The Stare That Broke America | The American Spectator

The internet has discovered that young people sometimes look blank when confused or bored. Panic ensues.

It’s the latest “phenomenon” rattling the internet: the so-called Gen Z stare — the earth-shattering discovery that 20-year-olds sometimes zone out. Millions of TikTok views later, we’re treating blank expressions and dead-eyed customer service like they’re some anthropological breakthrough.

This is what passes for cultural analysis in 2025: dissecting teenage facial expressions like we’re studying alien life forms. The same media apparatus that gave us think pieces on “soft launching” (not oversharing) has now discovered that young waitresses look annoyed when customers ramble.

Revolutionary stuff.

The “Gen Z stare” joins a proud tradition of transforming mundane human behavior into complex sociological phenomena. We’ve become a society that needs trendy labels for basic rudeness and social failings.

Consider “ghosting” — the fascinating discovery that some people don’t return calls or texts. Previous generations called this “being an ass” or “having no manners.” Now it’s a dating phenomenon worthy of academic study. “Breadcrumbing” is the equally groundbreaking concept of stringing someone along, a practice documented since humans first figured out courtship. “Love bombing” is showering someone with excessive attention early in a relationship, which your grandmother would have recognized as “coming on too strong.”

“Doom scrolling” elevated “reading too much depressing news” into a clinical-sounding condition. “Phone stacking” is putting phones in a pile during dinner. Previous generations accomplished this by simply not bringing electronics to the table.

The professional world hasn’t escaped this linguistic inflation. There’s “quiet quitting,” perhaps the most insulting rebranding of all. This earth-shattering trend involves doing exactly what you’re paid to do and nothing more. It used to be called “having boundaries” or “working your scheduled hours.” But Gen Z transformed basic employment into a revolutionary act against capitalism. They’re not slacking off. They’re making a statement about work-life balance while collecting a paycheck for minimal effort. “Quiet firing” is when employers make jobs unpleasant to encourage resignations — workplace politics older than the concept of employment itself. “Rage applying” means applying to jobs when you’re frustrated with your current one, which was previously just “looking for work.” “Sunday scaries” branded the age-old phenomenon of dreading Monday morning into a mental health crisis.

We’ve pathologized everything. Millennials turned “being tired at work” into “burnout culture.” They transformed “living with parents” into “failure to launch syndrome.” “FOMO” — fear of missing out — gave clinical weight to garden-variety envy. Now Gen Z gets the full David Attenborough treatment for looking bored at Starbucks.

The explanations are predictably overwrought. COVID made them socially awkward! Social media broke their brains! They lack mentorship! They’re coming of age in difficult times!

Every generation has faced hardships. The Boomers had Vietnam and civil rights upheaval. Gen X navigated economic recession and the Cold War’s end. Millennials lived through 9/11 and the 2008 crash. They still held doors open and made eye contact. They didn’t treat human decency like a subscription upgrade.

Or — and stay with me — maybe we’re just raising young adults who never learned how to function off-screen. Maybe they’ve been so conditioned by curated profiles and swipe logic that real-time eye contact now feels invasive. Maybe when a customer tries a bit of small talk, a 19-year-old receptionist stares through them, not out of malice, but because basic human engagement now registers as labor. And effort, it seems, is in short supply.

This isn’t profound authenticity. It’s more like social laziness dressed up as honesty.

The same generation that gave us participation trophies and “everyone is special” messaging is now scandalized that young people won’t pretend to care about your boring anecdotes. We spent decades teaching kids to be authentic, then clutch our pearls when they are.

The “stare” discourse reveals more about the observers than the observed. Millennials, traumatized by years of Boomer condescension about avocado toast and work ethic, are now playing the same game — analyzing the next generation like specimens in a jar.

But Gen Z isn’t broken. Not completely, anyway. They’re selectively engaged. They’ll pour energy into TikTok videos and online communities while treating real-world interactions with the enthusiasm of a DMV employee on a Monday morning. Their blank stare is less a cry for help and more calculated disengagement from anything that doesn’t immediately gratify or entertain them.

The real phenomenon worth studying isn’t the Gen Z stare. It’s our compulsive need to transform ordinary human behavior into viral moments and cultural movements. We’ve become a society so addicted to novelty that we’ll analyze a teenager’s facial expression for deeper meaning rather than accept the obvious: sometimes people look bored because they’ve chosen disengagement as a lifestyle.

Previous generations understood something vital — courtesy wasn’t always heartfelt, but it held society together. You smiled. You nodded. You engaged. Not because it was authentic, but because it was necessary.

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