054 | Transcending Hype
March 22, 2021
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Minute of Transparency: Everybody's Doing It!
Today's Topic: Transcending Hype
In this episode:
Hype is King
Smoke & Mirrors
Excited vs. Interested
// 1. HYPE IS KING
So first things first - we probably need to define the word "hype" so we're all on the same page...
Dictionary.com simply defines hype as:
To stimulate, excite, or agitate
To create interest in by flamboyant or dramatic methods
To intensify using ingenious or questionable claims, methods, etc. in advertising and promotion, or publicity to intensify the effect
All of these are verbs - action words - to "hype" something up is to to stimulate, to create interest, to intensify.
But hype can also be a noun.
A noun is a person, place or thing...
And hype is a very real thing. It's something that exists in and of itself.
Similar to the concept of "buzz." As in Buzz Marketing...
I can still remember back in the early 2000’s, I was working in the church world as a web/communications guy, and the terms "Buzz Marketing" "Viral Marketing" and "Word of Mouth Marketing" were really taking off.
With the increase in web traffic, the introduction of blogging, and the new kid on the block - social media - there was no stopping a product, service or idea for that matter. If you could get the online community buzzing about you, or your thing - you were getting free advertising - and that's the best kind of marketing.
If your friends are doing it...
If the influencers are doing it...
Yes, if the world is doing it...
Shouldn't I do it?!
And that's the power of Buzz Marketing...or what I'd like to generically term as "hype."
And it isn't hard to see that today, Hype Is King.
As the digital world of 2005 and 2006 expanded, fine tuned itself and learned what worked best, we were suddenly faced with a grim reality:
Everything is available online
Data, data about us, is the gold of our day
It is bought and sold as if it was a precious metal
With our increased use of social media, we're a trapped audience
No longer to marketers have to figure out where you're going to be in order to market to you
They know exactly where you are - right in front of your little screen - for a HUGE percentage of the day
So as long as you are advertising on all of the top platforms - you're going to have access to almost everyone - in a variety of ways
And the scary thing is this:
No longer is it just an Instagram account that you have to find and agree to follow
No longer is it just hype - in the form of your friends posting about something and you finding it that way
Now it is AI, or Artificial Intelligence, deciding what you should and shouldn't see
Don't believe me? Watch the Netflix documentary called The Social Dilemma and you'll get a whole new perspective on what this means moving forward
Now we could do an entire episode, or even a series on this topic, and the role social media plays in our culture.
But for now I'll just say that the future looks bleak. At least in terms of social media, and the role AI is starting to play.
One of the issues that came to the forefront in 2020 during the presidential election - was the whole conspiracy theory thing.
Now we've all heard conspiracy theories - they aren't a new thing. In fact they have been around since the dawn of time.
Many are innocent: A person, or group of people asking questions about an event and suggesting that something deeper may be going on.
Then there are the more sinister conspiracy theories: Theories that were actually invented, or crafted on purpose in order to cause chaos, dissension or unrest. Often for political reasons, or as propaganda meant to manipulate people - as was the case in Nazi Germany where an entire country fell to Hitler’s hype…
But now, with the use of AI, conspiracy theories have become even more dangerous. And here's how it works:
Someone comes up with the conspiracy theory and presents it online
People start "liking it" and sharing it with their friends
It starts small, but then the AI algorithms take over
The computer starts making the decisions for us
Determining what is popular and what is not
A conspiracy theory that gets a sudden spike in likes is boosted by the algorithm - and shown to more people
And it creates what we would call the snowball effect - rolling downhill, picking up steam
Now the computer, the AI, the algorithm doesn't view the content as good or bad, moral or immoral - it simply views it as content that is either valuable or not valuable
This is how a conspiracy theory that is completely false, and proven to be false, can still take the social media world by storm and actually dupe unsuspecting viewers into believing a lie
Now I've kinda gone down a rabbit hole here...
So let me bring it back to our topic for today, which is "hype."
The two are not totally unrelated.
A conspiracy theory that is being promoted online and has the full support of AI - is the hype - it's the thing that everyone is seeing, talking about and potentially being confused by...
Back to our definition of hype:
It is stimulating and exciting
It is creating interest because it is flamboyant and dramatic
And it seeks to intensify the situation through ingenious or questionable claims and/or methods
And that my friends is why I consider hype being king, a scary thing...
Not scary like horror movie scary - that's too obvious.
No this is scary on a whole other level. It's scary because it is deception and manipulation we aren't even always aware of.
It's being tricked into believing something for 2 years only to find out later that you were mislead, and that you lived your life differently because of that false information.
You know the feeling you get when that happens right?
It's horrible! In fact I think it's one of the cruelest things we can do to people.
And it’s bad enough when a person knowingly does this to another person. But these days, It could be happening every day, little by little, simply because AI programming is running the show. It's a technology that we built, but once we let it loose, it is out of our control. It simply does what it was created to do and aside from pulling the plug, we're at the mercy of its decision-making skills.
For those if you who love a good Sci-fi movie - this will sound a lot like The Terminator series.
You have a similar scenario where man creates the computer, and the computer takes over and tries to destroy man.
Of course in these movies, the AI that takes over the world, manifests itself in physical, mechanical beings and implements of war bent on the destruction of all humankind.
But what if it wasn't that obvious?
What if the same thing is happening today - just on a mental and emotional level - machines controlling our minds vs. actually trying to physically kill us?
I guess that's more on the level of The Matrix series...
Or maybe it's a combination of the two...
At any rate, I've gone down a pretty dark path - so let's get back on the well-lit highway we started on...
// 2. SMOKE & MIRRORS
So we've done a deep dive into hype, what it is and how it has become king in our culture today.
But what we haven't addressed is the question, "Why?"
Why is hype king? And what's really behind it?
Well, I'm not going to spend a lot of time here. And I don't want to spiritualize it to death. But here are three things I believe are behind the hype culture we live in:
Selfishness:
We live in a capitalistic society
One that is built on the concepts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
And too much focus on the pursuit of happiness tends to make one selfish
So really - we live in a country where selfishness is a goal - even if we don't think of it in those terms
And that's one of the reasons hype is king - because it has loyal subjects
Profit:
There is no better social construct for a business or company, than a selfish society
Your advertising, buzz marketing and yes - your hype is like throwing gasoline on an out of control fire
The voices of our day are: I want this. I want that. I like this. I have to have that. They have that and I don't!
So as a company, business of individual, give them what they want
And you'll rake in the profits
Hype is big business in our culture because everyone wants a piece of the pie
Everyone wants to make bank off of our pursuit of happiness
So they create products, services, travel and entertainment that we can't help but pass up - because it's all hype
Distraction:
And finally, on the spiritual level...
Hype is a means of distraction
Think about all of the time we spend watching TV, surfing the web and keeping up with social media
We're ensuring that there is a constant hype data stream entering our brain
A data stream that is distracting us from other, more important things
It's smoke & mirrors to be sure
And who is behind it all?
Well, there is that one guy...Satan...who is probably laughing his head off right now
I mean even if he isn't 100% responsible for our hype culture - don't you think he's fully satisfied with the way things are going?
He's like a Puppet Master, and has us all running around with our heads cut off - like rats in a cage - like dogs chasing their tails...
// 3. EXCITED VS. INTERESTED
OK! you say. I get it...I live in a crazy world that is marketing to me 24/7. Using hype to keep my heartbeat up, my adrenaline flowing and my desire to be happy always in the front of my mind.
But that's life - it's just the way it is. I can't change it.
So what am I supposed to do about it?
Glad you asked...
Have you seen the movie The Truman Show?
It was a brilliant film released in 1998 starring Jim Carrey.
Long story short...
Truman is allowed to be born into a fake world - an elaborate movie set made to look like a small town. But this small town was nothing more than an extreme reality television show - and Truman was the star - only without his consent.
He grows up in the town, goes to school, has a job, starts a family, and lives his entire life thinking it's his life.
But along the way he begins to sense that something wasn't right. Small incidents, technical glitches, actors on the show that flubbed lines or went too far off script. Each built up to the point where Truman made a daring attempt to cross the ocean and escape the small town.
[spoiler alert]
In the climactic ending of the film, Truman, having made it through a near hurricane level storm on the fake ocean sails his boat back into the sunshine and immediately makes contact with the outer wall of the television set.
He realizes the wall is there - painted like the horizon with blue sky and clouds. And there is a walkway around the outer wall. He gets out of the boat, onto the walkway and eventually comes to a door - which leads off set - and into the real world.
Crazy right?
But what an illustration of the way our kids are growing up today.
They are born into a culture that has them running around, unaware that there is more to life than meets the eye. That there is a bigger world out there - just on the other side of the fake ocean.
Lucky for us, there are signs along the way:
We see things that make us look up
Things happen to us that make us look up
People who care about us tell us to look up
We hear messages, listen to podcasts and read books - all telling us to look up and see what's really going on
But at the end of the day, it's up to us whether we listen to the warnings or not.
We either look back down and go about our business. Or like Truman, we step into the unknown and continue to search for the truth.
Ultimately - the truths we're looking for are the answers to our Big Three Questions:
Where did we come from?
Why are we here?
And where do we go when we die?
These are the things we're being distracted from. These are the things Satan hopes to hide with his smoke and mirrors.
To wrap things up - we have two options. We can either be:
Excited
Interested
People who are easily excited - are suckers for the hype:
If you survive on excitement
The flashy, the new and things that excite the senses
The next big things
What's popular at the time
What everyone else is doing
What everyone else is wearing
The things you need to have so you can keep up with everyone else
Looking the way you need to look so you're fitting in
If this is you, you're living the excited life
But there is another option. You can live the interested life:
People who are able to see through things
They hold off and watch
Flashy and exciting things are first evaluated for their worth
There is a need to see value in something before spending a lot of time pursuing it
Choosing things based on their inherent value vs. the hype value
Now I'm not going to be all dogmatic and say you have to be one or the other...
But I would challenge you to take an interest in life first, and then find a few things to be excited about after that.
See - it isn't an all or nothing kind of thing. It's more of a, "getting your priorities straight," kind of thing.
Doing first things first and laying a strong foundation so that the hype things that creep in from time to time can't fully take over.
Let’s Land the Plane:
This week, ask yourself the following questions:
What does hype mean in your world? What has your attention? And can you tell what things have a real strangle hold on you?
Do you understand the smoke & mirrors concept? Do you feel that living in the hype keeps you from seeing or doing more important things with your life?
And finally, are you excited all the time? Or have you found things to be interested in first?
Thanks for joining us today. Love being with you each week.
Until next time friends, have a great week, don't fall for the hype, and keep Transcending Human!
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