The danger of not staying curious

 As regular readers will know I'm somewhat addicted to people watching on social media. Spotting the people that are forever hankering for 'likes' and 'followers', the ones that pop on once in a blue moon when they're bored, or are really miffed about something, the ones selling a lifestyle (but who are not, and never will be, influencers), the ones surfing around the popular opinions of the days, in our industry the 'likes' and support which are clearly networking, the genuine people that are bemused by all the hate that goes on, and over the course of the last year I've become fascinated by the people using the various platforms to share (knowingly or not) misinformation to people that are already struggling.  It's like my private town centre bench where I can watch the (cyber) world go by.

Here's the bit that I've never grasped though - the people that simply lie. Now the chances are that they lie in life too, but online the gift of anonymity allows those lies to be ever bigger and potentially more damaging.

In life, just like online, I can't abide liars. I understand the theory that the people lying could be crying out for help etc, but there's no excuse for trying to rob someone of their reputation, and these words online count for a lot more than people realise. In fact just this week I was banging on to my students about the importance of your reputation, and how we should all be fighting to protect 'ours'. 

As Trump proved so brilliantly (and alarmingly) using various social media platforms, say something enough times and with enough conviction and people will start to believe you. We all saw Trump say X at a press briefing one day, then swear that he didn't say it the next day. This gaslighting forces us to doubt ourselves.

Which leads me to the point of the blog - how bloody dangerous some of these people truly are, and leaves me questioning if they actually know what they're saying when they're saying it? Is the kick the fact that they've successfully stolen the most precious thing from us . . . our good name.

Recently I've been in the sad position of watching a friend get their name trashed online.  I was made aware of the situation when their partner contacted me asking me to speak to them as they were so distraught there were real concerns for their safety. Now this is one of those friends that I've known for decades, the type of friendship that has grown up and weathered a lot of dumb behaviour on both sides. Importantly the type of friend that you know would give you an alibi if you suddenly needed to 'bury the body'. So if they had done anything wrong, they 100% would feel safe enough with me to let me know.

In fact my first indication of my friend being so unwell was when I contacted them directly to find out what was going on, only to be sent a novel in return explaining the circumstances around the 'drama' that they were embroiled in. However in reality the situation was absurb. Somebody was trying to ruin the reputation of my friend's business. This person had posted an inflammatory and indeed libellous post up on a local community group's site. This post had descended into alleged stories of other people being unhappy with the service that my mate was providing too. Hell they were even posting photos of 'proof' of my mate's appalling trade. Here's the rub though. . . .all the pictures were fake, the people posting in agreement were not my friend's customers. My friend was devastated. 10 years to build up a successful business and one piece of malicious tittle tattle had descended into something much more sinister and potentially damaging. Here they were swearing blind to me that they didn't know the people posting - they were not their customers!

Of course, I've already been there and bought the T Shirt so I was pre-armed knowing quite how devastating the fake news was going to be. I tried to tell them to stay calm as this storm would be over within a few days, I noted (from experience) that this major news event in their life was probably barely registering a glance from the rest of the world. It doesn't matter though - your mind races, you think that everybody is talking about you, it just drives you bonkers.

The thing is when people lie about you online you have no choice but to let if play out. If you try to defend yourself the pile on gets higher. Your truth was not the first thing that people have heard, therefore the majority of people will assume that you're the one that's lying. We assume that nobody in this world of ours is malicious enough to just . . . well . . . lie. However they are, and we don't actually hear that much about it.

How many times have I read the smart comment of 'if they're lying. . . sue them'? Have you checked out the cost of a libel or slander case? They are notoriously hard to win . . . as the person that 'lied' is protected in law if 'they' believe their own story to be true. To prove that somebody maliciously lied takes a small fortune, so the large majority of people just suck it up and hope that it'll pass. 

My friend was devastated and beside themselves. It didn't matter how much 'common sense' and previous knowledge I threw at them, they couldn't see a way through the mess that these people were creating.  The chatter died down, but for my friend all that noise was still in their head. The paranoia gets to be very real. You assume that everybody is as obsessed with this story as you are.

Thankfully my friend realised that they were getting to be really ill because of it all and booked an appointment to see their GP and booked themselves into a therapist to chat it all through. Some 6 weeks later they're slowly getting back to themselves after a clinical and chemical intervention. 

What about the person that start all of this? Well they disappeared into the cyber universe taking all their lying minions with them too. I dare say that none of them have given it a second thought. 

In the current climate of "I believe the victims" we must attempt to do due diligence around stories shared so freely online. We must remember that we're only ever hearing one person's viewpoint with no context. I'd be the first in line to join the lynch mob for some of the stories that are coming out at the moment, and around 99% of the time I really do just 'believe' what I'm reading. . . but I also remind myself to try and keep some objectivity and curiosity around the fact that it might not be the whole truth. 

I followed the thread that libelled my friend - and it was very convincing. I'd be calling them asking if they'd heard of 'so and so' as their 'story' was really convincing. I kept to my own mantra of remaining curious - but with an increasing regularity the answer would come back - I swear they're just not customers of mine, swiftly followed by a long discussion where I witnessed my friend losing themselves.

I know that the person that's creating 'the list' in our industry is being really careful around this difficult subject - which probably explains why 'the list' is still being compiled. They're staying curious at all times. Please though . . . next time you read somebody's truth online, or hear their truth in the media, also keep in your mind that some people literally . . . lie.

Check in on your friend - trial by social media is harsh, the 'perpetrator' literally has no right of reply. You become the spectre at your reputation's wake. 

#time4change 5 Years On

TW: This blog discusses mental illness, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, anxiety, OCD plus a healthy dose of ignorance about all the above!

Last week I had the absolute pleasure of chatting to Hazel Leishman, one of my 2020 graduates, on an instalive as part of a series that The MTA's been running called "In Conversation". Mostly I just get to catch up with my graduates during these discussions. Sometimes the graduates have asked to use the platform to get certain messages out there eg Eva Bortalis a 2018 grad used it straight away after the George Floyd murder in order to air her views about the then growing BLM movement, or Paris Hoxton, also a 2018 grad who used it to raise awareness of living with bipolar. In fact we've had quite a few mental health awareness discussions, Sarah Hjort (2019) discussed living with anxiety and David Murphy (2017) had a hugely thought provoking chat about living with depression. In fact David's words have really stuck with me. When asked what were his early symptoms of depression his replied without hesitation - always looking happy. A stark reminder that we shouldn't assume that the depressed person who's at most risk, is the one rocking in a corner.

Last year when we started the series Hazel had commented that we should have somebody speaking about Eating Disorders as part of the series.  Now that's easier said than done as I would never ask somebody to speak about a mental illness, the impetus and request must always come from the 'guest'. At the time Hazel dallied with the idea of going 'live', but I actually stopped it, as I didn't feel that she was well enough to do it. Whilst she was clearly over the worse of her own experience at that time, I always feel that the best stories that would have the most positive outcome are the stories from the people that have truly got their illnesses under treatment, or in remission, or indeed cured. So we agreed to shelve it.  Cue Hazel coming back to me this year to tell me how well she had been doing and how she was about to launch a social media platform on which she was going to be open about her own EDs, with the aim of helping people that found themselves in the same position as she had found herself in, and so she was now ready to have the conversation.

So little is known about Eating Disorders, the misconceptions around how they start are legendary, Hazel went straight into myth busting mode, naming from the outset that the majority of EDs come from a place of needing to be in control. In fact they're very similar to OCD insomuch as control is often the major contributing factor.  For sure other things can trigger them, but the widely perceived logic that people just want to look smaller is often miles off the mark (yet I guess easier for people to try and make sense of loved ones starving themselves to death, or binging, or . . . well . . you know the rest). EDs, like OCD, PTSD, schizophrenia are often the ugly side of mental illnesses that people don't really like talking about - they've never made the popular list.

Even after the recent high profile death of Nikki Grahame this insidious illness still managed to hide in plain sight. As a few posts started to go online about the ludicrous situation that people suffering with EDs had to be essentially 'ill enough' to even start treatment (and by 'ill enough' please understand that sometimes that translates to 'too ill to treat effectively) within a few days it had crept away again to a few niche posts. 

Then fast forward to this week and on another social media platform I watched one of those autobiographical "A Day in the Life of a dance/drama/music Student' videos. I always find it interesting to see a day from the students' perspective. What I didn't expect in this specific "A Day in the life of  Dance Student" was this sentence "then we went to get weighed".  In fact I watched the video several times thinking that I must have misheard it.  Then I read the comments. Lots of people had also questioned this part of their 'average day' - even more alarmingly the people posing the question of WTF were "reassured" that this was part of this particular college's strategy to PREVENT eating disorders!! By regularly monitoring the students' weight they could spot an issue before it arose.

I immediately did my usual twitter rant to find out if everybody knew about this practice, but as per usual those posts never really 'take off' and promote the discussion that's actually needed. I mean interestingly pop up a post about wanting to see more 'normal' shaped people in roles and they go viral in a heartbeat, as of course 'self interest' will always prompt a viral response. 

Heigh ho, the post did prompt a few interesting private messages though. So did you know that some colleges and some work places (specifically cruise companies) will make students/casts sign a contract which essentially ties them into a specific weight (give or take a few pounds)? That's right you did read that correctly - people are made to sign a contract to keep them within a certain weight parameter. Let's not discuss hormonal weight flux, or muscle mass etc, let's just pop people on a scale to see how they're doing.  Believe it or not - this is meant to be helping mental health in the workplace or during training. I'm going to chose not to share some of the techniques and secrets that were shared with me that people did in order to get around some of these conditions, as I know that people with EDs are clever sods who are always on the look out for a get around - however let's just say that you should never undermine the intelligence & creativity of a person in the middle of an ED, those illnesses are bloody crafty.

Let's quickly recap back to Hazel's opening gambit - EDs are usually about control. Notice the bloody massive issue here?

However that's not all I've learned recently. I've also discovered that certain cruise companies are STILL not issuing contracts to people who have named that they're on anti-depressants.  I mean it makes sense doesn't it? People that are on a treatment for depression should not be permitted to work in the middle of the ocean.  Far, far better to essentially force people to either lie, or indeed (and I've witnessed this myself) make people chose between a treatment or a job. I mean - that's never named, but I've known people that have chosen to come off a treatment dose that is helping them in order to fulfil a contract on a cruise ship. The thinking being that work, sun and sea will essentially do the work of the medicine, failing to understand that vitamin D helps all of us feel a bit happier, but for many people they require a much more robust chemical treatment in order to recover from a mental illness. Those same people wonder why they're in their dream job, in a luxurious part of the world, having a mental health crisis. 

So next time you're reading all the positive posts about people being more open about mental health and mental illness these days, next time you're celebrating the 50th person you know becoming a Mental Health first aider, please know that at a very basic level, during training and during jobs, our industry has a hell of a long way to go in order to get on top of this epidemic. 

Next time you see the "It's OK not to be OK" mantra that's become so popular, or the "My DMs are open" invitation to chat to an understanding mate, what would be better is if we actually dealt with mental illness (not just look at mental health, it always has to be both, and) at a grass roots level, because you know what's better than being OK? Being well or being in recovery.

This and that

 As BAFTA still feign surprise at the Noel Clarke allegations, I'm struck by the dilemma that we all seem to find ourselves in. . . we all know the names but none of us can do anything with the information. It's not as if people aren't trying, take the recent list put up outside various theatres. A bold move which of course couldn't be shared anywhere publicly for fear of libel action or fear of hindering a police investigation - and so it continues.

I was struck by the dilemma a few times this week as I've watched quite a few of 'those' people rather brazenly posting online about what they're up to, or contributing to other conversations. Like most of us in the industry I've watched them go from job to job with (seemingly) no repercussions from past actions. I literally shudder when I see some of the things that 'they're' involved with as they raise serious safeguarding concerns, yet somehow we're helpless to stop them.

There's so much noise at the moment thanks to the Guardian article and everybody seems determined to make a change - but is such a systemic change even possible? Take 'that agent' that everybody discusses with disdain, the one that's never named, but as soon as a post goes out discussing them, everybody knows who it's referring to. Why does 'that agent' still secure clients? Surely enough people know about their reputation to warn performers off them. Well interestingly seemingly not - as they're still invited to drama college productions with a view to representing the most vulnerable in our industry - the graduates. CDs still use them, even though they might have named privately that they don't actually like dealing with them. Hands are tied and the cycle continues.

Or let's take 'that creative' that we all know. The stories and anecdotes increase every year, every so often somebody will hint heavily at them online, we all think that everybody knows . . . yet they still get the gig don't they?  'That producer' or 'that production company' will keep using them even though they've witnessed the fallout.  Even more interesting is if you speak to the powers that be about this person's reputation - they simply shrug their shoulders and keep hiring 'them'. 

The particularly interesting thing here is that some of the people that are shouting for these people to be named & shamed actually know the names themselves and STILL use them. Hoping I guess that 'they'll' be OK in their production. So some of the people trying to incite change are confusingly the people that are facilitating the toxicity that we all want removed from the industry thereby perpetuating the cycle. What a bizarre industry we work in

Or what about 'that actor' that we all know - the one that is high maintenance, who treats everybody else in the company like they're sh*t? Well. . . everybody except the director or the producer possibly. How do they go from show to show creating the most toxic atmosphere? We all know 'them'. . . just like the CDs do, and the production companies - but 'they' still get hired. Their bums on seat value is higher than the welfare of the company. Regardless of how loud the shout for change is, I guess theatre is a commercial venture so it'll be profit above people.. So in fairness to these toxic individuals who walk amongst us in plain sight why would they change? Are they actually receiving any feedback? 

All students love 'that teacher' that will socialise with them as they're just too cool for skool aren't they? It's the sign of an adult education environment when you can have a boozy evening with the 'teacher'.  Where's the boundary between professionalism and personal? As we've heard quite a lot recently, these blurred boundaries can very often turn into something much more sinister. Yet still, it continues.

All of us can make poor choices, all of us can make mistakes, but we all also have the possibility to change and evolve, but how can anybody do that if they're neither receiving the feedback plus continuing to secure the jobs? What impetus is there for self-reflection and change? Surely we want to create a safe environment where this feedback can be given and heard. For people to have the opportunity to do the work on themselves. The chances are that they're not 'happy' either, and their own trauma is coming out sideways perpetuating abusive cycles.  If the actions are criminal then we should be an industry where people are encouraged and supported to report incidents to the Police, not the industry that likes to sweep it under the carpet and pretend that it didn't happen.

Do we talk about 'that' casting director who seems to have missed the fact that the casting couch is yesterday's news? We all know 'them', as the Principal of a drama college I warn my graduates about 'them'. Are we to believe that 'we' all know 'them' but the production companies that hire them are simply not aware of their reputation? 

It truly feels like a Catch 22 situation. Throw in an added caveat that as small a percentage as there is, some people will also lie about their experiences. So we also have to proceed with caution on hearing and acting on rumours. That said it shouldn't take 20 people coming forward about an individual for serious questions and investigations to take place.

Catch 22 appears to be the mantra of the industry though as I wrote about quite recently here. It's really hard to see a way out of the environment that has dominated certain areas of the industry for decades. Today the focus is on Noel Clarke, however, he is definitely not alone. It's time to widen that spotlight and reform the industry.

How long should you train for?

 How long is too long to be training? Well in reality we are essentially training our whole lives, aren't we? We are forever the student trying to hone our skills and develop new ones.

In the US it's standard practice to do a 4-year undergraduate course. The UK has traditionally always adhered to a 3-year model (working in terms not semesters), then of course in 2009 I popped up with The MTA and completely challenged that again fast-tracking the training into a 2-year model.

However back in the early noughties, the UK started up this thing called a foundation course (apologies if they've been running for longer, but that's certainly the time that I started to notice them popping up). I guess for the bigger colleges it made financial sense. You're seeing people for your 3-year course who are blatantly not quite ready, but with a bit more training, using the resources that you're already paying for, you could get them ready for a 3-year course (potentially). Then lots of other people saw a sensible business model for purely training pre-undergraduates and a group of independent colleges suddenly opened.

So maybe we really did need to be doing a 4-year course after all - just like the US system?

Foundation courses and colleges quickly moved into mainstream thinking when it came to planning your future career. All the courses varied, some running in the evenings, some over concentrated periods, but all essentially training you to er, train.  

Over the years we've accepted lots of students that have had some sort of pre-training, and there are certainly some foundation courses that we inherently 'trust', insomuch as their students invariably always seem to be ready by the time that we see them for the audition. So they're clearly doing what they say on the packet. Then there are the students that we've rejected in one year, who've gone away, done some further training and have come back to us the following year and we've accepted them without hesitation - so a big yay to the training that they've received in that year.

However, I do have a couple of serious concerns around it all. 

The foundation course is entirely focussed on getting students ready for a traditional undergraduate programme which runs Sept - July (or in our case Oct - Sept), yet their courses all run to the same academic calendar year, meaning that they've started training in Sept, and within 3 months they're likely to be applying for their undergraduate course. Surely it would make more sense for the foundation course to run something like Jan - Nov? That way people that had got rejected have got time to look around for the best foundation course for them, they would have 10 months of training behind them before they've started to apply to other colleges?

As all the foundation courses are supposed to be preparing you for further training, you would be surprised at how many of them actually discuss all the options available to students. Some are great and seem to get all the colleges in to do some sort of outreach, or their course leader will be calling us to ensure that they have the right information for entry onto our course. However, some of them are purely fixated on the more established colleges.  That's always struck me as a bit elitist and even slightly gate keeperish. The number of colleges that we've approached annually to ask to speak to their students about the 2-year model and have had our request ignored is actually quite shocking.  Even more shocking when you look at our stats - we have a 10-year track record for getting all of our students out into the industry with agent rep, so regardless of your personal feelings, our results speak for themselves. A 2-year model works - but those pathways stay blocked (until one rogue class member comes to auditions for us and tells all of their friends about their experience)

Then there's the issue of brand awareness. Lots of young performers grow up knowing that they only want to really train in the one college. Their dream college. Their entire focus is on that dream. They've gone to see shows and keep seeing 'that name' in the programme, they believe that this is the only place that will get them industry-ready.  The big audition comes but they're not accepted on the dream course BUT they do get offered a place at the college, but on their foundation course. Here's the rub. In my experience, a lot of the people that get offered foundation courses at the major colleges would probably get straight offers onto a 3 year training programme at another college. Over the years we've auditioned lots of people from one of the 'major colleges' foundation courses, and we've pretty much been able to accept them all. You could of course argue that the larger college had done an exceptional job in training them ready to be . . . er, trained, or you could hypothesise that they were always ready to be trained somewhere (just not their 'dream college').

Over the years I've always been amazed by people who have turned down offers at ours and at other really reputable drama colleges because they've also been offered a foundation course at their 'dream school' - such is the draw of the 'dream'. A concept that our industry thrives on. A quick caveat here that of course not all courses are suitable for all students, so 100% people should be turning down places on courses that they know that they wouldn't thrive at. . . but that's very different by being blindsided by 'the dream'.

Now these foundation courses do not come cheap. Training performers is expensive. Yet suddenly parents are paying out for this additional course in the hope of what? That their child will be accepted onto their 'dream course' - whereas in reality from what I've heard, all the colleges are really honest about the fact that their foundation course is not a guaranteed pathway onto their main course. Even more than that it would be fascinating to find out the percentage of people that actually do go from a foundation course straight onto the undergraduate course, as from hearsay it doesn't seem as high as you'd expect.

I understand that some people opt for the foundation course as they believe that they'll be more likely to secure funding such as an elusive DaDa so they believe that the cost of the foundation course is essentially an investment - but of course DaDas are hard to come by, and the majority of people just end up spending a load of money that they haven't got before needing to find a load more money that they haven't got. It strikes me as a very risky gamble and with foundation courses costing anything from £6k to £10k this is not a cheap gamble.

So do foundation course work? 100% yes, but are some students paying out on an additional year unnecessarily - absolutely. Surely after paying out for a foundation year that student should be guaranteed a place on a course . . . somewhere. You should only be taking the students that you can clearly see have the potential to train but who are just falling short in one area. 

We should be seeing stats from all colleges about progression (which I've been shouting about for bloody years). I believe that students should be applying for foundation courses, not being offered them as the consolation prize (as that plays into the false promise, albeit unwittingly), and of course . . . I believe that all auditions should be free, which would allow students to apply for a wider range of colleges, which might open their eyes to other possibilities. 

Temper Tantrums for the Entitled

My four-year-old can often be found these days acting like some sort of cartoon character, stamping his foot because he can't get his own way. As his parent it's my job to hold the line and teach him that in life you don't just get everything you want and you certainly don't get it because you're screaming the house down (as much as you sense that all your neighbours are begging you to give in as much as your decibel busting child) Sometimes you have to work for it, sometimes it's just not yours to have. In the age of helicopter parenting, mindful parenting is a minefield. Are you being too harsh? Should you just give in as you don't want to 'damage them for life'? What about the fact that you don't want spoilt children though? Shouldn't we be teaching them to be resilient? The questions that you're facing long outstay the incident that precipitated them.  

Since watching the Social Dilemma on Netflix I've become fixated on changing the narrative on my social media timelines (stick with it. . . I swear that it's all related). Our self-serving echo chambers do nothing to make us aware of other people's opinions, which in turn leaves us believing that 'we' (and that is very much a 'we' of the plural variety) must be right in our thinking as EVERYBODY agrees with us. In fact nowadays if you move outside of your social media safe lane, and dare to challenge somebody's narrative, you are automatically lumped into the 'other' category with everybody assuming you to be a sharer of 'fake news', which is a fast track to 'troll city'. 

Creating an echo chamber prevents personal growth. Whilst we all prefer an easier life, and let's face it, we all hope that we're speaking with authority, the reality of life is very different. Were I to employ a senior faculty that just went along with everything that I said, my little college would be all the duller for it. I'm not infallible, I need to be challenged, and sometimes, when trying to think outside of the box you can literally catapult yourself to a different planet. You need people around you that are challenging in order to progress and develop. Damn it, you need people around you that will say 'no'. 

The world of social media needs to be the same fertile space in order for us to grow and develop as emotionally intelligent humans. However, have we stunted this growth due to years of privilege? A world where well-meaning parents overindulged and protected their children, meaning that as soon as they're in an environment that challenges their narratives they hit a huge wall which results in people calling out injustice. Remember the fuss a few decades ago when it was suggested that at sports days we should stop having winner and losers? We were encouraged to tell our children that it wasn't the winning that was important, it was the taking part? However couldn't we have been sold the double narrative? It's great to take part in something, and we should be really thrilled if we win, or conversely, the taking part is everything and let's not worry too much about losing. If you want to do better next time, try training for the event? You might not ever win it, but you could see yourself improving? 

The obvious question now is - does it really matter as long as everybody's happy? Shouldn't I 'give in' to my son's demands just to keep him happy, after all, in the big scheme of life, the thing that he's crying for has now become a matter of principle? I've come to realise that I believe that it really does matter, as we're nurturing a society of people that believe that they can't be challenged, that losing isn't what 'they' do, who deliberately shut down an alternative truth because they want to protect their echo chamber.

Let's take an example . . . if his critics are to be believed this is the case with Donald Trump.  A privileged, spoilt man who always got his own way. Learned how to play the system and not get caught. Then suddenly in 2020 somebody (US democracy) told him 'no'.  He lost the presidentship and seemingly copied my son. He stamped his foot, refused to believe that he could have possibly lost and the rest is history, fast forward a few months and we have the assault on Capitol Hill. Old Donald didn't like the narrative, all the evidence supports the fact that he did in fact lose (albeit with a lot of support, which I believe supports my argument of teaching the taking part and losing/winning narrative as of equal importance). He protected his echo chamber by shouting down the other narratives as 'fake news', and his followers believed him . . . after all, why would anybody create such a monumental lie?

As part of my social dilemma experiment, I've been challenging narratives that I believe to be dangerous online. Always respectfully, never resorting to insults, yet interestingly the people consistently throwing out the most dangerous content also all seem to play the DT game. They protect their echo chamber at all costs. I've now lost count of the number of private messages I've received from people who are all pushing an alternative truth to the fact that we've been in a pandemic. So I've questioned the narratives around 5G, anti-lockdown, anti-mask, QAnon, the Great Reset, etc. They all see their 'followers' as their weapons, setting them onto people that don't agree with them. Yet privately they all ask you to stop disagreeing with them? Their private messages are all the same, they literally name that they don't like being challenged, they all 'threaten' you with being blocked unless you toe the line, then when you point out that their discourse is fighting to protect liberties and freedom of speech and therefore their private message is the antithesis of everything they claim to be fighting for . . . they block you. If they find you particularly challenging, they publicly block you so that their followers will give you a bit of grief for a few days. 

Are they trying to change the world, or simply get what they want? Are they well-meaning or just narcissists building up their empires? Where is their resilience to be challenged, or have they created an echo chamber so bubble-wrapped that they've started to believe their own narrative? Why do they cancel the opposing viewpoint as opposed to engaging in a healthy, respectful debate?

I don't know what the answer is, and I think that this toxic narrative of entitlement reaches out into some pretty murky areas, however, I do believe that this is something that we all need to grapple with a bit more. As parents, we have to show our children that life isn't always what 'they' want, we have to teach them to be resilient. We have to demonstrate curiosity for the other viewpoint to enable our children to grow both physically and emotionally. Most of all, when we're teaching our children that they can be or do anything they want, we have to make them aware that their path isn't some fairytale destiny, it's a path of challenges that they need to work through. My biggest thought of all though is to get some noise-cancelling headphones/pods when you're grappling with these concepts with your young children.