maybe in a perfect world it would work like that. In the real world, any number you look at in the context of "very trendy socials" can be bought for dollars, making the success of the project dependent only on the capital that the scammer has and the experience in creating a scam (AKA how many scams he did before, and experience they make quickly, because some of them can create several scam projects a day).
I get your point mate. Thats how its work actually and these people are keep doing it for the last few years. Well what can we do they are the one pulling off some nasty ideas and people get to like it since its trending. The only chance you could do is spot them early and get out on a perfect timing to have some profit. Ofcourse these people will not pull the trigger right away at least not on the time you expect it so always take profits. Anyway, not all succeed and some have caught before it explode.
Perfect example of this is a memecoin on base network called bald.