What Is the Gen Z Stare? All About the Latest Term Dividing the Internet

As if there weren’t enough things causing divides between Gen Z and other generations, the Gen Z stare is another one to add to the list. 

The online community seems to frequently get a kick out of cross-generational arguments (particularly between millennials and Gen Z), and TikTok continues to be the preferred medium for such discourse. From debates over everything from skinny jeans, side parts and phone call etiquette, each generation seems to have its own quirks and criticisms of the others.

Now, the latest topic sparking debate is the Gen Z stare. Users are taking to TikTok to share their reasons for dishing out the facial expression, what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the stare and why this blank, unbothered look is so distinctly Gen Z. 

So, just what exactly does it mean to dish out a Gen Z stare?

What is the Gen Z stare?

Depending on who you ask — and yes, which generation they belong to — the Gen Z stare can mean slightly different things. 

In general, the stare itself is the blank, often emotionless look that Gen Z seems to employ largely in customer service settings when met with questions or greetings. 

In one recent TikTok video, user Janaye, who goes by @abovethecrest on the app, explained the expression from her perspective: “The Gen Z stare is specifically when somebody does not respond or just doesn’t have any reaction in a situation where a response is either required or just reasonable,” she says in her video. 

She goes on to explain a scenario where, in her job as a flight attendant, she told a member of Gen Z to put a bag under her seat in order to prepare for takeoff, only to be met with a blank stare instead of a verbal or physical response. The Gen Z-er’s mother eventually had to intervene to get her child to put the bag underneath the seat.

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“I heard someone else say that it seems like they’re waiting for ChatGPT to tell them how to respond,” she said in the video.

Users like @tiltonicatiktok have also contributed to the trend in videos highlighting how interpretations of the stare can vary between Gen Z and older generations. In the comments, other users weighed in.

“Gen Z not understanding the Gen Z stare is the comprehension equivalent of the Gen Z stare,” one pro-millennial user wrote.

“‘Gen z stare!’ but you just asked if our coffee was real,” another pro-Gen Z stare user chimed in, insinuating that Gen Z employs their signature stare when encountering frustrating or silly questions.

Another user described a typical situation in which it’s common to have experienced the Gen Z stare. In the video, the user pretends to order at a restaurant and is met with a blank, deadpan stare and dry one-liners from a fictional Gen Z employee in response to her attempts to order.

“Ngl I always leave restaurants when I get the gen z stare of a waiter at the front 😭,” the user wrote in the caption.

But what does Gen Z have to say about their namesake facial expression? 

Gen Z, of course, has been pushing back on the categorization of the stare as “rude” or “disinterested,” instead taking to the app to offer up another interpretation of the look: as a device employed when they believe a customer (or frankly anyone for that matter) is not “in the right.”

On TikTok, creators have been posting skits and POV videos to demonstrate the kinds of real-life exchanges that might trigger the stare — especially in customer service settings. In one clip, a user role-plays both sides of a conversation between a customer and Gen Z employee to illustrate just how baffling an interaction might be cause one to deploy the stare:

“Can I do a strawberry-banana smoothie?” the fake customer asks.

“Yeah, I can do that. Anything else for you guys?”

“No. But does the strawberry-banana smoothie have banana in it?”

In response to the question, the user delivers her best Gen Z stare. And, users in the comments were quick to support the usage of the expression in this scenario.

“We stare because we are in shock,” one user commented. 

Another added, “‘Oh you have a gen z stare’ hypothetically, if you heard the words that came out YOUR mouth….you would stare too 😭.”

The video has racked up 12 million views and 2.7 million likes on the platform. Other videos share similar scenarios in which a customer asks a question with an obvious answer, leaving the Gen Z employee frustrated.

However, while Gen Z is pushing back against the millennial interpretation of the stare, many are claiming that the generation is purposefully misunderstanding the term.

“We’re talking about the stare when anyone tries to have just a normal human interaction with you, like in the flesh, and you guys freeze the f— up,” user Brooke Adams, who goes by @nolablest2020 on TikTok, clarified in one video. “I can’t even count to you how many times that I’ve tried to say hi to neighbors that are walking by that are in their teens and they just look at you like they just saw a ghost… it is this blank deer-in-the-headlights stare that you guys have.”

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Another Gen Z user weighed in, explaining that Gen Z might be confusing the “customer service stare” and the Gen Z stare for each other. “The customer service stare is the stare that a worker gives somebody for asking something f—— stupid … the Gen Z stare is the ‘lead paint stare’ that customer services workers receive instead of a response to anything.”

How does the Gen Z stare relate to past trends like ‘the millennial pause?”

It’s unclear exactly how and when the phrase was coined, but it has its roots in quite a few other online battles — primarily between millennials and Gen Z. 

The millennial pause, for example, is just another informal feud between the generations. The term, which describes the split-second delay before speaking in a video has been employed by Gen Z online to determine whether or not a user is a millennial, and often, to subsequently make fun of them. 

But if there’s one thing that Gen Z and millennials seem to agree on, it’s their shared feelings towards Boomers (short for Baby Boomers: the generation of people born between 1946 and 1964).

Of the Gen Z stare, Adams made sure to clarify in her video that both millennials and Gen Z can remain united over one thing: “The stare we’re talking about is not the one that everyone under the age of 40 gives a Boomer.”