Hype Culture
Case Study • 1,511 words
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When was the last time you felt a strong sense of resonance while scrolling on the internet?
For Gen Z and Milennials, that feeling comes from the 2014–2018 hype culture peak: Vine memes, YouTube creators turning into global celebrities, fidget spinner mania, Logan Paul and Team 10, PewDiePie vs. T-Series, Pokémon Go summer, Tumblr aesthetics, viral challenges, and entire cities shaped by what was happening online.
Back then, hype was a collective rush of “everyone’s doing this right now.” Whether it was a new meme, a song drop, or a viral challenge, you felt part of something bigger, and were always searching for the next big thing.
Today, we scroll through content that’s perfectly optimized, algorithmically targeted, and branded to feel “real” (think user generated content, day in my life videos). But it doesn’t feel as human as the chaos of the old internet.
So what made that era so special? And more importantly, how can we recreate that kind of cultural electricity without faking it?
Hype culture is moments in popular culture where collective attention peaks and millions of people show excitement toward the ‘next big thing’. It’s the cultural rhythm that forms when everyone is watching, reacting, and participating together in real time and searching for something more. It thrives on shared feelings of excitement and anticipation, as well as the sense that you’re witnessing something at the same moment as everyone else.
What is hype culture?
Figure 1. "Everyday Bro" by Jake Paul (2017)
For many, the clearest example of hype culture operating at full power was 2014 - 2018. In this case study, I will refer to this period as the ‘hype era’. During these years, certain trends didn’t just go viral, but they took over the world. Vine comedy shaped school hallways, Pokemon Go packed entire parks, Team 10’s songs and PewDiePie subscriber war dominated conversations.
The 'Hype Era'
And the contrast is clear: back then, certain products or trends didn’t just trend, they dominated. They were in classrooms, malls, the internet, and real social life. When something blew up, everyone saw it. Today, even the most popular items like Labubus, Stanleys, or micro-memes rarely achieve that level of cultural monopolization.
Attention is more equalized across niches and no single trend reaches how common fidget spinners or slime was. The market is crowded, the algorithm fragments attention, and the internet no longer moves in sync.
A common pushback is: “Was the hype era really that special, or were Gen Z just kids back then?” It's a fair question, but the data shows that the scale of hype during 2014 - 2018 was objectively different, regardless of age or nostalgia.
Fidget Spinners
Slime
Stanley Cups
Labubus
Trend
Year
Amt. Sold
2017
2017
2024
2025
50M units in 6 months
100M extra bottles of glue
23M units
10M units
Isn't it because you were a kid?
What made the hype culture of the mid-2010s feel so magical wasn’t just the trends themselves, but the environment they lived in. It was one of the last stretches of the internet before everything became fully algorithmic, always-on, and optimized to death. Back then, people still went online from laptops and PCs, and social media feeds were centered on friends you already knew in real life, friends of friends, and fandoms, not a For You Page engineered to maximize watch time.
At the same time, popular culture was exploding in ways that blended online and offline life. YouTubers vlogged in their bedrooms, Vine creators were shaping school hallways, and Pokémon Go had entire cities wandering outside. When something blew up, everyone saw it, felt it, and lived it.
This collective attention was what many people look past when wondering why pre-covid felt so much more greater than today. The news cycle is heavier, feeds are more fragmented, and social platforms feel less like neighborhoods and more like hyper-personalized echo chambers. The cultural oxygen that allowed hype to spread, shared feeds, shared timing, shared reactions, has thinned out.
This is why trends today, like Labubus or Dubai chocolate don’t receive the same cultural excitement or communal participation. In this period, these trends would have been massive, memes, challenges, parodies, group chats blowing up, commentary videos, and everyone feeling ‘in’ on the same thing. Now, because everything is digitized, repetitive, and instantly commodified, we dismiss these moments as brainrot instead of hype. They appear, go viral for 48 hours, and vanish before anyone can feel anything about them, aside from feeling overwhelmed.
Hype culture moved from collective spaces to individual screens. The magic of the hype era came from the feeling that we were all tuned into the same world at the same time, not navigating algorithmic universes where no two people see the same internet. And if we want to recreate that cultural electricity today, it won’t come from trying to copy past aesthetics, but from rebuilding the conditions that made hype possible: participation, playfulness, collectivity, and the sense that the internet is something we experience together, not alone.
If hype culture is this powerful, GTMs need to stop chasing viral moments and start engineering moments where collective excitement can form. Today, hype isn’t accidental, but the proven results of behaviors, dynamics, and spaces where people feel like they’re a part of something bigger.
The reason that hype spread so explosively is because people shared trends with one another. Great marketers should focus on formats that feel passed between humans, not broadcasted by brands. This means designing for:
Co-creation: Give people formats they can remix: think duets, templates, filters, prompts, stitchable clips, meme blanks. People share what they help build
2. Mutual participation:
Create actions people do together: two-person challenges, collective countdowns, “everyone do X today,” micro-missions. Participation can help turn content into culture3. Shareability:
Build content that’s share-worthy: funny, surprising, identity-based, or emotionally sticky. If it sparks “this is so you” or “have you seen this?”, it spreadsRule of thumb:
If your content doesn’t trigger a friend sending it to another friend, it won’t generate hype. Feeds give you views; people give you momentum.
a) Putting real faces back into your brand
People trust humans, so showing founders, employers, or creators creates familiarity and the fuel for hype. This can be incorporated into your social media content, launch videos, demo videos, advertisements, or testimonies from clients.
b) Creating physical moments
Connection happens when things happen offline: popups, campus activations, micro-events, etc. (e.g. YC AI Startup School, Figma Config, Cursor Cafe)
And this doesn't have to depend on budget. Some of the biggest hype loops in the San Francisco intern ecosystem came from Pally parties, which were literally just parties in their office — the only catch being that their entry fee is to signup for the app.
This shows that you don't need capital, but a space, reason to gather, and a low-friction action that ties the moment back to your brand.
1) Aim for friend first, not feed first
Figure 5. USC Speak Your Mind Ice Bucket Challenge (2025)
Ok, then why did we lose it?
What am I supposed to do with this information?
Nothing shows the scale of this era better than the numbers:
Digital hype dies fast because everything now lives inside isolated and personalized feeds. The first step to generating extraordinary momentum requires brands to create shared, physical touchpoints that pull people out of their screens and into a collective space. In 2016, the culture was lived, and not consumed. People gathered for Pokemon Go, Coachella, and YouTubers felt more like friends than influencers because you saw their faces daily.
You can start with:
2) Go IRL more
Getting hype on your product is awesome, but it's the window that's even better. It gives you a short burst of cultural visibility, and what you do in that window determines whether people will stay or disappear.
Great GTMs will treat hype as ignition, not impact. Here are some things that you cannot miss after you achieve hype:
Accelerate entry and make it absurdly easy to join during the spike. Ensure that people can join with no friction, instantly
Convert attention into community and funnel people into a space where they can talk, share, and build identity (Discord servers, group chats, etc.)
Focus on retainment and create recurring events that give people reasons to return without needing another viral moment
3) Hype is compression attention, plan for the afterflow
Figure 2. Hypebeast fashion featuring brands like Supreme, Off White, and others (2016)
Figure 3. "THE BEST FIDGET SPINNER TO BUY!!", SupItsIgor on YouTube (2017)
Figure 4. 24K Gold Labubu, @lilzbullzmarbella2 on TikTok (2025)
Figure 6. Maybelline London Transport Campaign (2023)
Figure 7. Tweet on a Pally party, @mkliku on X (2025)
We look back on the hype era with so much affection and nostalgia because it reminded us of what it feels like to be a part of something bigger. Today, the internet is louder but less shared, and the path is not to recreate the past, but to rebuild the feeling.
If we can design for moments, community, and shared experience, the next cultural wave won't look like the hype era, it'll be something entirely new — and maybe even better.
Final notes
Figure 8. Viral Starbucks 'Unicorn Frappuccino' (2017)