I was raised by the exception. My parents have never given me a reward for nothing, and they've never shied away from telling me why participation ribbons are worse than nothing.
It's not really about the 2 or 5 people who did or didn't, it's about a whole generation doing this to the next whole generation and then complaining about said next generation for things they did to that generation.
If you not one of the people who gave out participation trophies, then there's nothing wrong with complaining about people who got participation trophies.
This isn't complicated.
This isn't complicated.