alt Hacker NewsWell, I can only quote Pushkin's letter to Vyazemsky (used Google AI to translate; in the letter Pushkin wrote about Lord Byron's lost personal memoirs):
"The crowd greedily reads confessions, memoirs, etc., because in its baseness it rejoices at the humiliation of the high, the weaknesses of the mighty. At the discovery of every vice it is in raptures: 'He is small like us, he is vile like us!' You lie, you scoundrels! He may be small and vile—but not like you—differently!"
It is a funny quote, and probably true. But I imagine that few people who are willing to read a serious article about Anton Chekhov these days actually have much interest in rejoicing in seeing his weaknesses.