Being a decent writer and four quarters will get you a dollar. For the rest of us plebs, you typically need some combination of amazing skills, a brilliant idea, fortuitous timing, hard work, and then the other 99% is blind chance. Be it writing, acting, music, dancing, whatever, anything where you could potentially become a famous ___________, these people aren't born on third base, they're home runs with a pulse.

Even the ones that "earned" it, that paid their dues, studied the craft, blah blah blah, there's thousands upon thousands of people that tick all the same boxes (and a hundred more) whose names you will never know.

The only part I'll grant them is the value of the "experiential" side of their nepotism. If you've been on movie sets or backstage at concerts since you were a literal babe in arms, you're going to pick up a lot just from sort of being present. A 20-year-old with 20 years experience isn't exactly commonplace in any industry. Even setting connections aside for a minute, if I'm casting a child actor, for example, I'll take the kid who's been on sets every day of his short life and parents (who will be on set with their child full-time) who are better-versed than I am in most aspects of production over a "better" kid who just got off the bus from Nebraska with his mom. That's an actual, tangible, real skill the nepo babies have that you or I do not. Even still, there are plenty of seasoned pros with encyclopedic industry knowledge that are destined to languish in obscurity until the day they die. It's a skill, sure, but it's more of a happy coincidence than an actual selling point.