Fame and Hype
Tags: productivity, techtalks, motivation, discuss
Published: 2020-12-23 22:07:42

This article is an inspiration based on this post: https://dev.to/madza/what-s-your-attitude-towards-hype-1pag. I was actually going to write a response but I managed to type more than what I had intended. So, thanks @Madza. 

As an outcast here (I'm a designer) I believe "fame" plays a big role when it comes to frameworks, programming languages and I must say this, in the era where we have youtube tutorials, paid promotions and all of that good stuff. 

When I was learning about Web development stuff (through Youtube) or whenever I need to search for a tutorial video (which, believe me it's not my first resource to go to) sometimes I see videos that compare 2 stacks, languages or things that similarly have the same purpose in mind. I say this with all compassion and integrity, some people think comparing "x" vs "y" is actually a viable source of information to other people, if anything what they're doing is misinforming the public and these type of videos tend to provoke and to construct an idea of what something can or can't be. The people that spend their times creating comparative videos also love to point out which company they belong to, that's fine because that's part of the information ultimately, but if you can, don't, because placing companies, known companies in a scenario may alienate the viewers from "x" tech stack. For example I dislike Facebook and Google views on Privacy, I don't use React, Facebook Google or Angular but the reason why I don't use them it's not because of who owns them or created them. I don't mean to question duality or your own morals but those stacks offer nothing to me, Iv'e gone through a lot of posts and videos and I had to form an opinion based on my own way of thinking, not based on the video, but from what really mattered to me. 

One of the things that made me roll my eyes at the beginning was this video: https://youtu.be/EQndMLuDDCs "Java" vs "PHP". It just goes to show how people can be blinded by fame and it's hilarious. Some people consider PHP "bad", "dirty" because of how PHP was used at the beginning and the way it was written which is none sense, even more so if you look at it from where the language is right now. What I know as a designer is that Java and PHP are capable of handling big projects, they should have their differences here and there and their pros and cons but by no means one is bad, that's stupid to think. 

Since I'm not a real Programmer/Software Engineer I want you to take this as it is: I'm somebody who did not needed to learn how to code, I simply had love for the interwebz <3, I wanted to. So I had to look out for what was convenient for me what resonated with me and since I'm a designer, what would allow me to grow as one, by this I think I had the strange opportunity to bypass any judgement of this "fame" passed on to me possibly by a mentor, a tutor or teacher or even studying colleagues. 

# Hype and Fame

For me, Hype is almost the same as Fame, both concepts are based on opinions led by other people, who at the same time are influenced by other people, it's all hear-say until we get our hands and minds to it. Something can gain traction for something collateral and that is known to be fame. When something hasn't gotten any fame, but gets talked about a lot, that's hype. Just because something hasn't reached a "fame status" and therefore is still being "hyped" doesn't mean it's good, at that point it's a waiting game, and when something breaks it goes bigger than if it didn't had any associated fame. We now live in times where people love to hype things up through social media, websites, blogs, youtubers, influencers and more.

# Fame

For instance, if I'm in a band and our music resembles Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath, meaning we basically "sound" like those bands, what the people will probably be saying is that we sound like "x" and "y", and that will grant us some kind of "fame". There are going to be 2 types of speeches: those who consider us as bad, that "stole" their music, "copying" their sound, and others that might find us amusing and probably will not care about the fact. This means we will have good and bad fame, but at the end it's just fame, it's "something" that encapsulates the overall perception or opinions of 1, 2 or more groups of people about what we do. 

# Hype

You can consider Hype as a preexisting notion of fame, though I believe something has to happen after, and something has to be happening now, the before moment of claim to fame. 

Since the age of social media and Digital Marketing what marketers have successfully done to products "hyping" has played a huge role. They use any and all social networks to enhance their message associated with something, I believe this tactic has grown to be the standard for many businesses, people want their product to be unique, and they want to stand out but they also want to tell you all about their product so you can analyze it before hitting its peak. It's also a new standard (or maybe not) to have funnel websites, with freebies that let you have a peak or a portion of the real thing, and that's also where the hype is. 

# Console wars: Xbox vs Playstation

In reality it's just a marketing festival of 1 unit vs the other marketing unit, they're both recurring to the same audience and they both sell you a product that does the exact same thing, playing video games. But it's more important how they communicate their product and the way they say it to us, the users, which platform the consumer is going to need (I don't own a PS5 or Xbox). They organize major events broadcasted all over the internet with details about their system, what games they intent to release and what studios are partnering with them, so if you're a fan of "x" game we want your attention. This is when the hype is beginning and taking form. 

# Another example: Cyberpunk 2077

The game came out and up until december 10th, the game was receiving all kinds of press, mostly positive, it was "pushed back" several times (for whatever reason) and also an "anomaly" occurred when they announced that unfortunately BestBuy had "mistakenly" shipped out a few units of the game even before the postponed released dates and that nobody was going to be able to stream it or they would be receiving a ban or something (bs imo). But before it was finally released (I don't own Cyberpunk though) they did as much hype as they could possibly do, through social media. And once the game was finally released "officially" it began to slowly gain traction and with this it began to start gaining fame. Well as it turns out the game had many flaws which I'm not getting into but as all things it was now up to the fame part to take it's place and settle in.

# Finishing up

The main thing here is that, if we distance ourselves from both of these events the "hype" and the "fame" states the better our own interpretations of a product can be if we simply go back to our needs, and that's because we are consumers, may be bad for some people to think of us in that way but products and offers are everywhere and the more we establish a way of going about these hyped or overpriced products, the smarter our decisions will be when it comes to spending our money on them and our efforts to master them.