Strange, But True.

[wtbengineer]

Ah, yes, I think you are spot on with that assessment BIAD!  Fake news before it was a thing, huh?
I can't remember ever buying into the narrative myself.  If I did it had to be when I was really young.
I've never really watched the news, only skimmed headlines and tried to read between the lines.
I never gave in to what felt like attempted manipulation by the school system either.  Just felt wrong somehow.
I've always kind of been an outsider as a result...  Never had many close friends just acquaintances.
Don't mean to go off on a tangent, haha, just thinking out loud.

It was the same for myself at school. After been told that I was more intelligent than the kids I had gone through
my early schooling with, I was placed in a class -by that those who were supposed to know better, in order to
utilise my alleged acumen. I was basically separated from what I had accepted as my friends.

I revolted and spent most of my later education-years elsewhere, I became a criminal and spent some time in a
place for young offenders. As far as the TV narratives, they didn't work on me simply because I didn't understand
them!

When one's priorities are to inadvertently oppose the establishment without realising one is actually opposing the
establishment, one's focus is on what can be acquired and not getting caught!

What was going on on the TV was very 'middle-class' and not truly general-reality.

I guess we had very different experiences in school overall though.  I started at 4 years old (I think mom wanted me out of the house) and I had no clue why I was even there.  I just floated along not understanding what I was supposed to be doing.  I was quiet and didn't cause any trouble, but I was withdrawn and inside my head.  I think I was kind of OCD or something, I remember walking down the halls and having to count my steps and how many steps I took inside a section of flooring.  And counting the lights and the cinder blocks in the walls...  

Anyway, they sent me to talk to the school counsellor, this was back in the early to mid '60s, and she gave me some kind of assessment.  She said that there was no reason that I should not be performing better, that I had a college aptitude.  From that point on things changed.  My third grade teacher, no fourth, took me aside and explained some things to me and from that point on I started getting A's and B's.  Until I got in middle and high school and started playing guitar and smoking... all that stuff..  Point is, I never really rebelled in school, just got lazy and didn't give a crap.  Kind of went back inside my own head and started learning stuff on my own.