Comment by DC1350

A huge generational change is that young people can just google "best X" for every life decision instead of caring about what they're exposed to organically. What job to do, city to live in, how to dress, etc. They can also find a community and detailed guides for achieving pretty much anything they want, so the special in-group knowledge isn't a barrier anymore. Anyone familiar with the whole tech interview prep culture should be able to understand that similar cultures exist for everything from academia to online dating. The downside is that the upper tier of everything is a lot more competitive so it's harder to win without gaming the system.