Gen Z’s Toxic Breakup Culture Has a New Name: Banksying

It happened on a Tuesday night, over takeout sushi.

Layla was telling a story about her coworker’s disastrous Hinge date—gossip that usually made Noah’s face light up like a fireplace. But tonight, he smiled politely, reached for his phone, and muttered, “That’s wild,” without looking up. It was the kind of response you’d give to a stranger in line at CVS, not the person you’ve been sharing a bed with for nine months.

Her body registered the alarm before her brain did: a tightening in her chest, the faint rush of heat in her ears. The urge to cut through the silence launched her into another anecdote—she was suddenly a comedian bombing on stage, refusing to give up the mic. But when met with more apathy from Noah, she finally asked the question she’d been swallowing for weeks: “Are we good?”

He didn’t look up. “Yeah, of course,” he said, voice even, almost bored. “Just tired.” But Noah hadn’t been tired. He had been slipping away in increments so small, they were almost imperceptible. Late meetings that canceled dinner plans. Gym nights that stretched longer than usual. The way his hand no longer reached for hers at crosswalks. Each absence disguised as circumstance. Each retreat so subtle it felt imagined.

When the breakup came 24 hours later—You’re amazing, I’m just not in the right place—Layla stared at the empty sushi container still on the counter, trying to reconcile two competing realities: for her, it was sudden. For him, it had ended long before she noticed.

There’s a name for this kind of slow but sudden disappearing act: Banksying.

For those unfamiliar, Banksy is an anonymous street artist who’s known for shock and awe. Their work appears overnight—splashed across walls and bridges—and by the time the public crowds around, the artist is already gone. You never catch them in the act; all you’re left with is a finished piece and the question of when it appeared.

Banksying in dating works the same way. One partner has already decided to leave, but instead of saying it, they start a quiet retreat. Affection gets rationed. Plans are canceled at the last minute. Eyes are glued to their phones through IRL conversations; replies shrink from paragraphs to “Ok.” But technically, the relationship remains intact—date nights still happen, your Instagram stories still get a like. Until one day, seemingly out of nowhere, the breakup comes: I’m not in the right place. You’re amazing, but… For the person on the receiving end, it’s abrupt. For the Bansky-er, it’s inevitable; they’ve been sketching this departure for weeks.

The trend is the latest addition to TikTok’s heartbreak lexicon. Ghosting named the sharp, sudden vanish. Breadcrumbing captured the maddening drip-feed of attention that never quite adds up to commitment. Banksying sits somewhere in between—less obvious than ghosting, less coy than breadcrumbing. But it all stems from the same cultural disease: dating has become less about finding the perfect relationship and more about perfecting the art of disappearing.

The logic behind the behavior goes something like this: if the relationship feels off, if the banter isn’t as sharp or the spark feels dimmer, don’t waste time trying to fix it. This isn’t your person. Move on. Swipe again. Optimize. And on the surface, it makes sense. Why pour energy into someone who isn’t for you? Why endure a messy confrontation when the right match is supposedly one profile away?

Because my generation has been taught to choose silence. To treat normal discomfort as a sign of malalignment; to plan an exit strategy the moment something feels off. But what we haven’t learned is how to address that offness—how to name it, explore it, and maybe even work through it. And that failure runs both ways.

The reality is that Bankysing does not, in fact, come out of nowhere. The person on the receiving end has felt their partner’s retreat for a while—their warmth fading, the intimacy dwindling. And yet, they choose to say nothing. Asking “Is everything okay?” might invite an answer they’re not ready to hear. So while the breakup might feel sudden, it’s born from a kind of quiet collusion—both people are too afraid of discomfort to say what they’re really feeling.

The irony behind this muzzle is that it blocks us from the very thing we’re chasing. Every time we dodge a hard conversation, we sidestep skills that turn connection into relationships. How to name what we’re feeling in real time. How to sit in someone else’s pain without bolting. How to own the ways we’ve fallen short without collapsing into shame. These are the unglamorous muscles that build intimacy—the same ones we’ll need if we ever do find the right person.

It’s not to say that we should stay in dead-end relationships. (No one wants to repeat our grandparents’ decades of bickering.) But right now, we’re carrying the same unpracticed patterns from one relationship to the next, until disappearing is the only thing we know how to do. The more we avoid discomfort—the more we abandon confrontation and reward silence on TikTok—the further we drift from the connections we claim to be searching for.

Yet, for what it’s worth: If you’ve been sharing a bed with someone for months, the least you can do is have a conversation before you f*ck them.