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I find it incredibly awkward when tech presenters do the self-conscious pause and wait for crowd applause. When the applause don't come, or they're not well tim

I find it incredibly awkward when tech presenters do the self-conscious pause and wait for crowd applause. When the applause don't come, or they're not well timed, the whole thing ends up looking contrived and sad. Elon Musk does this a lot, and I've never seen it work well. It makes me wonder whether Apple had a lot of plants / cheerleaders in their audiences. I mean if you obsess so much about all the other parts of a presentation, would you be above planting cheerleaders? What would work better, I think, is to just do the presentation, and if you get a big round of spontaneous applause, then pause and acknowledge with a "yeah!". Definitely not the other way around, though.

jiofih 6y ago
In Musk’s case I don’t think he’s trying to emulate anything, looks like legitimate social awkwardness to me. Bet he does the same in private conversations! You may have a point re. the audience - as far as I know the teams involved in the launch would all sit in the front rows, and naturally cheer for every bit of their own work being introduced to the world.
ZeikJT 6y ago
Honestly, I think the other factor is having a good set of microphones trained on the audience. Sometimes what looks like a presenter pausing too early is really just the mics not picking up the milder scattered applause that then builds up and gets heard after they pause. The whole thing is a production, and having a good setup can radically change people's experience of it.