What the fuck is this bullshit Gen Z Stare that is being heavily promoted as a thing all of a sudden? All of the gen ‘blah’ garbage is just that… it gets created to sell papers and to divide people. The blank WTF stare has always existed. It has nothing to do with a particular generation.
How to respond to the ‘Gen Z stare’ without looking like a total boomer | CNN
Submitted 11 hours ago by CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/24/health/gen-z-stare-wellness
Comments
echo@lemmy.today 8 hours ago
Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
I’ve been told I do this to people sometimes. If you don’t want to see it, don’t say dumb shit.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Yup. That’s why I put this article in mild infuriating. It’s not all the way to enraging, but it’s low-level bullshit that you see all the time in these kinds of think pieces.
I’ve been seeing narratives much like this about Gen X when I was the target, then Gen Y, now Gen Z. And Adam Conover has a talk where he shows this kind of thing was aimed at boomers, too.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 7 hours ago
Vandals_handle@lemmy.world 4 minutes ago
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Haha. Someone mentioned The Graduate in the comments on the article itself, too.
I’m sure there are lots of examples from earlier TV shows and movies…
artifex@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
Per one “expert” quoted in the article: “Gen Z employees come from a generation that is starkly genuine”. That should tell you all you need to now about the quality of this article.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
I’d like to point that “expert” to watch something like The Graduate or read something like “Generation X” - or other novels from Coupland - where his characters agonize over things like McJobs. Ironically, I think Coupland is probably describing what is often called “The Jones Generation”.
The Graduate was before I was born, and Coupland’s work was not something I read until a few years out of college, but both managed to resonate with me.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Also, didn’t the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye complain a lot about others being fake and so on?
artifex@lemmy.zip 8 hours ago
Forget 20th century media, there are Sumerian cuneiform tablets with parents complaining about their kids’ work ethics.
klankin@piefed.ca 10 hours ago
Gotta be content ragebait with how awfuly that article is written.
They contradict themselves so much with their own examples, what’s ‘polite’ about calling someone fat? And how is a technique thats existed for centuries suddenly more rude than entertaining some asshole in a store?
Cellery@quokk.au 11 hours ago
The 26-year-old was at a Phoenix grocery store, heavily pregnant, when an older woman in the checkout line remarked how “huge and fat” her feet were, telling her she was going to have a “fat baby.”
The reaction is the genz stare. So just. Normal stuff with a genz label and a “ok boomer” insult?
Do I not understand because I’m neither a boomer nor a genz?
klankin@piefed.ca 11 hours ago
Nah nobody understands cause its just an attempt to create some infighting between generations.
Assholes exist and always have, in all generations.
Cellery@quokk.au 10 hours ago
Asshole… ;)
dustyData@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Upvoting because the article itself is infuriating.
Sergio@piefed.social 7 hours ago
ikr in comments OP states that the article is the target of the infuriation, but it’s ambiguous, and I think most dowvoters are assuming the “stare” of the article is considered infuriating.
artwork@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Apologies, but for some reason I get it…
I am around 40 myself, but it feels like some younger people don’t want to think much at all… They just don’t care and their “stare” shows that you mean nothing, or do not consider your an individual at all but just an objectified obstacle.
It feels indeed like some people nowadays have “glass”, “voided”, or just “empty eyes”…
klankin@piefed.ca 10 hours ago
I’m surprised no one in another generation has stared in silence at you before.
I would assume your attribution to a specific generation is probably sampling bias due to articles like this, because people have been staring at douchebags for at least as long as recorded history, but presumably longer.
artifex@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
That isn’t something new to Gen Z. You’re just noticing it now because you’ve matured, but I promise you that your age cohort behaved the same 15 years ago.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Oh if we are talking about service workers, I’ve seen the bored vacant stare from people in a McJob since before I even entered the workforce. I noticed it as an observant child watching adolescents in such positions, and those kids were probably Generation Jones or maybe younger boomers.
Ooops@feddit.org 10 hours ago
They just don’t care and their “stare” shows that you mean nothing, or do not consider your an individual at all but just an objectified obstacle.
You are misinterpreting this. “Their” (and that’s not a generational thing…) stare doesn’t mean you mean nothing. It means nothing means anything because their brains are fried and are not working without a constant stimulus of bright flashing pictures on a screen.
NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
This reads like “don’t sit too close to the tv or it will fry your brain!!!”
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Who the hell even writes articles like this? 🤣
Do people really think that people born between certain years invented…staring?
Seriously, you could change the dates on an article like this, make it about Gen X or Gen Y, and it would be the same thing. Or about boomers. Or fast forward a bit and it will be articles like this about Gen Alpha.
“The older people just don’t understand the ways of the younger people. It’s like this is a completely novel thing between these two generations.”
😒
gridlock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 hours ago
Y’all missed out on the “Millenials killed the (insert here) industry, and are broke due to avocado toast” articles of yesteryear.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
LOL, Gen X here. We saw a lot of that kind hand-wringing about how we were a “slacker generation” that was not taking up ad campaigns in expected ways and/or playing video games too much and not being career-minded enough, etc. and how we thought there was “no future” because of things like the Cold War and nuclear annihilation, kids of broken homes and latchkey kids, homes needing to have two incomes to get by, and the dystopian movies we grew up on.
Then they mostly skipped over us because Gen X is not as large of a group as Gen Y.
That’s why when I see articles like this about Gen Y/Z/A, I just lauuuuuugh. It’s all so very unimaginative, but the people writing these galaxy-brained things seemingly have no fucking idea how recycled it all is.
echo@lemmy.today 8 hours ago
I really don’t get that one… I fucking love avocado toast. I make it at home quite often for my lunch. It costs me less than $3 for the meal which is really quite a bit cheaper than many/most of my other lunches and it’s more healthy than many other meals.
Cellery@quokk.au 11 hours ago
Gen Z? Boomers?
klankin@piefed.ca 11 hours ago
Cheesecake?
Tornadoes?
ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Its obvious clickbait, do not share it. They get money from that.