Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Forget about Gartner's Hype Cycle for a moment — which after all, having been around since 1995, has lost much its hype– here's a really interesting chart from researcher Johannes Klingebiel for thinking about hype. (At right; to read each category description, click to embiggenate.)

Background from Johannes here:

Hype is an interesting thing. It‘s rightfully often spurred as misleading bullshit or ignorant boosterism but it also has its uses. In short: when it comes to creating a new technology you need to sell a vision to attract the resources you need (people, investment, etc.). Hype can also act as glue. At its best, it can create a shared vision pulling the actors in the same direction and thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

One important component of hype is thus a set of promises of what the technology can achieve in the future for you dear reader. These might range from solving a particularly annoying problem to creating new markets, making you heaps of money, or even revolutionizing a whole field and changing society as a whole.

Open question for readers: When it comes to the categories that New World Notes regularly writes about — virtual worlds, the Metaverse, VR, and (sometimes) NFTs and cryptocurrency — where does each one currently fit?

My take below:

• Virtual worlds: Marketing Claims. 
• Virtual reality: Exaggerated Returns.
• The Metaverse: Utopian Futures as it's usually described in the current hype wave, Marketing Claims if it's written in relationship to metaverse-type platforms with actual mass market user bases.
• NFTs: Magical Thinking verging on Othering.
• Cryptocurrency:  Very much Othering.

Discuss! 

Via Kottke.org