{"id":296936,"date":"2025-07-27T22:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T22:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/296936\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T22:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T22:16:11","slug":"have-you-been-a-victim-of-the-gen-z-stare-its-got-nothing-on-the-gen-x-look-of-dread-emma-beddington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/296936\/","title":{"rendered":"Have you been a victim of the \u2018gen Z stare\u2019? It\u2019s got nothing on the gen X look of dread | Emma Beddington"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you been the victim of a gen Z stare? Maybe you have but didn\u2019t realise, because you didn\u2019t know it existed, so let me explain: gen Z, now aged 13 to 28, have apparently adopted a widely deplored stare<\/a>: blank, expressionless and unnerving. The stare is often deployed in customer service contexts, and many emotions can be read into it, including \u201cboredom, indifference, superiority, judgment or just sheer silliness\u201d, according to Forbes<\/a>, whose writer described his unease in Starbucks when faced with a \u201cflat, zombie-like look that was difficult to read\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hang on, aren\u2019t oversensitive snowflakes supposed to be younger people, not journalists my age? Has a generation ever been so maligned as Z? Probably, but I\u2019m mortified by the mutterings about gen Z, when they are so self-evidently at the pointy end of older people\u2019s poor past (and present) decision-making. They don\u2019t get jobs, homes or a livable planet \u2013 but we\u2019re getting huffy about their \u201crudeness\u201d and \u201clack of social skills\u201d? Anything short of blending us into their protein shakes seems fair to me at this point.<\/p>\n

But I do get it, sort of. Young people have been treating their elders to scornful stares since homo sapiens first gruntingly suggested a \u201cnice walk\u201d to their offspring, and it\u2019s easy to get defensive and lash out. As a \u201cmeme scholar\u201d suggested, crushingly, to NPR<\/a>: \u201cMaybe what we\u2019re witnessing \u2026 is some boredom, especially with who they\u2019re interacting with.\u201d That\u2019s exactly what I was afraid of.<\/p>\n

But everyone succumbs to the odd vacant stare and it\u2019s not necessarily directed at, or derogatory to, the stare-ee. I\u2019m not qualified to parse gen Z stares (maybe they\u2019re thinking about matcha; maybe they\u2019re actually mewing<\/a>?), but I can definitely explain some reasons my own people, gen X (aged between 45 and 60), go starey, slack-mouthed and silent \u2013 and why it\u2019s almost certainly not about you.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t hear you.
<\/strong>We\u2019re getting a bit deaf but struggling to accept it, so we\u2019re fumbling our way through the world with context clues and inept lip reading. If you say something and we just stare blankly, we\u2019re probably trying to decide whether to deploy one of our catch-all non-committal responses (\u201cmmm\u201d; \u201cright?\u201d) or ask you to repeat yourself. Again.<\/p>\n

We suspect one of our idols is standing behind you.
<\/strong>Is that Thom Yorke or your kid\u2019s design-tech teacher? Winona Ryder or some woman you recognise from wild swimming? We need to know.<\/p>\n

Something you said triggered a memory of a public information film we saw at primary school.
<\/strong>\u201cBuilding site\u201d; \u201crailway line\u201d; \u201cfireworks\u201d; \u201celectricity substation\u201d: there are so many trigger words that summon a horrifying mental kaleidoscope of doom.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve just remembered we were too \u201ccool\u201d to top up our pension, ha ha ha, oh God.
<\/strong>Sometimes that realisation hits, mid-conversation, and we need to take a beat to fight the rising tide of panic.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve heard an unusual bird call but it would be rude to use the Merlin app on our phones.
<\/strong>Is that a redstart?<\/p>\n

Something weird is happening to one of our teeth.
<\/strong>A filling coming loose, a tooth crumbling, some kind of searing, definitely expensive, pain? Mortality starts in the mouth.<\/p>\n

We started thinking about the <\/strong>19-year-old Reform councillor<\/a> in Leicestershire<\/strong> who is now responsible for children and family services.
<\/strong>And the 22-year-old one in charge of adult social care who previously said \u201cdepression isn\u2019t real\u201d.<\/p>\n

Just an ill-defined, increasingly uneasy sensation that we\u2019ve forgotten something important.
<\/strong>An important meeting. Our passwords. The keys. Your name.<\/p>\n

You said something we don\u2019t understand.
<\/strong>We get \u201cslay\u201d and \u201cmid\u201d and we hoped we weren\u2019t \u201cdelulu\u201d to believe we \u201cunderstood the assignment\u201d. But you\u2019ve just come out with an expression so baffling, we are simply unable to deduce any meaning from context. Maybe we are going to \u201ccrash out\u201d? Just give us a silent, sweaty moment.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re watching video on your phone without headphones.
<\/strong>OK, this one is about you and it\u2019s entirely deserved. I use my eyes to try to bore decency into sodcasters; I just wish my eyes were lasers.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re existentially spiralling.
<\/strong>Occasionally we just lapse into a thousand-yard stare that semaphores: \u201cHelp, reality has become overwhelming; I need to disassociate momentarily.\u201d And who, of any generation, hasn\u2019t felt that this year? Perhaps the blank stare is actually proof there\u2019s more that unites than divides us.<\/p>\n

Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n