The ‘Gen Z stare'? Young people need to get over this limp act of defiance
I was in a stationery shop in LA, paying for a notepad, when I spotted ballpoint pens on the counter and remembered that I needed one too. Now Miss Z, let's call her, had already rung up my pad, so when, with an apologetic smile, I added 'and the pen too, please', up came the eyes.
As they rested upon me, unblinking and slightly unfocussed, for what felt like a lifetime, I felt my blood freeze in my veins and my throat dry up. A nervous pulse started up at the base of my neck. Adding another hoarse 'please' did nothing, and I considered putting the pen back. The eyes were still on me, still eerily vacant, and at no stage had Miss Z blinked. How had her corneas not dried up? I never got to ask. Tiring, eventually of her own glare, the girl rang up my pen, took my money and went back to scrolling through Depop on her phone.
For the past week, there have only been two topics of debate in LA: where you would and wouldn't take a lover to avoid becoming a viral meme, and what 'the Gen Z stare' actually means.
According to the New York Times – one of the first to identify the phenomenon – the 'blank, emotionally unreadable expression often seen in social or work settings' on people of that age group is especially popular in the service industry, but not confined to that area.
Like the flu, you know when you've had it, and it's not just a look, but a whole culture of sullenness and defiance. It's 'not about a person's lack of ability to communicate' either, but rather a refusal even to try 'with someone who's not using their own brain cells.'
Although it definitely comes across as hostile (in a vague, 'really not that bothered' way), some have claimed that its roots 'lie in anxiety ' – while others have blamed it on screen usage, the Covid-19 pandemic and, weirdly, vaping.
Whatever its causes, 'the Gen Z stare' is fuelling a generational feud. It's not about to disappear, either, because the more that limp little act of revolt is written about and dissected, the more Gen Z will weaponise those eyeballs.
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