Pay Attention

 Re:  A quote from Adolph Hitler:  (The Guardian, "Everyone laughed at Hitler in the 1920s.  A century on, are we making the same mistake?"  by Adrian Chiles

"It makes no difference whatever whether they laugh at us or revile us ... whether they represent us as clowns or criminals;  the main thing is tha they mention us, that they concern themselves with us again and again ..."

I have run into this idea a couple of time before, once, som time after Ronald Reagan was elected, when a television reporter in a program told an interviewer about how he had produced a program that he thought was extremely critical of Reagan.  He was surprised then, when shortly after the program aired, he received a call from one of Reagan's press people who proceeded to warmly thank him for the program.  "Why are you thanking me?" asked the reporter (or something to that effect), "I trashed your man on TV."  "Oh, that doesn't matter," replied the Reagan man, "Nobody listens to what is said.  You had some great graphics of our man standing heroically in front of the flag, all that patriotic stuff.  That's what people will remember,"

The other manifestation of this idea is from a Dennis the Menace comic strip from about the same time. In the strip, Dennis has just gotten a terrific scolding from his parents for some mischief.  Dennis' friend, Joey, asks him "Why are you smiling? You just got scolded?"  Dennis replies, "That doesn't matter.  What's really important is that they pay attention to you rather than ignore you."