I know I promised not to keep the generational warfare going, but in this case it's just an accurate objective description rather than emotional rant. You may have noticed by now that a whole generation of 30s and 40 year olds is throwing public temper tantrums, and you're not allowed to criticize it or suggest that maybe the problem lies with them: fortunately I have this platform. This is purely Millennial hyper-competitiveness and entitlement, which they started and which nobody else before them (and hopefully after) ever did.
The way it works is that they're too coddled to have any real achievements to justify their inflated egos, and too sheltered to know how to relate to a crowd of random strangers who don't owe them anything or have a pre-existing relationship with them (like their indulgent helicopter parents). So instead of doing anything praise-worthy to win the approval of the audience, they drip venom about how 'I don't care what you think of me' (people who say this are always the *most* hyper-sensitive to what others think, not to mention anti-social). Then when this doesn't earn them a trophy, they stoop to demanding approval through threats of self-harm, hectoring, lecturing, preening, tantrums and rants, and so on and so forth.
'I'm not going to do anything to deserve it, but you'll still praise me anyway-- and if you don't, then get ready because the mother of all meltdowns is coming' is the intended message. It's just such anti-social psycho behavior.
Obviously, as I said before, this type of stuff did NOT exist before them among adults. No Boomer or Gen-Xer would have behaved like this, and if this kind of stuff had happened even 20 years ago, it would've been as so shameful that the screeching meltdown-thrower would have had to kill themselves out of sheer embarrassment -- imagine being an 11 yr old child, in the body of an adult, lol.
However thanks to the MASSIVE overproduction of power-trippers, this behavior is now tolerated and frequent, rather than ostracized and rare.
Aside from lowering the standards of adult behavior to make way for the Power-Tripper Generation, this is also the inevitable result of locking an entire cohort (now two cohorts) of young people inside the house, and never to allowing them to go outside or socialize freely or spend time in environments which do not have explicitly articulated / rigidly enforced rules. Their brains simply never learn how to socialize with strangers. Then they confuse what works with their parents (whining and meltdowns) with what works with other people (where these things just get you dismissed). Naturally this results in a very painful clash with reality.
When you are allowed to go outside and play with friends, you learn very quickly that acting like a freak means nobody will ever interact with you, and just gets you ostracized -- so you try to contribute something, rather than demand others adjust to you. It's most children should learn by the age of 7. But since these people were never allowed to learn such simple rules, the lessons are new to them (in their 30s and 40s), when it's far too late to change.
Parents -- let your kids go outside!