According to teens, the Gen Z stare is just one generation misunderstanding another. Sound familiar?
The concept of a Gen Z stare has recently gained attention on TikTok as millennials, Gen X, and boomers take aim at a perceived lack of etiquette in the Zoomer generation. They describe it as a blank stare that Gen Z gives, usually in customer service settings, in response to questions or a greeting.
On the other side of the TikTok debate is Gen Z, who argue that the stare is in response to difficult customers when there is nothing left to respond with aside from a blank expression.
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In the video above, we asked Gen Z members of the SheKnows Teen Council to react to the Gen Z stare and share their explanations for the look.
“I don’t think I’ve done it that crazy,” 15-year-old Theo says after watching a viral video of someone recreating the Gen Z stare. Like many members of his generation, Theo is frustrated by the sweeping generational generalization. “I feel like the stereotype is that we’re not used to talking to real people one-on-one, I guess, and we’re so used to our screens that we don’t really know what to do,” he adds. “I feel like that’s not true.”
Olivia, 17, admits that she has probably done a Gen Z stare or two in her time. “I feel like I can sometimes be a little socially awkward and just not know what to do,” she says.
“Especially when I’m with my parents,” she adds. “Like when you walk into a restaurant and you’re first and the hostess asks you what the reservation name is.” Many members of Gen Z are teens, after all, so is it really fair to hold them to the same standards as adults?
Olivia’s defense of the Gen Z stare was also echoed by 18-year-old Chloe, who says she has used the Gen Z stare in her customer service job when she wasn’t sure how best to respond.
“I think it’s just a tactic to avoid the most drama in the situation so you don’t end up antagonizing the other person or exhausting yourself trying to explain something over and over again,” she says.
Next, we had teens react to a video from Shaheen Alarakhia, a mental health counselor who calls the Gen Z stare a “lost in translation moment.”
“Here’s what I do notice about Gen Z in therapy, and I think this translates to the Gen Z stare. They are very thoughtful of other people’s time and energy,” Alarakhia says, explaining that the Gen Z stare might be part of young people’s cut-to-the-chase mentality. Small talk and niceties seem to be a lost art in younger generations.
“I think this is really good point,” 16-year-old Joris tells us, explaining that learning to chit-chat with customers in his jewelry shop job “didn’t feel that natural” to him. “I think when there are customers that are kind of around my age… they don’t really want to do the introduction thing, and it feels like it’s kind of forced on both of us.”
The teens we spoke to broadly agreed that the Gen Z stare primarily signifies a cultural divide between generations, which occurs, to some extent, in all generations. Millennials are still criticized for their “failure to launch,” and Gen X’s “slacker” stereotype follows them. The Gen Z stare is emerging as one of many things we’ll ascribe to Zoomers because nothing unites adults like complaining about youths.