Elo hell both exists to an extent, but at the same time it really doesn't. Part of what makes Bronze 5 such a pain in the ass is a problem with ranked in general, at least especially so in NA. That problem being many low elo players' attitudes towards ranked games. As someone who's been in Bronze 5 previously for years I can attest that the majority of players treat ranked like normals.
One glaring example of this is how frequently your teammates will play champions they don't even main. Mastery level isn't everything and is most certainly not to be mistaken as an indicator that someone is godlike with a particular champ. However, mastery level is nice for at least providing a far more likelihood of someone's basic understanding of the champ they are playing. If you have mastery level 7 on Ashe you may still have the mechanics of a boosted bonobo, but you probably at least have read Ashe's abilities and have some general idea of what she does, where she shines, and what matchups are more difficult for her even though you get only 50 cs by 10 mins.
I've asked people why they do this and the general answer seems to be simply "boredom". Players get bored of playing/spamming the same champs over and over to climb. My rebuttal: Why not play a few normals or ARAMs and come back to ranked later then? Or go learn and master a new champion for ranked?
Aside from that part of the issue there's just that general attitude amongst players in NA of simply not trying their best. What makes lower Bronze hell sometimes is just the attitude many players bring where they play ranked, but to them it's just normals. To them, winning doesn't matter, for various reasons. Since they don't 'want' to get out of Bronze all that badly they simply don't bring their best, or at least try to.
All that being said, I have climbed out of Bronze 5/Bronze 4 myself. And hopefully soon I can get out of Bronze 1 into Silver. So I do also understand "get good". Elo hell isn't an excuse for simply not having the skills it takes to play at Gold or Plat level. However, my main point here is that while "get good" is true it's a bit of an over generalization that doesn't accurately account that low Bronze NA has some 'unique' difficulties to overcome beyond just mechanics and game knowledge.
You can absolutely get out of Bronze. But it can sometimes, not always, be uniquely difficult to do so.
