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.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
a minute ago
- Daily Mail
Woman left BLIND after performing 13 cartwheels in a row
A fun day at the beach turned into a months-long medical ordeal for a Seattle teenager who went temporarily blind after doing cartwheels with friends. Deborah Cobb, now 42, was just 19 when she decided to see how many cartwheels she could perform in a row while having fun with her friends on a summer day in 2002. But after completing 13 consecutive cartwheels, the young woman fell over feeling 'super dizzy' and quickly realized something was terribly wrong with her eyesight. 'I decided to see how many cartwheels I could do in a row just for fun,' Cobb told Newsweek in a recent interview. 'So I started doing them and got to 13 and fell over super dizzy. My eyes were kind of spinning so it took a moment to realize that my eyes weren't focusing.' At first, she thought she was just dizzy but panic quickly ensued when she realized she could no longer see anything clearly. 'Looking at her [friend's] face, it was a giant orange blur. My eyes wouldn't fully focus,' she said. 'There was no pain, and my peripheral vision was fine, but everything I looked directly at was blocked by an orange blur.' Cobb first tried to play it cool and didn't immediately tell her friends how scared she was. 'I was panicking inside, but not outwardly so my friends didn't think anything of it,' she said. But her vision has not improved by morning. That's when she went to the hospital. 'My central vision was completely gone... I couldn't drive, I couldn't read, I couldn't see myself in the mirror... which meant I couldn't put on makeup... I couldn't even watch TV,' she said. At the hospital, doctors initially thought she had simply 'sunburned' her retinas. But when she saw a retinal specialist, she got a far more serious and rare diagnosis. 'I had hemorrhaged in both of my maculas and it was going to take three to six months to fully heal,' she said. Experts say the condition is extremely unusual in someone so young. 'In healthy individuals, especially young people, this occurrence is quite rare,' Dr. Rajesh C. Rao, an ophthalmologist who specializes in surgery of the retina, told the outlet. 'The head being upside down abruptly or repeatedly can also increase pressure in veins in the retina, and some at-risk individuals can be prone to macular hemorrhage.' Cobb said it took a while for reality to truly hit her. 'I started sobbing,' she told the outlet. It was the first time it fully hit me how limited I was and how dependent I was on other people for simple things like reading—which I had completely taken for granted.' While her vision did return after about three months, the bizarre injury still causes issues. Even decades later, Cobb still suffers flashes of light and dark floaters caused by retinal jelly detachment. 'The only option is surgery,' she said, 'but surgery almost always causes cataracts, which would only mean another surgery. So I'm okay to just live with it.' Despite the traumatic ordeal, Cobb remains grateful for all the joys in her life. 'We so often focus on what's going wrong in our lives, that we miss all of the things that are going right. 'There are so many simple gifts that could be bringing us joy every day, if we just learned to appreciate them. That's what this experience taught me: never stop being grateful.'
Daily Mail
31 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
California woman, 18, is disfigured in freak accident involving s'mores on a tabletop firepit
A California woman's been left disfigured after flames 'exploded' in her face while making s'mores over an outdoor firepit. Viana Poggi, 18, was enjoying a fun summer night on July 6 with her cousin Alaina Arbiso when chaos unfolded before their eyes. While using a cement tabletop firepit, flames suddenly blew toward Poggi, leaving her with blistering burns on her face and arms. Her cousin Arbiso said all she could remember was how fast everything happened in that terrifying moment, before she pushed her relative into a nearby pool. Arbiso said: 'Within, like, a millisecond, you don't even see it coming - you have no time to react. It just happened.' After pushing Poggi into the water, Arbiso then grabbed a hose and sprayed down the flames spreading on the table. Another family member was also hit by the dangerous flames, but only Poggi was severely injured. When she got to a local burns center, staff asked Poggi about what was used to fuel the firepit. Poggi said: 'Even when I got to the ER, I just said I got hit by fire, and they asked me, "Was it rubbing alcohol?" Because it's so common for people to be burned that way.' A friend of hers Alexandra Welsh, who's a trauma nurse in the emergency room, was shocked after seeing someone she knew arrive with such intense injuries. Welsh said: 'I work at a trauma center, so I see a lot of traumatic injuries come in, but it is so different when it is someone who you think of as a little sister.' Despite the freak accident impacting her life, Poggi, who's been left with scars and burn marks, decided to make the best of it. She documented her recovery on TikTok, where she showed herself wearing a hospital gown when she was still covered in bandages. Poggi said: 'I always remember it could have been worse. I try to keep a good attitude.' The teen's due to start college soon at the University of San Francisco but, because of the burns, she's also preparing for several procedures to help with her recover. A GoFundMe page was set up by Arbiso to help her cousin with medical expenses while she embarked on the next chapter of her life. Arbiso wrote about Poggi: 'With the big move coming, multiple reconstruction surgeries, and a long emotional/physical recovery in her foreseeable future, [she's] going to need all the help she can get.' Poggi hoped that her unfortunate experience would make other people think twice before they used specific types of firepits. She said: 'I really want people to know the danger of using an alcohol-fueled pit because they are so common. We owned, I think, three of them.' There were several types of tabletop alcohol-fueled firepit available to buy online and in stores. Some were fueled by gel fuel, wood, wood pellets, and propane. Last year, multiple types of the vessel were recalled by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The recall on the popular brand Colsen's pits warned that 'alcohol flames can be invisible and lead to flame jetting when refilling the firepit reservoir'.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
US health officials, tech executives to launch data-sharing plan, Bloomberg News reports
July 26 (Reuters) - Top Trump administration health officials are expected to bring tech companies to the White House this week to roll out a plan to encourage more seamless sharing of health-care data, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz are expected to host executives at an event on Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The initiative was led by Amy Gleason, acting administrator of DOGE, known as Department of Government Efficiency, and Arda Kara, a senior adviser at CMS, the report said. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
