There is some genuine insight here, but it is needlessly bundled with defending the kids. Blind conformity is bad, and falls under the umbrella of having a weak will.
This is not a new phenomenon in the slightest. Bullying and teasing have been around forever. The only thing that changes are what people will be bullied and teased about, but ultimately it doesn’t impact whether the bullying happens.
Kids will always find a way to identify themselves by what they are not, or single out someone for not conforming, even if it’s completely innocuous or out of their control. Hell adults do it too. Kids just don’t have the ability to couch it in dog whistles or cover it with some window dressing. They will pick on a kid for being different until an adult teaches them to respect differences. That has always been the case.
In aggregate culture is a back and forth of people pushing in new directions or independently discovering existing ones and others following their lead, but it’s the followers who determine what’s normal more than the pioneers.
Put another way the first person to ever make pizza didn’t suddenly transform it into a cultural phenomenon. It was enough people copying the idea that transformed the initial concept into one of the most popular types of food.
That group plus pioneers are most important to entering the mass market of followers.
But even if you add a new group of early followers it also works in the other direction. Stuff most people do also stops being popular because of what the largest groups of follower’s decides to stop doing.
You could turn it around and criticize people for being anti-social in their independence and disrepst for other people's needs and wisdom.