I’m sure you’ve heard the term “hype” once or several hundred times in your life. It refers to the excitement or interest around a certain thing whether it be a movie, video game, Frank Ocean album or anything in between. I’ve seen the term used much more in recent months, and it’s almost always referring to the release of something. And with said hype comes something that I’m not too fond of. It’s “too much hype.”
When something that’s being highly anticipated gets a trailer of some sort, it’s obviously going to excite people. That’s how it gets people to consume the product. Makes sense, right? Well, for some reason, it’s become common for some people to say that because these things receive the trailers that they do, it won’t be as good on release. Of course there are reasons that people abide by this type of thinking, but I don’t think that we should jump the gun before the special something in question is out.
For example, earlier this week a nifty little game called No Man’s Sky was released. It’s a highly ambitious game that let’s players explore a plethora of galaxies in order to reach the center of the universe. There are an almost unimaginable number of planets in the game, so much so that one person could never hope to find them all. This game had been in production for quite some time, and even before the release, people were commenting on trailers saying how disappointed they were, or how disappointed they were going to be, by the time of release. Apparently releasing trailers of any sort increases the standards of some individuals tenfold.
So we know why hype is created. It’s to get buzz, to get that eventual profit. But what happens if there’s too much hype? What happens if so many trailers of something are created that you don’t even have to play the game or watch the movie? Let me give you an example of something that might have had a little too much hype.
" Suicide Squad." It’s a movie that has been awaited by the general movie-loving public for quite some time. We’ve seen trailer after glorious trailer. And what happened? It tanked. Hard. Now, I can’t say this from personal viewing experience because I have yet to see it myself, but those Rotten Tomatoes scores are pretty evident that there’s a little something missing in the movie.
People were so hyped about this movie. I couldn’t go a day without hearing someone comment somewhere about how pumped they were to see a new Joker on the screen and how “badass” the movie looked. Well, there you go, kids. You got your Joker and you got your badass moments. And you got way let down, didn’t you?
This is the problem I’m finding with this level of hype. It disillusions people into expecting something so grand, so marvelous, and being ultimately let down because there’s almost no way it would be the thing of your dreams.
So, what do we do to combat this? The only thing that I can think of is to not give yourself overexposure to whatever is being hyped up. Had people not so highly anticipated “Suicide Squad,” perhaps it would have been viewed in a better light. I’m sure the movie would still have the problems that it does, but with much lower expectations going into the movie, it might have seemed better. Unfortunately, there’s no going back in time for that movie.
So, what do you think? Do you think that if something garners too much hype that it automatically becomes bad? Or should we just wait and see how it all unfolds?