My Thoughts on the 'Gen Z Stare'
And I do have thoughts.
[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: cmclymer@gmail.com. And if this is too big of a commitment, I’m always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]
In the past week, there’s been robust discourse in legacy media about the so-called ‘Gen Z Stare’ and the bursts of generational conflict it reportedly captures.
It’s gotten write-ups by The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Boston Globe, NBC News, ABC News, CNBC, Newsweek, Indy100, Axios, Fortune, Vox, Vice, Business Insider, The Independent, Forbes, Buzzfeed, Slate, HuffPost, Glamour, People, and Marie Claire, among others.
As a millennial, I am apparently urged to be concerned about this phenomenon of Gen Z folks supposedly failing to appropriately interact with me through sufficiently pleasant facial expressions, so I thought it might be helpful to offer my thoughts:
The sitting president of the United States is currently covering up a massive sex trafficking operation that targeted children and likely implicates a number of powerful people who are currently out in the world and free to continue preying on children.
The sitting president of the United States just successfully pressured Paramount and CBS to cancel the #1 late-night talk show on broadcast television as part of what appears to be a blatant bribery deal because the host has been critical of him.
The sitting president of the United States just got the extremist Republican majority in Congress to strip 11 million Americans of health care coverage by the end of 2026 and upwards of 17 million Americans when you account for new federal work requirements.
The sitting president of the United States just got the extremist Republican majority in Congress to strip at least 3 million Americans of federal food assistance benefits and upwards of 11 million Americans will lose some or all benefits over the next decade, which means a lot more hungry Americans.
The sitting president of the United States just got the extremist Republican majority in Congress to pass legislation that puts more than 300 rural hospitals at risk of closure and a number of them are at immediate risk of shutting down.
The sitting president of the United States has implemented unnecessary and ridiculous tariff policies that force Americans to pay higher prices for consumer goods, making it harder for working class families to get what they need.
The sitting president of the United States has overseen an economy in which inflation has gotten worse in the past six months, no doubt partly because of his unnecessary and ridiculous tariff policies.
The sitting president of the United States is destroying our country’s infrastructure for monitoring potential natural disasters and responding to their aftermath with federal relief and assistance, placing millions of Americans in grave danger.
The sitting president of the United States is constructing internment camps to hold undocumented migrants and openly joking about intentionally making them suffer and get eaten by alligators.
The sitting president of the United States just got the extremist Republican majority in Congress to triple the budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency he’s actively using to terrorize both citizens and non-citizens through illegal detainment and deportation by masked, unidentified goons.
The sitting president of the United States is mobilizing National Guard troops and Marine Corps units against peaceful protestors, apparently in an effort to drastically and intentionally inflame civic unrest as a way of distracting from his incompetence and corruption.
The sitting president of the United States just eliminated 30,000 jobs at the VA, which will make it much harder for veterans and our families to have access to the benefits we earned through our service to this country, including health care.
The sitting president of the United States just gutted the State Department, eliminating 15 percent of U.S.-based positions at the agency and significantly reducing America’s capacity to influence international affairs and keep our country safe.
The sitting president of the United States just had 500 metric tonnes of emergency food rations destroyed, supposedly because they were nearing expiration and yet, there was no effort made to transfer them to organizations that would have put them to good use, which, again, feels pretty intentional.
The sitting president of the United States and officials in his administration continue to lie about his direct responsibility for the consequences of all the above.
Those are my thoughts on the “Gen Z Stare.”
Yes, 100% on point. Serve that hot cup of perspective! As always, thank you, Ms. Clymer. You and your voice are a bright light!
Charlotte,
Thank you for sharing this. They have a lot to stare at all of us about. I’m a tail end Boomer, and I can understand them. It’s not a mystery.
All the best,
Steve Dundas