Forget the hype - and start having a good time

Along with 'wear matching undies' and 'always eat your crusts', it's up there with the great life lessons.

And yet, unlike those other cultural clichés, it's one all too often ignored.

These days, we live in a world of perpetual hype. Those toxic timewasters Twitter, Facebook and Mail Online have us whipped up into constant states of either outrage or Emperor's-new-clothes excitement.

I'm guilty of it, you're guilty of it, we're all ruddy guilty of it.

Take last weekend's X Factor for example.

After reading online that Miley Cyrus defied producers and refused to pre-record her performance of Wrecking Ball, I proceeded to tell everyone I know that something earth-shattering was going to happen.

She's going to completely strip off and shout 'death to America' at the top of her lungs, I told my mum.

I bet she does a Britney and shaves all her hair off live on stage, the sister was told.

Reckon she might jump on the judges' table and start naked twerking with Louis?, I quizzed my other half.

And, after all that speculation, forewarning and downright gossiping, what did she do?

Simply sing her song in a flimsy dress.

OK, she was also perched atop an ant farm for a short period of time but that was nothing compared to the mental pictures I'd painted in my mind by that point.

Once again, I'd fallen for it. Mr Cowell and the Cyrus puppet-masters had the last laugh. Come 8.15pm, there I was, glued to the TV screen just as they'd wanted, just as they'd engineered.

But it's not just the murky, twerky world of showbiz.

Although I did also fall hook, line and sinker for the hype surrounding Captain Phillips (it's just OK), One Direction being on The Jonathan Ross Show (how boring and awkward was that interview?) and Kylie saying the secret to her never-fading beauty is a budget tub of Pond's (£4.49 to end up looking like Miss Minogue? I should be so lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky).

I also fall for the hype surrounding nights out, new trends and foodie fads and fashions.

When it comes to nights out, who hasn't bigged up an evening of painting the town red for days, nay weeks, beforehand only for it to fall completely flat?

Can't wait for next Saturday night with my girlies, goes the Facebook status.

And what happens next Saturday night? True to form, you're feeling under the weather and all the Red Bull in the world won't up your energy levels. And when you finally do make it up town, you ladder your tights, get a drink spilled over you and end up in a taxi home four hours earlier than planned, silently sobbing into your ham and pineapple stuffed crust.

Why don't we ever learn?

The best nights out are always – ALWAYS – the ones that come on the spur of the moment, when you've got greasy hair and end up in the dodgiest club in town only to find out it's an 80s paradise with two drinks for a fiver. Mint.

I used to think it was the naivety of youth. But, as each passing birthday comes and goes, I can't really rely on that excuse anymore.

And it's not just me. We're all at it. We're all guilty of going 0-60mph when it comes to the latest storm in a Twitter teacup.

We're like Pac-Man dutifully making his way around that course, swallowing snippet of spin after snippet of spin.

It's time it stopped. When it comes to falling for the hype, it needs to be game over.