Sabrina Grimaldi remembers the exact moment a stranger’s bad behavior caused her to deploy the “Gen Z look.”
The 26-year-old was in a Phoenix grocery store, heavily pregnant, when an older woman at the checkout counter noticed how “huge and big” her feet were, telling her she was having a “big baby.”
“To say I was surprised would be an understatement,” Grimaldi said. Without saying a word, she gave the woman a blank look.
“It’s the kind of comment that leaves you just looking at someone, trying to understand why they thought that was an appropriate thing to say in the first place,” she said.
She held the gaze until the woman squirmed. Once the stop was over, Grimaldi casually turned away. “That was it. I went on with my day,” she said.
Much noise has been made online on sites like Reddit and through social media hashtags about the viral phenomenon dubbed the “Gen Z gaze.”
If you’ve ever received one – or if you’ve received this look, whether intentionally or not – you may know that the look leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
Related 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 “an empty expression that members of Generation Z give in situations where a spoken response would be expected.”
The definition goes on to say that the gaze occurs in “classrooms, restaurants, and other social settings, and often appears as judgmental toward those who receive it.” But what if that expressionless gaze was a silent boundary – and those of us on the receiving end of the gaze were the ones passing judgment?
This tension could stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of intention, according to Grimaldi, creator and editor of the online lifestyle magazine The Zillennial Zine. The publication targets the micro-generation of individuals caught on the blurry boundary between the Gen Z and Millennial camps.
“I think part of the generation gap is that young people are often expected to be polite, smile and maintain a pleasant interaction, even when someone else has been unnecessarily rude,” she said.
While baby boomers and Gen
That’s because not everything has to be rainbows and butterflies for Gen Z.
“I think we’re gradually moving away from the overly cheerful way of acting like every customer or every 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 hates false cheerfulness, said Loren Margolis, co-author of “Executive Coaching: Perspectives and Practices Across the Field.” This generation views as wrong many social interactions that older generations view as necessary for creating a positive, polite work climate, she said.
“Gen Z employees are a completely authentic generation. To that end, they refuse to engage in small talk. They don’t like what they interpret as false happiness,” Margolis said.
Non-verbal facial expression can appear rude or clueless to older generations who are accustomed to using superficial requests – verbal chatter and jokes like “How’s your day going?” for example – to elicit smiles during customer service interactions, she said.
Older generations tend to judge younger ones, said communications specialist Betsy Butterick, author of “Kids These Days: Effective Strategies for Coaching Gen Z and Beyond.” She said she has experienced the Gen Z gaze both “directly and observationally” hundreds of times.
Butterick, who was born in 1983 and considers herself an older millennial, said it’s important for older generations to remember how Gen Z was raised when they were the target of the gaze. Younger generations have grown up with technology in a way that has left them with fewer opportunities to practice face-to-face interactions.
Gen Z athletes she has coached told Butterick the look wasn’t meant to be offensive or disrespectful.
“For Gen Z and Generation Alpha, peer connection is the most valued social currency,” Butterick said. “Anything that could potentially threaten this relationship is often met with silence and staring. Because neutrality avoids the 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 often sees Gen Z staring at them. Leahy said it was important not to turn a viral term into a personality trait for an entire generation.
“It may reflect uncertainty, anxiety, processing, discomfort or simply a different idea of what an appropriate response looks like,” he said.
The pandemic also robbed many children 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 could mean some people in this generation have fewer opportunities for spontaneous in-person interactions or back-and-forth conversations.
Although older generations may interpret limited eye contact, a flat expression or a pause before responding as being rude, lazy or unprofessional, that may not be a younger person’s intention at all, Leahy said.
“In this sense, the outlook of Generation Z can tell us as much about generational expectations as it does about Generation Z itself,” he said.
The Gen Z outlook reflects a deeper struggle people of this generation face around human connection, said Kamran Eshtehardi, a clinical psychologist at Kamran Psychology in Pasadena, Calif., who specializes in working with adolescents and young adults.
“So many Gen Zers feel disconnected from the norms and culture that millennials and older are accustomed to,” Eshtehardi said via email. “Additionally, I believe there is a component of Gen Z’s outlook that protects them. Many are withdrawn and feel obligated to engage in a world that has failed them.”
It’s important for those targeted by the Gen Z gaze to remember that the behavior itself doesn’t tell you why someone is doing it, said Kristin Emerson, an organizational consultant based in Laurel, Maryland, in an email to CNN. Emerson helps teams and leaders improve communication, collaboration and workplace efficiency.
“This is where generational stereotypes can become misleading,” she said. “We are very quick to observe behavior and attribute a motive to it. A blank expression can be interpreted as rude, disengaged, critical or simply inattentive.”
For people who expect visible enthusiasm, quick verbal responses, eye contact, or other signs of engagement, the absence of these signals may lead them to suspect something is wrong, but this is not always the case.
“The Gen Z gaze is exactly the kind of behavior that can invite people to overinterpret what they see,” she said.
If you find yourself the target of Gen Z’s gaze, consider taking the “dialogue rather than diagnosis” approach, Emerson said.
“Instead of assuming that someone, Gen Z or otherwise, is rude, disengaged or unprofessional because they aren’t showing the signals we expect, we can ask a clarifying question, adapt our communication and give the other person space to respond differently,” she said.
Butterick suggests taking some time if you’re dealing with the Gen Z gaze.
“The advice I would give is to wait. When you feel uncomfortable, wait two, maybe three seconds more,” she said.
And if the person continues to stare, you can ask them what’s going on.
“It’s good to call it out because this generation also values transparency a lot. So if they have someone who calls something out without criticizing them, blaming them, shaming them, they’re more interested in having a conversation with that person,” she said.
Who knows? Your conversation might just help bridge the generation 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 look when she shares this story with them.
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