Gen Z is amused by the 'Millennial Pause' observed by older generations while shooting videos

People from different generations have their peculiar mannerisms and trends, often leading to hilarious incidents. The latest trend seems to be the "Millennial Pause," a phenomenon where generations before Gen Z would briefly pause before talking when a camera started to record. A Wikipedia page provides a detailed account of this phenomenon, sharing many instances of celebrities and influencers who have done it. Melia—who goes by @suprememelia on TikTok—posted a video some time back in which the entire cast of the "Avengers" can be seen doing the Millennial Pause.

The video has gained a lot of attention, with over 284K likes and 1.7K comments on the platform. At the start of the video, we can see Chris Evans looking into the camera, waiting for a few seconds and then greeting viewers. Mark Ruffalo follows with a more noticeable gap between the camera starting to record and when he begins to speak. The same happens with Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olson, Robert Downey Jr., and Tom Hiddleston. Hiddleston even engages in an awkward pause at the end of his video, where he seems to be figuring out how to stop recording.

People were amazed to see celebrities doing the Millennial Pause and shared their thoughts in the comment section. @trish.in.az said, "I genuinely think we do it so we're not like screaming at the camera the second we're recording. Almost taking a second to seem chill." @keidybot shared, "I have the 'Millennial Pause,' but that's because Snapchat cuts the beginning part of my videos, and now it's a habit to wait." @akosuadiamondz highlighted, "You know, sometimes when you hit record, it cuts off the first second (and apparently a lot can fit in that second), so I think it's them trying to avoid that."

The same phenomenon was highlighted in a Reddit post by u/Olshansk. They wrote in the caption, "Today I learned the 'Millennial Pause' is a phenomenon where generations older than Gen Zs tend to pause before speaking when a camera begins recording." The post has gone viral with 34K upvotes and over 2.1K comments on the site. People shared their opinions in the comments. u/dualnorm was quick to point out: "This is obviously because some cameras to this day will have a delay before recording after you press go. It was even worse for phones when millennials were growing up."

u/Sparktank1 said, "I mean, it makes for nice editing. A few seconds of nothing before the content starts. Especially if you're used to people not being prepared to record you yet. Someone is always going to say, 'Hold on... okay.'" u/NArcadia11 commented, "I know millennials get made fun of, but this is SO much better than the Gen Z style of videos where they always seem surprised that someone (themselves) started videoing them halfway through their sentence." u/daddychainmail added, "It's an old recording trick. We waited for the beep or at least for enough time for the cassette to wind a bit before we started."

You can follow Melia (@suprememelia) on TikTok for more interesting observations like this.