Opinion | What’s up with the ‘Gen Z stare’?

We’re not zoning out. We’re just not performing for others while also trying to adapt to a world full of contradictions.

By Haley Taylor Schlitz

July 24, 2025 At 7:00 AM

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If you’ve been on TikTok lately, you’ve seen it: the “Gen Z stare.” A deadpan face. Slight frown. Eyes somewhere between focus and frustration.

One clip shows a young woman staring blankly while her boss explains how “nobody wants to work anymore.” The caption that goes with it says she is practicing her “Gen Z stare” before her 9 a.m. meeting.

It’s a look that’s launched a thousand think pieces and triggered even more confusion across generations.

Some see it as disengagement. Others call it attitude. But what if it’s neither? What if it’s just how we’ve learned to survive in a world full of contradictions?

More than 2,800 young adults were recently surveyed by the Schultz Family Foundation and HarrisX. They found that nearly half of Gen Z feels unprepared for the jobs of the future, and only a third view their career as a top priority and as central to their success in life. Not because we are unqualified or don’t care. But because we’ve stopped pretending the old system still works.

Read the full story at The Minnesota Star Tribune