Hype fills the room. Substance is why anyone’s still there at the end.

Attention is easy to gather and nearly impossible to hold. A loud launch, a big first week, a song everybody posts once: all of it is real, and none of it tells you what happens in month six. What keeps people around is whether the thing is good after the novelty leaves. Those are two separate skills, and only one of them builds on itself.

Stop watching the opening numbers and start watching who came back. If nobody returns, add depth rather than volume. The second visit is the one worth building for.