[intellirogue]

It really was off-putting the way the main guy was saying words like "this is so exciting" while having zero facial emotion and a dead look in his eyes. Felt like somebody was holding a gun to his head and making him read off a prompter.

[gjsman-1000]

I'm actually wondering if Stratechery watched the same presentation. I don't think anyone could watch the same presentation and call it "playful" or "light."

[prepend]

It reminds me of the new customer support script where they make them use empathetic words. “ Awesome, let me help” and “ Thats frustrating” sound worse coming from humans that don’t care.

[smcl]

All the Microsoft presentations have that now - every second sentence describes something as “awesome”. It’s really off-putting, I don’t mind if someone is feigning enthusiasm but they lay it on so thick

[signal11]

That was Panos Panay who’s usually extremely engaged. I don’t know if it was a conscious decision — he did look like he was speaking at a funeral.

[vxNsr]

If you don’t know, that’s just how his face always looks, he’s not a super emotive guy.

[signal11]

You don't always have to smile or emote to project engagement. If you look at him introducing the Surface Laptop 2 at about 1m30s[1] through to 2m -- the passion and energy is unmistakable. Listen in particular to his voice and how he's moving around, and his palms.

Compared to that, and especially to a casual observer, he looked disengaged at the Win11 launch event. But it's probably a consequence of having to perform in front of a camera and not be able to move around as much.

[1] https://youtu.be/UtmTlcr1NkU?t=90

[agumonkey]

I've seen this pattern often in the last decade. This era is reciting not living