I think Bitcoin owes its popularity to the media because it is being used by the people to communicate their thoughts onto it. It is like the vehicle that helps transport where Bitcoin is today. These write ups need not come from experienced writers by profession but need only to be talked about by people randomly until it gets a fan base or what is termed as "trending". By all means then, it is safe to say that anyone can make Bitcoin as popular as it is today provided you get a good number of people who follows you, likes your posts, shares your posts or everything else all at once. Hence, we cannot shrug off the fact that it indeed determines how well Bitcoin will do in the future. But looking as it is today, there are too much negative write ups about Bitcoin. Anyway, as they say, good or bad, publicity is still publicity.