On Hype and the Inflation of Praise
The writer examines how social media has inverted the relationship between achievement and recognition, turning insincere flattery into currency and inflating premature claims—calling unreleased songs 'classics' or untested films 'blockbusters.' The piece argues that this erosion of discernment undermines genuine growth and asks for more honest, constructive feedback.
Life and social media have taught me two very valuable lessons.
Life has taught me that when you work really hard and consistently at whatever hustle you have going on, sooner or later people are going to take notice and they will talk about you to others and someone will gladly hold your hand and pull you up to a place where you can gain even wider recognition. It never happens overnight, it takes patience, hard work and a good measure of self-preservation.
Social media has made me understand that sometimes the most effusive praises are also the most insincere and if you are not careful, you can get caught up in the hype that a lot of people give in the comments section. You may think the recent dress design that you posted on Facebook is actually great when your cousins and friends tell you what an accomplished designer you are, when they are really just being nice and trying not to hurt your feelings.
Social media has also taught me that you have to be careful about whom you call “haters.” A lot of the people who criticise you are just being real. And you are better off listening to them than blocking them. It takes lot of discernment and a great openness to criticism to be able to weed out the good seeds of comments from the bad ones.
Why do I say all these things?
Well, I have been seeing and looking at a lot of things happening mostly on social media and have been perplexed at how often we heap praises on things that are yet to garner enough of what should constitute their praise-worthiness.
I cannot count the number of times that I have been to YouTube and seen a newly-released song being described as a ‘club-banger’. Shouldn’t a song have banged in the club for at least a six months before we call it a club-banger?
I cannot the number of times I have been to comments section of a recently released song on YouTube and someone in the comments section says “this song is a classic.” Shouldn’t a song have stood the test of time and popularity to be called a classic? BoB Marley’s “No woman No cry” is a reggae classic. Hein Pere, in 15 years, could quite possibly be a described as Cameroonian rap music classic. That will be depend on 10 years old kids of today. "Je ne suis pas ton bonbon," as good as the song is, is not a classic
One reason I believe this happens is because more than ever, we as a people have attained a level of ass-kissing that we have never done in the history of our species. More and more of us are concerned with gaining followers than we are at gaining value out of those whom we meet in the real world and in the cyberspace. We place the most valuable metrics of our lives on likes and shares, and not on the real impact of whatever it is we do. And so we want to associate with those we think are cool so we can look cool too, by hyping the things they do.
Another reason I think this happens is because, now, most of what we do is done for the gram. We do a lot of window-dressing and we are more focused on the red carpet and the aesthetics rather than what we really want to put out as products. That is why we will organise one event with a good idea behind it and then market its second edition as the ‘biggest’ event of that kind ever.
It is also why you will see someone describe a Cameroonian movie that has only had a red carpet premiere and no distribution whatsoever as a blockbuster. Whether they do know what a blockbuster is, is in itself another debate. But hey, it sounds good doesn’t it?
It is heart-breaking, to say the least. And that is where I say a lot self-preservation is needed. We need to be able to check ourselves and know when we produce quality work and where we are lacking in certain skills that need improvement. If we do not do not that, then we will fall into the blockbuster and club-banger trap and we will not grow. Or, we will grow but not in the right way that we should have.
Sometimes I get very frustrated with the quality of some of my articles that I publish here, but because I have to meet a publication deadline I will post anyway what I know is not my best work. Yet I almost always get praise for them. If I let that get to my head, I will be selling myself short in the long run as I would not seek to do better or improve my writing. I have seen some terrible writing here on Facebook get Pulitzer-worthy praise. But who is fooling who here?
Someone once posted on Facebook that “in the age of social media, if you don’t have a good sense of discernment, you will end up taking advice from fools with likes from other fools.”
They could not have said it better.
I think we owe it as a responsibility to one another and to ourselves to be able to check ourselves when in the position to constructively give the praises and the criticisms that would help people grow. Doing otherwise will not help us. We can only start being better than everyone else by first of all being the best of ourselves.
- Wandji Wilfred.
📸 @Nji Asonganyi
*** This article was first published in November 2018. It has been averagely modified.
This 2019 reflection speaks to a moment of rapid social-media saturation in Cameroon, where Facebook and YouTube had become primary stages for artistic and commercial aspiration. The writer observes a cultural shift toward quantifying worth in likes and follows, and toward aesthetic presentation over substantive craft—a tension many creative economies face as digital platforms democratize but also trivialize broadcast.
The piece articulates a quiet but serious concern: that collective dishonesty—however well-intentioned—erodes the feedback loops necessary for genuine improvement. It remains urgent because the dynamics of social validation it diagnoses have only intensified; the question of how to maintain integrity and self-knowledge in an environment built to reward hype remains unresolved and, for creators, consequential.