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."

😒

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.

Upvoting because the article itself is infuriating.

Apologies, but for some reason I understand it, even if from the first glance the article seems uncommon...

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...

Gen Z? Boomers?

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?

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.

Cheesecake?

Tornadoes?

Y’all missed out on the “Millenials killed the (insert here) industry, and are broke due to avocado toast” articles of yesteryear.

Nah nobody understands cause its just an attempt to create some infighting between generations.

Assholes exist and always have, in all generations.

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?

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.

Asshole… ;)

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.

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.

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.

Also, didn't the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye complain a lot about others being fake and so on?

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.

Cataracts??

Forget 20th century media, there are Sumerian cuneiform tablets with parents complaining about their kids’ work ethics.

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.

avocado toast

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.

Its obvious clickbait, do not share it. They get money from that.

At this time of year?

Localized entirely within your kitchen??

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.

You think that stare is specific to gen Z?

I think at some point, someone noticed there was a bit of markup on it when eating at restaurants, associated Gen Y with it, and then the narrative took off from there?

It reminds me of the same finger-wagging that seemed to be aimed at probably Gen X in the 90s over things like lattes. If people at that time and at that age were struggling financially, it was not because of the occasional latte.

ikr TFA says "...Gen X might have been taught to be overly friendly and polite in customer service settings..." and I was like: wat? Maybe they TRIED, but our stereotypical response was always "...meh."

Yup, this. However, reading/watching something from the past 100 years does tend to bring it home in a more visceral way. People having a hard time connecting with the experiences of people that are still living (boomers, Silent generation) are going to really struggle connecting to ancient Sumerians.

Adam Conover has the perfect talk on the notion of "generations"....I honestly wish he'd expand on this talk and put together instances in a slide deck where he goes from Gen Z (or alpha) and these kinds of narratives all the way back to colonial times or whatever he has the energy for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HFwok9SlQQ&t=1s

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.

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...

Also, hearing people talk about spending is wild. Especially when it comes to things like toast, Netflix subs, smart phones, and televisions.

1. Avocado toast. Okay, discretionary spending is something everyone needs to keep an eye on, sure. But I don't think toast is why people are finding things unaffordable for things like housing, health care, transportation, etc...
2. Netflix subscription is as low as something like $108/ year. Not even worth talking about.
3. Smart phones are not really optional in today's society. People that pretend that they are cannot even be serious. Also, you'll see boomers glued to their fucking phones, too, so it's not like "constantly scrolling" is some exclusive trait of {generation younger than mine}.
4. Televisions. This is the one that seems to unhinged to me. Adjusted for inflation, TVs have never been cheaper, especially per square inch. Consider that the first color TVs were 12 inches in size and apparently $12,000+ in 2026 dollars. I think people that have their mind frozen on those kinds of economics are the ones talking about it. Suppose you had the room for it and splurged just a bit, and got a mid-range 85 inch television. That's still $1000-$1600, and a one-time cost (well, not counting the electricity). That is not going to be the difference between a down payment on a house or not.

https://www.cablecompare.com/blog/the-average-cost-of-a-tv-how-has-it-changed-over-time

LOL, right? Have any of these people even met Gen X or watched some of the media aimed at Gen X?

It's not like we invented disaffected youth, but it's like plenty of music and movies captured that and made it an aesthetic for us. I recommend anyone thinking otherwise watch something like Repo Man.

I'm sure plenty of boomers in their youth had some of the same fuck you attitudes. They were the people that said "don't trust anyone over 30" and "hope I die before I get old"?

Does anyone really think they were super bubbly in their teens and twenties while carrying out McJobs for The Man?

This reads like “don’t sit too close to the tv or it will fry your brain!!!”