So, what is the next big….hype to be born? What is the next hype to be killed?
We live in the Hype-Times, one day a Hype is up, only to be down the next day. The last case study is the ‘Metaverse’, which was announced boldly, and now recently, lots of media title can be found with the title: metaverse is Dead – either with! or with?.
And between the birth and the death of A Hype, it seams that the same patterns appear again and again:
Phase 1 – The Birth of a Hype
• Everybody learns a new word: NFT, Blockchain, DEFI, crypto, Metaverse, web3, etc
• The number of experts in that domain increases overnight: You can really see it on Linkedin profile -> former innovation experts -> blockchain experts -> global speakers -> NFT creatives-> DEFI Influencers -> web3 evangelists -> MetaverseExperts -> AI experts
Read TechvangArt article ShapeShifting Experts. The Innoventologist FairyTale article
• Industries, big-tech, and prognosis experts announce that in 5-10-20 years, that industry will be worth billions or trillions, and have a 10-20-30 times increase, and will create the next jobs you want to work
• Workshops are appearing + different courses that finally will lead to a sort of many courses under the name of “Academia” type
• FOMO is at its high -> nobody wants to miss the trend and the next-big-business of next-big-job
• Journalists, bloggers, and influencers celebrate and promote the new hype as the Dawn of an new era, just like the internet was few years ago
• Real experts from the field, that believed for years in that tech/trend/product/innovation, and were in the shadow, are now hopeful that their efforts/skills/knowledge diligently developed over the years will finally be rewarded (spoiler alert: not really or not entirely!)
Phase 2 – The Cheerful Hyping Developments –
• Communities are mobilizing! Depending on the hype: let’s build the next products, next startups, landing pages, new artists communities, new hackathons, etc
• Conferences and Events are set-up. Real experts hope to be invited, but no real experts can be present at so many conferences, so inevitable the not-so-real experts (some have to work) or hype-experts have a chance to relaunch again
• Your Linkedin is full with feeds from former-Hype_A_Experts-turned Hype_B_expert
• Some funds finally arrive also to the few ones that worked for years on that solution – be it blockchain or 3D
• Journalists and influencers are again happy that they announce a big deals and big hopes
• Crowds are realizing that is not so easy! Not easy to sell an NFT, not easy to make AI art (other than the use of Midjourney, more technical skills are necessary) , not easy to make an AR, not easy to understand DEFI.
Phase 3 – the Death of the Hype
A new Hype is found, so the old one has to go… Investors or Big-Tech or the Tech-Crowds have found a new toy with the potential for More. This means almost all the resources are redirected in the new hype, and the old players are gone. Gone are the conferences, the workshops, the events, festivals. Gone are the dreams, jobs, and investments.
Questions Above the Hype:
Some don’t really understand how in a few months, and less than 2 years, the hype is gone. They are rightfully frustrated and don’t understand who’s to blame: the crowds, the journalists, the investors, the big-techs, the fake-experts, the…?
Should we start finger pointing?
Or should we try to better understand the Hype-Era?
How these Hypes are appearing and who is benefiting from them?
NFTs were considered revolutionary, the NFTart term was coined, and NFTs were supposed to fight the speculators in the fine art/visual art market. Just to be proved that well… In the NFT market, speculators are alive and well, and most artists still can’t sell their art. So, the question is who really benefited from the NFT hype? (spoiler: we don’t know the answer)
Why are we fooled by Hypes? When Meta came out with the Metaverse-term, we knew that Metaverse existed long-time ago. It was coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, where humans, as avatars interact with each other and software agents, in 3D spaces.
Similarly, 3D stories and immersive experiences existed in Festival, and 3D environments, and 3D Spaces existed long before. Not to mention that if we visit SecondLife- well some avatars were less ‘cartoonish’ than those in Horizon.
And well, why most people believed in Meta/Facebook rebranding, a company with a poor track record of ethics of running business and handling data, for example?
Do we rethink the so-called experts flourishing overnight in the new-hyped Era? And why are some of the experts called experts? If the next hype is Space or Quantum or Neurology or AnotherCoolTech, how are we discerning the real ones from the fake ones?
Are all PR, Communicators, Journalists, eligible to have an opinion on all matters from Tech to Art to Science? Or should we start a discussion on all these topics? Maybe we are happy in the Eternal-Hype-Eras?
Or maybe the death of a Hype is Good? Because the fake-ecosystems, and fake-expectations, fake-experts just go away, leaving the space for those really passionate about that niche?
But, anyhow, before and behind any Hype, there are the real possibilities, the real creators, scientists, technicians, builders, storytellers, creators, designers, artists, visionaries. They put long-hours and efforts into developing something new, read books and studies, and make experiments- failed ones and successful ones. They can explain mechanisms, visions, not just copy-paste discourses from others. You might not find them necessary posting all day long on Twitter or Linkedin.
Those that worked before the hype, those that believe in change. And they will be here also after the hype is gone.
Beside the Hype, experts asked some questions related to immersiveness, centralisation, blockchain use-cases etc - the tech and solution and some of the use-cases are legit (the speculators around are the problem).
RIP Hypes (maybe Hype Cemetery) . Lets now really discuss.
This happened to NFTs
This happened to DAOs
This happened to Blockchain
This happened to DEFI
This happened to Crypto
This happens to THE Metaverse
This will happen to AI?
So, when will the crowds crown and cheer happily Long-Live the New Hype?