I think the media went bananas with NFTs because images are clickbait and NFTs are primarily a way of trading images. NFTs allowed news organizations to write a bunch of both positive and negative articles about cryptocurrency and include unique images. Entire narratives could be created and gained traction based on who the artist was and "why we do (or don't) like them". Previous articles about the weird cryptocurrency thing didn't have images or only had the same tired Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. logos or Getty stock images.