Thanks for your essay. I have been considering a similar piece to give some of my obscure stories some love. I'm new-ish to Medium so I can't speak from a lot of experience, but I don't think that because you don't get a lot of reads and claps that you are a bad writer or that your topics are not interesting. I think there is something like a snowball effect for writers on Medium. If you have fewer than X number of followers, then your essay could be golden but it might not get many clicks and claps. Also, what makes for clicks and claps on Medium might not always be good writing in the rest of the world. It seems long essays are penalized, as are long paragraphs.