No Stupid Questions

Simple answer: no

Young people in customer facing positions seem fairly unemotive in general, I'm not necessarily sure it's a new trend. The positions these young people are in are generally minimum wage (or effectively minimum wage). They aren't really being paid enough to smile lol, or don't really have much to smile about.

I tend to avoid all eye contact with folks in public so I'm probably not really the best to answer it. It's sort of something I've noticed, but I'm really not convinced it's new.

That said, I do get that there's a lot of folks who missed out on a lot of socialization opportunities during the pandemic. Whether that's enough to lead to an epidemic of young people doing a "stare" I'm not sure.

Every young generation gets clowned on. As a millennial I remember us getting it. So it's hard to really say if this is something real or just more "youth bad" rhetoric.

Nah, it's just the natural response to people asking the dumbest shit imaginable while you can't say anything rude without getting fired.

I've had 1 experience with 1 younger employee that encapsulates what is considered to be the "Gen z stare". She was prolly just bored at working in a beef jerky shop. Not gonna get my ruffles in a feather (I like em crunchy).

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."

It's just another distraction from the class war. Anything that tries to divide us is just a distraction.

If any young Blahaj users are reading this, I want you to know that this is exactly what my cat would do; and doing this supposed behavior makes you look like a cat. You are a cat if you do this. Carry on.

Oh my god leave the poor fuckers alone.

I am a millennial mom to a gen Z teenager and have noticed this as well actually. I wasn't sure if it was just that my kids friends are weird or what lol. I said hello and they stare with a small "hey" or don't say anything back while avoiding eye contact?? Lol... Like I am your friends mom? You should probably at least take a "hello"???

Edit: Now that I am reading these comments as a therapist it actually sounds like trauma? The zoning out and being lost in thought happens with chronic trauma victims. It sounds like disassociating from growing up with COVID and other systemically traumatic environments during crucial development periods. Sad

I've run into it, I think. Went out to eat with the wife and as we walked into the restaurant the hostess just stared at us, then picked up two menus and started walking. We were like, "Do we follow her or...?" And so, sheepishly, we followed her and she did indeed lead us to our seats. It was a couple weeks later when I first heard of the Gen Z stare. I showed my wife and we were like, oh... That was it, we guess.

I've seen it a couple other times - recently at CVS the guy at the pharmacy counter would just sort of stare at each customer without really acknowledging them until after they said what they needed. No greeting or pleasantries of any kind, and then he would go into his standard cvs scripted questions.

I'm also an early 90s baby. It used to be you'd say something back when you caught someone staring at you. Like hey take a picture it'll last longer. Then the one staring would snap out of the moment, crack a joke back, and be done with it. Now it's that moment going on too long and the person engaging the stare doesn't even acknowledge it afterwards. My brother's girlfriend does it all the time. The other day I'm getting ready to leave and opened my door to go to the bathroom and the girl stopped what she was doing to glare at me. No hello, no good morning, no thought behind those eyes. Just nothing. I put my hands up like I got arrested and she snapped back to what she was doing without acknowledging my existence.

It's almost as if nobody told them staring is rude. It's weird. It sucks.

Edit to add a word

I've seen it before from retail workers. The first time I thought they were on drugs.

They don't activate until they decide to act. They don't engage in formal greeting. Like, "Hi, how can I help you?" Like an idle NPC that hasn't been triggered to run its script yet.

It's probably related to the perpetual screen use that causes derealization or whatever. Like how streamers walk around in real life but their mind is engaged in the virtual world of their chat channel, and the real world to them is the virtual one.