I've wondered that myself, but you make a great point. Other than one or two of my ubergeek friends (and my wife who gets to hear about it all the time) most of my friends and family say crypo-what!? when I try to talk to them about it.

I know there was a financial newsletter that highly recommended Ethereum along with a few other crypto currencies just before Ether took off. From the sound of it, they had readers numbering at least in the thousands, I doubt that would have been enough by itself to account for the rise, but the timing sure didn't hurt. The good part about it is they recommended it and still talk about it for the long haul, so I don't think they'll be "profit taking" anytime in the near future.