The Sociology of Hype: Worthwashing at the Heart of Capitalism

This article contributes to the sociology of hype by introducing a novel framework which consists of four elements (systematicity, expectational orientation, temporal bracketing and non-deliverability). This approach contributes to a better understanding of how hype materializes and how it 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.