It’s a little hard to tell who you’re referring to here, Mr. Steele. Since I’m a disabled veteran living on a disabled veteran’s pension and what pennies I get from Medium, I”d hardly consider myself privileged, so I’m not sure who you’re directing your ire towards. I rather dislike and have blocked Tim Denning, and I like Sean’s writing but that doesn’t come close to “worship.” With nearly two thousand stories I quote a great many people, often folks have no followers whatsoever, because they have something interesting to say. Your comment sounds like terribly sour grapes about something, but I’m not sure what. Nor am I particularly sure of your point. “You famous-for-being-famous” types most definitely doesn’t include this writer. Nor do I particularly care to be famous for that matter. Getting paid for my writing helps, but being famous isn’t on the wish list.

I travel because I trade my writing skills, and I save on flights by using a credit card that gives me miles for my flights. So if you happen to think that because I’ve been able to carve out this lifestyle because I’m a trust fund baby, really? I scrape out what I can and I use my skills to pay for those adventures. Otherwise I would be an armchair traveler.

Your comment is dripping with resentment. I am not the author of that, you are. Rather than write such an ugly comment, you might want to check where all that anger comes from. A great many of us are on this platform because we built a community. I care a great deal about my readers and they know it. That has taken me years. What I make on this platform barely covers my groceries, or did before inflation hit us.

And kindly, Mr. Steele, you sure put some effort into making SURE my readers know that you don’t care what we FAMOUS types think of you, when if that were truly the case, you could have chosen to be dignified and eschewed making such an unpleasant comment in the first place.

But that’s you. We all write “pedestrian little stories,” Mr. Steele. Everyone starts there. I’ve got two prize winning books out that nobody knows about because they aren’t best sellers. Shit sells. I am a good writer. A great many folks on here who write shit have ten times the readers I do. There’s not a damned thing fair about it. But by the same token, I don’t drop attacking comments on other peoples’ threads just to spray resentful graffiti. If you want to know why folks don’t read your stories, start there.