I will never choose based on hype. Whenever , I have done that in past, I have had to incur huge losses. This is because I play with large capital also.
Now I only invest for long term and thus the investment is based on general perception about the altcoin for long term. If there is series of good announcements coming for a certain coin, then I might give it a chance. But just based on one event or news, I rarely invest in any altcoin.
Which is as it should be, but the majority of the people out there do not care about investing for the long term and they see little reason to choose utility, as what they want is to obtain fast profits and hype is way more important to them, however even by selecting altcoins in this way, there is no way they can be sure they have taken the right choice, as a great deal of the support an altcoin may have could be simulated by bots and bought followers, and this could lead those people to invest in the wrong coin.