The vast majority of the time, nepotism refers to a patent giving their children special privileges due to the power the parent has.
The word itself comes from from the Italian word for “nephew”, because of a trend of “nephews” of popes getting special privileges (often, these were the popes’ illegitimate sons).
This definitely seems like the more likely explanation. There certainly is a mental/emotional hell you go through in academia, but with this y-axis being specifically about psychiatric medication… all I’m seeing is that grad students like/need Adderall.