Different days, new audience. I think that the fact that this same writing is going 40 years strong says something about the past 40 years, don't you? In contrast, if said writing had evaporated, that would be an interesting data point as well -- or do you not agree?

It's a genre. Like all genres, there are rules.

I don't think you can compare across genres. Over a period of centuries you can observe which ones come and go and which ones stay. Disaster stories, for instance, seem to come and go on regular intervals. This "I am observing so many things about my upbringing that were invisible to me until X" story? It feels to me a much older genre, one that originally had roots in verbal story-telling, not books.

The interesting question (to me) is how the genre changed moving from a verbal interaction to an essay form. You could extend that to this particular writer. Have they had experience with this form of story-telling, perhaps in a religious or social setting?

So looking at these multiple genres with the same theme, yes, it says something. There's something powerfully true about the human spirit at work. But 40 years of seeing this in <FORMAT_X>? Nope. At least not for me. Too soon. Check back with me in a hundred years or so. :)

ADD: You know who this type of written story reminds me of? Emily Dickinson. There's that same feeling of turning your life inside-out and looking at it from the outside. That's about as far back as I can go with the written word, but my Kung Fu here is quite weak.

It's also reminiscent of the flagellants, which had much the same message and delivered it verbally to whomever would listen.

I think that's fair.

Not sure who was challenged by this piece apart from the author. Sometimes that can be interesting of itself though.

Perhaps a difference of expectations? In the UK we have overtly opinionated print press and "neutral" TV while I believe in the US it is generally the other way round?