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You're probably correct on this. But it's still confusing to me why. Everyone knows that everyone is missing something due to having limited experiences. Everyone knows that they fall under the category of "everyone" and therefore they must be missing something. It doesn't take much research to find out that life in the modern West, even as a lower class person, is extremely sheltered and protected compared to the norm of humanity. College students have disproportionately high access to research material and disproportionately high experience doing research. If they truly want to write a good novel or film script about a setting or characters they have little personal experiences with, any mid-level intelligent person in that situation should be able to put 2 and 2 together to realize that they need to step out of their bubble and dive into research to learn about lives and circumstances far different from their own.
Which is why I have to conclude that these people don't have motivations to write good fiction.
It can be difficult to properly pierce one's bubble. I was a bookish kid. When I became aware of that I had zero experience of grittier side of life, my first instinct was to explore gritty darker shady parts of life ... in form of reading more books and watching the Wire. Later I have realized I did not obtain a realistic experience.
Genuinely adventurous researcher must act like an old-school journalist, travel to places and meet people he/she would never talk to. You have to be clever enough not be hoodwinked by first charlatan in the way. You must have enough background knowledge to contextualize what you see but not let be too influenced by your background "context" so that you fail to see evidence that contradicts it. Most of the research done and readily available today is .... not that.
And if you were invested in researching and writing a period-accurate historical drama, it is not given that anyone else is interested in historical accuracy.
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