Life & Wisdom Quote by Karl Kraus

Popularity, in Kraus's hands, isn’t a compliment; it’s a contagion. The line turns the usual martyr fantasy of the attacked public figure upside down: if he’s already famous, then even his enemies profit from touching him. Vilification becomes a kind of parasitic marketing, a social elevator powered by outrage. Kraus delivers it with a grin you can hear: he’s mocking the critic who imagines moral authority while secretly shopping for attention.

The intent is double-edged. On one level, it’s self-mythmaking - Kraus casting himself as so central to the cultural conversation that any attempt to diminish him only confirms his gravitational pull. On another, it’s a diagnosis of a media ecosystem where notoriety is transferable. Attack doesn’t negate the target; it borrows the target’s light. The subtext is that the public sphere has stopped rewarding insight and started rewarding proximity to heat.

Context matters: Kraus made his name in Vienna’s early-20th-century press culture, a world of feuilletons, polemics, and status games where reputation was minted through feuds as much as through ideas. His magazine Die Fackel was built on exposing journalistic bad faith, and this aphorism reads like an anti-press press release: he understands the publicity machine so well he can preempt it, even weaponize it against itself.

It also carries a sly warning. If your fame can elevate your haters, you’ve become less a person than a platform - a public utility for opportunists. Kraus is laughing, but he’s also indicting a culture that turns criticism into careerism.