Rude or a response to rudeness? In defense of the ‘Gen Z stare’

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Sabrina Grimaldi remembers the exact moment a stranger’s bad behavior pushed her to deploy the “Gen Z stare.”

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.”

“To say I was surprised would be an understatement,” Grimaldi said. Without uttering a word, she served the woman a blank look.

“That’s the kind of comment that leaves you just staring at someone, trying to process why they thought that was an appropriate thing to say in the first place,” she said.

She held the stare until the woman squirmed. With the shutdown complete, Grimaldi casually turned away. “That was that. I went on about my day,” she said.

Much ado has been made online in places like Reddit and via social media hashtags about the viral phenomenon dubbed the “Gen Z stare.”

If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of one — or given the gaze, however intentionally or not — you might be aware that the look leaves much open to interpretation.

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Linked to people born between the late 1990s and early 2000s, the slang term was defined earlier this year on Merriam Webster’s website under the slang tab as “a vacant expression that members of Generation Z give in situations where a spoken response would be expected.”

The definition went on to say that the look occurs in “classrooms, restaurants and other social settings, and often appears judgmental to those on the receiving end.” But what if that expressionless gaze is a silent boundary — and those of us on the receiving end of the stare are the judgmental ones?

That tension may stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of intent, according to Grimaldi, creator and editor-in-chief of online lifestyle magazine The Zillennial Zine . The publication targets the micro-generation of individuals caught along the blurry edge between the Gen Z and millennial camps.

“I think part of the disconnect between generations is that younger people are often expected to be polite, smile and keep the interaction pleasant, even when someone else has been unnecessarily rude,” she said.

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While baby boomers and Gen X might have been taught to be overly friendly and polite in customer service settings, younger generations, including Gen Z, don’t find anything rude about being more straightforward in their interactions, Grimaldi said, calling the disconnect “a generational thing.”

That’s because everything doesn’t have to be rainbows and butterflies for Gen Z.

“I think we’re slowly drifting away from the overly cheery way of acting like every single customer or every single person you interact with in public is your best friend, or like you’ve known them for 10 years,” she said.

It’s true that Gen Z abhors fake cheeriness, said Loren Margolis, coauthor of “ Executive Coaching : Perspectives and Practices Across the Field.” This generation sees many social interactions that older generations consider requisite for building a positive and polite work climate as fake, she said.

“Gen Z employees come from a generation that is starkly genuine. To that end, they refuse to engage in small talk. They don’t like what they interpret as fake happiness,” Margolis said.

The nonverbal facial expression can come across as rude or clueless to older generations that are accustomed to using surface queries — small talk and verbal pleasantries like “How’s your day?” for example — to prompt smiles during customer service interactions, she said.

Older generations tend to be judgy of the younger ones, said communication specialist Betsy Butterick, who is the author of “Kids These Days : Effective Strategies for Coaching Gen Z and Beyond.” She said she has experienced the Gen Z stare both “directly and observationally” hundreds of times.

Butterick, who was born in 1983 and considers herself to be an elder millennial, said it’s important for older generations to remember how Gen Z was raised when on the receiving end of the stare. Younger generations have grown up with technology in a way that’s left them with fewer opportunities to practice face-to-face interactions.

The Gen Z athletes she’s coached have told Butterick that the stare is not meant to be offensive or disrespectful.

“For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, the peer relationship is the highest-valued social currency,” Butterick said. “Anything that could potentially threaten that relationship is often met with silence, and a stare. Because neutral avoids negative when it comes to social consequences.”

Licensed clinical psychologist Matthew Leahy, who works with adolescents, young adults and families in private practice in Texas, said he sees the Gen Z stare often. Leahy said it’s important not to turn a viral term into a personality trait for an entire generation.

“It can reflect uncertainty, anxiety, processing, discomfort or simply a different idea of what an appropriate response looks like,” he said.

The pandemic also deprived many kids of years of “ordinary face-to-face practice at a very important developmental stage,” Leahy said. And while that doesn’t mean Gen Z has forgotten how to communicate, he said it may mean that some people in that generation had fewer opportunities for spontaneous, in-person interactions or back-and-forth conversation.

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While older generations may interpret limited eye contact, a flat expression or a pause before responding as rude, lazy or unprofessional, that might not be a younger person’s intent at all, Leahy said.

“In that sense, the ‘Gen Z stare’ may tell us as much about generational expectations as it does about Gen Z itself,” he said.

The Gen Z stare reflects a deeper struggle people from that generation face around human connection, said Kamran Eshtehardi, a clinical psychologist at Kamran Psychology in Pasadena, California, who specializes in working with teens and young adults.

“So many gen-z people feel a disconnect from the norms and culture that millennials and older are accustomed to,” Eshtehardi said via email. “Furthermore, I believe there is a component of the gen-z stare that is protective for them. Many are withdrawn and feel forced to engage in a world that has let them down.”

It’s important, for those on the receiving end of the Gen Z stare, to remember that the behavior itself doesn’t tell you why someone is doing it, said Laurel, Maryland-based organizational consultant Kristin Emerson in an email to CNN. Emerson helps teams and leaders improve communication, collaboration and workplace effectiveness.

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“That is where generational stereotypes can become misleading,” she said. “We are very quick to observe a behavior and assign a motive to it. A blank expression can be interpreted as rude, disengaged, judgmental, or simply inattentive.”

For people who expect visible enthusiasm, quick verbal responses, eye contact or other signs of engagement, the absence of those cues might lead them to suspect something is wrong — but that’s not always the case.

“The ‘Gen Z stare’ is exactly the kind of behavior that can invite people to overinterpret what they are seeing,” she said.

If you find yourself on the receiving end of the Gen Z stare, consider taking the approach of “dialogue rather than diagnosis,” Emerson said.

“Instead of assuming that someone, Gen Z or otherwise, is rude, disengaged, or unprofessional because they are not displaying the cues we expect, we can ask a clarifying question, adapt our communication, and give the other person space to respond differently,” she said.

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Butterick suggests taking a beat if you’re facing the Gen Z stare.

“The advice I would have is to wait. When you find yourself uncomfortable, wait two, maybe three seconds longer,” she said.

And if the person continues to stare, it’s fine to ask them what’s going on.

“It’s OK to call it out because this generation also highly values transparency. So if they’ve got someone who’s calling something out without criticizing, blaming, shaming them, they’re more interested in having a conversation with that person,” she said.

Who knows? Your conversation just might help bridge the generational gap.

Terry Ward is a Gen X travel writer and freelance journalist based in Tampa, Florida with four Gen Z nieces who may or may not give her the Gen Z stare when she shares this story with them

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萨布丽娜·格里马尔迪清楚地记得，一个陌生人的不良行为促使她使出了“Z世代凝视”。

这位 26 岁的女子当时身怀六甲，在凤凰城的一家杂货店购物。结账时，一位年长的女士评论说她的脚“又大又胖”，并告诉她她会生个“胖宝宝”。

“要说我感到惊讶，那简直是轻描淡写，”格里马尔迪说道。她一言不发，面无表情地看了那位女士一眼。

“这种评论会让你目瞪口呆，琢磨着对方当初为什么会觉得说这种话合适，”她说。

她一直盯着那女人，直到她扭动身体。事情结束后，格里马尔迪漫不经心地转过身去。“就这样，我继续忙我的事了。”她说。

在Reddit等网络平台以及社交媒体话题标签上，关于被称为“Z世代凝视”的病毒式现象引起了广泛关注。

如果你曾经被这样注视过——或者被这样注视过，无论是有意还是无意——你可能就会意识到，这种眼神有很多可以解读的地方。

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Z世代喜欢戴耳机——但他们了解其中的风险吗？专家们对此发表了看法。

这个俚语与 20 世纪 90 年代末到 21 世纪初出生的人有关。今年早些时候，韦氏词典网站在俚语标签下将其定义为“Z 世代成员在需要口头回应的情况下所表达的空洞表情”。

该定义还指出，这种眼神出现在“教室、餐厅和其他社交场合，而且往往让被注视者觉得带有评判意味”。但如果这种面无表情的凝视是一种无声的界限——而我们这些被注视的人才是带有评判意味的人呢？

据在线生活方式杂志《Zillennial Zine》的创始人兼主编格里马尔迪称，这种紧张关系可能源于对彼此意图的根本误解。该杂志的目标读者是那些处于Z世代和千禧世代之间模糊地带的“微世代”人群。

“我认为代沟的部分原因在于，人们常常期望年轻人要有礼貌、面带微笑，并保持愉快的互动，即使对方无端粗鲁，”她说。

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格里马尔迪表示，虽然婴儿潮一代和 X 世代可能被教导在客户服务场合要过分友好和礼貌，但包括 Z 世代在内的年轻一代并不认为在互动中更加直接有什么不礼貌的地方，他称这种脱节是“代际差异”。

那是因为对于Z世代来说，生活并不一定非得充满美好和幸福。

“我认为我们正在慢慢摆脱那种过于热情、好像每个顾客或你在公共场合遇到的每个人都是你最好的朋友，或者好像你已经认识他们10年了一样的态度，”她说。

《高管教练：跨领域的视角与实践》一书的合著者洛伦·马戈利斯表示，Z世代确实厌恶虚假的快乐。她说，Z世代认为许多老一辈人视为营造积极礼貌的工作氛围所必需的社交互动都是虚假的。

“Z世代员工来自一个非常真诚的世代。因此，他们拒绝闲聊。他们不喜欢他们认为是虚假的快乐，”马戈利斯说。

她表示，对于习惯于在客户服务互动中使用表面问候（例如“今天过得怎么样？”之类的闲聊和客套话）来博取微笑的老一辈人来说，这种非语言的面部表情可能会显得粗鲁或无知。

传播专家贝齐·巴特里克（Betsy Butterick）说，老一辈人往往会对年轻一代评头论足。她是《现在的孩子：指导Z世代及以后世代的有效策略》一书的作者。她说，她曾“直接或间接地”数百次感受到Z世代的凝视。

出生于1983年、自认为是“老一代千禧一代”的巴特里克表示，老一辈人如果经常被年轻人盯着看，就应该记住Z世代的成长经历。年轻一代从小就接触科技，这让他们缺乏面对面交流的机会。

她执教过的 Z 世代运动员告诉 Butterick，这种凝视并非出于冒犯或不尊重。

“对于Z世代和阿尔法世代来说，同伴关系是最有价值的社交资本，”巴特里克说。“任何可能威胁到这种关系的事情，往往只会换来沉默和冷漠的目光。因为在社交后果方面，中立可以避免负面影响。”

持证临床心理学家马修·利希（Matthew Leahy）在德克萨斯州从事青少年、青年和家庭心理咨询工作。他表示，经常看到Z世代的这种凝视。利希说，重要的是不要把一个网络流行语变成整整一代人的性格特征。

他说：“这可能反映了不确定性、焦虑、思考过程、不适感，或者仅仅是对适当回应的不同看法。”

莱希表示，疫情也让许多孩子失去了“在非常重要的发展阶段进行日常面对面交流的机会”。虽然这并不意味着Z世代已经忘记了如何沟通，但他指出，这可能意味着这一代人中有些人缺乏自发的、面对面的互动或交流的机会。

这位高中毕业生反思了疫情如何影响了她的青春期。

莱希表示，虽然老一辈人可能会将眼神交流有限、表情平淡或在回应前停顿解读为粗鲁、懒惰或不专业，但这可能根本不是年轻人的本意。

“从这个意义上讲，‘Z世代的凝视’或许既反映了Z世代自身的特质，也反映了世代的期望，”他说。

加州帕萨迪纳市 Kamran Psychology 的临床心理学家 Kamran Eshtehardi 专门从事青少年和年轻人的心理咨询工作，他表示，Z 世代的眼神反映了这一代人在人际关系方面面临的更深层次的困境。

埃什特哈迪在邮件中写道：“很多Z世代都感到与千禧一代及更年长一代习以为常的规范和文化格格不入。此外，我认为Z世代的眼神中也包含着一种自我保护的成分。许多人性格内向，却又被迫融入这个让他们失望的世界。”

马里兰州劳雷尔的组织顾问克里斯汀·埃默森在给CNN的一封电子邮件中表示，对于那些经常被Z世代盯着看的人来说，重要的是要记住，这种行为本身并不能告诉你对方这样做的原因。埃默森致力于帮助团队和领导者改善沟通、协作和工作效率。

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Z世代真心想帮助别人，如果报酬足够丰厚的话。

“这就是代际刻板印象容易产生误导的地方，”她说。“我们很容易观察到某种行为，并为其赋予动机。一个面无表情的人可能会被解读为粗鲁、冷漠、带有偏见，或者仅仅是注意力不集中。”

对于期待看到明显热情、快速口头回应、眼神交流或其他参与迹象的人来说，缺乏这些迹象可能会让他们怀疑出了什么问题——但情况并非总是如此。

“‘Z世代凝视’正是那种容易让人过度解读所见事物的行为，”她说。

埃默森说，如果你发现自己被 Z 世代的目光注视，不妨考虑采取“对话而非诊断”的方式。

“与其因为某人（无论是 Z 世代还是其他世代）没有表现出我们预期的迹象就假定他们是粗鲁、冷漠或不专业的，不如提出澄清性的问题，调整我们的沟通方式，并给对方留出以不同方式回应的空间，”她说。

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Butterick建议，如果你遇到Z世代的凝视，不妨稍作停顿。

“我的建议是，等等。当你感到不舒服时，再等两三秒钟，”她说。

如果对方继续盯着看，你可以问问他们发生了什么事。

“指出错误是可以的，因为这一代人也非常重视透明度。所以，如果有人指出错误却不批评、不指责、不羞辱对方，他们就更愿意和这个人交谈，”她说。

谁知道呢？你们的对话或许真的有助于弥合代沟。

特里·沃德是一位居住在佛罗里达州坦帕市的X世代旅行作家和自由撰稿人，她有四个Z世代的侄女，当她和她们分享这个故事时，她们可能会也可能不会用Z世代特有的眼神看着她。

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