What actually drives Crypto narratives – is it mostly just market manipulation?

Been tracking narrative momentum across crypto recently.

Something interesting:

Narratives often start from a small group of accounts before spreading.

Examples:

• AI narrative

• memecoin waves

• RWA tokens

Sometimes it’s KOLs/Influencers.

Sometimes it’s dev activity.

Sometimes it’s meme energy.

But ngl I'm starting to think its just manipulation 90% of the time – someone convince me otherwise XD