Monero has only gotten major media attention recently. A lot of the crypto explosion that came since March of this year has been from ETH and all of the ICOs that have spawned. That's where all the money is right now. Remember when all the attention was on ETH and the "flippening"?
I still wouldn't call this 'major media attention'. It's a far step from being prominent. But it is sure to happen. "Be so good they can't ignore you" basically

I thought Japan started the last market bubble. I'm guessing XMR didn't see the rise as much as other larger market cap is many fold not the least of which it is still a pita for people to use the wallet and the only advertised phone app is a trojan. That really must be drawing the crowds in. :rolleyes:
Which app is this? Is this true?
Monero's rise in 2016 was at the front end of a wave of increases in many coins including ETH, DASH, and XRP (and of course BTC). It is quite plausible that the stage was just set for explosive gains across the board after a couple of years of steady accumulation and steadily growing interest in the asset class, and while XMR just happened to catch a spark first, the spark wasn't the main reason for the explosion, the accumulation of fuel was.
I wonder what the actual Monero fuel will be once it happens...