No Stupid Questions

mainstrem media likes attributing negative things about younger generations and to try and keep this stupid generational war alive.

i wouldn't bother.

Really strange how many attribute their anecdotes to a wide ranging phenomenon afflicting only one specific generation.

I've always interpreted the stare as a consequence of growing up where cameras (phones) are everywhere and nothing ever disappears from the internet. And as a result people who grew up under that are ALWAYS cognizant of this. So they express nothing because it could make for embarrassing video or photos. Being extra or try-hard are also considered bad. Everything is tamped down, socially. They are seriously just repressed, internalized.

no. it's just another thing to make people upset at each other. ignore what they say.

No, hacks keep writing generation war articles because they're stupid and lazy.

Even the "stare" is just a hack's memories of general teenager movie tropes. I bet right now if I said "80's bored teenage stares at character saying something stupid and weird" you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Nope. It's always safe to ignore any articles about "kids these days"

Every generation is like this at that age. The hallmark of my generation, GenX, was apathy. Not that I care. Whatever. Never mind.

I have absolutely seen this and experienced this. Although, I don’t think it’s much different from any teenager or young person working shitty jobs in any decade I’ve lived or seen in media. The silent teen staring you down at fast food is timeless.

That’s not genz thing. That’s the hot potato method of where you drop the potato on the ground and don’t play the games the sociopath wants to play.

This is a more widely used strategy now that mental therapy is more openly discussed. And the best way to win the game with a narcissist/sociopath is to not play their game. in the older days this was done in form of cutting contact. Don’t take their calls. Leave. Don’t interact.

Deadpan stare is a form of this as visual blocking.

Before the 80s so many people thought ‘I can change him!’ And after the 80s there were so many books about living loving a narcissist and how you can’t change him.

Now we just have the deadpan stare. And so many hack comedians from yesterday liken it to ‘cancel culture’ or not having a sense of humour cuz they can’t deal with being irrelevant because of their unchecked hatred landing flat

As an elder millenial I might have some insight. You know how when we were kids people used to get all up in their feelings when you weren't smiling. That's this. "Gen Z stare", is just "Resting Bitch Face" or "You look prettier when you smile darlin'" repackaged and rebranded. They're mad that the young people in general and women in particular aren't running around with goofy forced smiles on their faces to make them feel special.

It's collective PTSD. 1997. Keeping up with things feels like a marathon. It's hard smile rn. It doesn't feel appropriate rn. You Stonewall until the other person indicates how they feel, but sometimes you get two blank faces going back and forth. In general, we live in interesting times and I don't want to het punched in the face because I smiled about Trump being a bitch.

The various answers in this thread are just hilarious.

The stare is real; it's when they work in a service position but don't communicate. You walk up to the counter and instead of greeting you or asking how they can help you or saying anything at all they just stare at you. That's the Gen z stare. It's that simple and I've encountered it everywhere that employs younger people. It doesn't bother me, you don't have to do shit for a shit wage, but it does make interactions unnecessarily awkward.
The comment saying that Gen z just doesn't tolerate stupid is hilarious. What percentage of your generation voted for Trump again?

Nah. The "Gen Z stare" is the blank-faced look we give people that we think are idiots. It's not that we lack self-awareness...it's you. Gen Z doesn't tolerate stupid. We just can't be bothered to call you out on it, because that's drama we don't need. So we just stare at you, instead.

These people we've been screwing over for our own benefit won't smile for us!

I’m Gen X and I have that stare when dealing with some people.

It's basically the same concept the "Jim face" from The Office. You do something stupid, they stare deadpan at you.

Boomers would call it the "fluoride stare", in relation to some of them believing fluoride in water made millenials stupid.

I dunno. I'd consider it just a dumb generational thing.

Simple answer: no

Nah, it's "old man yells at cloud". Blank face is a long standing tradition in the retail and service industries. Ignore 'em and keep being yourself.

My son is a cinephile, and he talks about "iPhone Face" on young actors, where actors in period pieces look like they've seen an iPhone. Once you're aware of it, it's really true. Its really prevalent in crappy Netflix productions and the like.

Me, an aging Xennial: "The hwat?"

As an elder millennial, I've neither witnessed nor even heard of this "phenomenon."

I've encountered what I think of as the Gen z stare once or twice.

It skews more towards the younger end of Gen z, and honestly might even be more of an older gen alpha thing.

What I'm talking about isn't the blank look given after being asked a stupid question, although they are absolutely masters of that as well (and I love that look and use it as myself)

It feels like more of a lack of understanding that someone is asking you a question and expecting an answer, or perhaps an inability to process that question and come up with an appropriate answer.

My friend who works at a bank has what I think is kind of the quintessential story that shows this version of the stare looks like, a younger person walked up to the counter, he asked some variation of "How can help you today?" And just got a stare back, like it never crossed their mind that they'd have to answer a question and say "I need to make a deposit/withdrawal,/etc."

And I don't think it's necessarily a feature of the generation as a whole, not that gens z and alpha don't have their quirks, but I have plenty of Gen z friends and coworkers and I don't think they're much worse off in any particular way than my fellow millennials. I have somewhat less exposure to get

I think it's a very specific subset of the generation with a perfect storm of social isolation/anxiety issues, maybe some neurodivergence, probably some overbearing helicopter parents, and COVID kind of hitting at exactly the wrong point in their lives so that they missed out on some kind of social development milestones.

That's been a thing long before zoomers have been around.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I would often be asked.

"Because what you just said was so mind blowingly asinine that I need a moment to put together a response."

The only thing I know of that comes close to what you're describing is the "thousand yard stare" of someone in the middle of an internalized existential crisis or reliving a traumatic moment as a daydream.

Or possibly just looking confounded by the other person's incredibly weird/stupid take on something.