Shiba inu is still a memecoin.
SHIB was created as a meme coin and will be a meme coin forever. Even Shiba becomes one of the top coins, the status won't change. SHIB is a meme coin with no strong fundamentals. This type of coin will be never recommended to hold a long time. It is a bit surprising if there are people who believe in SHIB for the long run. 
Only because of hype and bull reason, it increased several times. It hadn’t possible for shiba to gain such volume if vitalik buterin didn’t burn the largest amount of shiba inu.
Yes, the increase on Shiba price relies on the hype. Previously, it became hype because of Vitalik and Elon Musk. Then, it was hyped again because the developer planned to have some interesting programs for the development of Shiba Inu project. But now, I don't hear any interesting news related to Shiba Inu anymore.Many new altcoins are available and people will move on for those.
There will be always many new altcoins and the trend will change. The hype of meme coins seems over, it probably changes with AI tokens or other things.