniform of that scene was not accidental. Tragically, it turned out that Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain was deadly serious when he sung in 1993 'I Hate Myself And Want To Die', but that track did encapsulate a mood of detachment and indifference. Oasis even immortalised in song that decade's youthful declaration of nonchalance: 'whatever'. The 'Gen Z stare' is, in many respects, the latest manifestation of a decades-old phenomenon. As the sociologist Dick Hebdige wrote in his 1979 work on youth culture, Subculture, The Meaning of Style, in respect of this tendency: Punk represents the most recent phrase in this process. In punk, alienation assumed an almost tangible quality. It could almost be grasped. It gave itself up to the cameras in 'blandness', the removal of expression (see any photograph of any punk group), refusal to speak and be positioned… the solipsism, the neurosis, the cosmetic rage. Teens will forever present themselves as bored. Those mired in that troubling transitional point in life will often do so out of defiance and self-differentiation, in rebellion against a world they often don't understand, and one which will seldom understand them.