You might be interested in this article at Fortune on the paralinguistic features of Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before the Congress. There’s more to communication than just words.
Raising pitch for emphasis appears to be a Millennial “thing”. I suspect there’s a master’s thesis if not a doctoral dissertation on intergenerational miscommunication via its paralinguistic features.
Raising pitch
Your fellow Watcher, Bookworm, has noted this and other mannerisms among millennial males.
It creates an impression of unsureness and lack of confidence even if that’s not the case. Everything sounds like a question.
Doctoral dissertation? That’s just the start on a new multidisciplinary field of academic and artist endeavor. There are symposiums, conferences in Bali, papers to be published, journals to be created, mime operas all just waiting for their grants to be approved.
As with most other things there is no answer to the question “what’s the most/biggest…?” Understatement is a pretty good strategy.
This isn’t anything new – I remember “upspeak” being discussed in the 1980’s, particularly related to young women.