The vibe I get from these articles is "see, even losers like you can be successful and independent if you tried just a bit harder". They also never mentions about how they paid for uni and have no family responsibilities whatsoever. If feel like Citations Needed needs to do a breakdown of these tropes.
Oh totally. I might be reading into this too hard, but people not having to take care of parents, siblings, kids, or comrades is the unspoken entitlement in these stories.
their definition of "success and independence" is also stupid, like imagine calling your economic system "the best possible outcome with no alternative" with all the best modern amenities etc. when you define "success" as being free from it... by not using these modern amenities to save money while wageslaving