The sociology of hype: worthwashing at the heart of capitalism

We introduce a novel framework for the sociology of hype by building on constituent elements (systematicity, expectational orientation, temporal bracketing, and non-deliverability), which clarify how hype materialises and endures amid epistemic ambiguity. Drawing on examples from entrepreneurship as a contemporary case in point, we stress that hype is not value-neutral and requires propagators to justify collective welfare against individual failures. In turn, we develop a model of hype's consequences in social settings emphasizing how hype around venturing normalizes “worthwashing”, a new concept capturing acts of distorted communication that sustain contested orders of worth in capitalism. This theorization bridges disparate views on hype, offering fresh insights into its ethical paradoxes.

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