How do I think for myself instead of following the hype?

You have learned to sit with the risk, which is hard enough. The harder thing is separating your own judgment from the herd, because the pull of the crowd and the noise of the hype are strong, and they dress themselves up as insight. You are right to distrust how easily they slip in. The crowd is sometimes right and sometimes a stampede, and from the inside they feel identical. The only defense is to know why you believe what you believe, in your own words, before you hear what everyone else thinks. Conviction you cannot explain to yourself is usually borrowed. Before your next decision, write down your own view and your own reasons, then read them again after the room has talked. See what was yours and what you absorbed. Do this enough and you will start to feel the difference between a real signal and a loud one. Your judgment is a muscle; give it something to lift.