social media trend
Gen Z has a crush on Franz Kafka — turning the author into a Tiktok star
Portrait of Franz Kafka around 1905
© KHARBINE-TAPABOR / Imago Images
Young people at Tiktok have discovered Franz Kafka for themselves. An author who has been dead for almost 100 years, whose work is world literature but not exactly easily accessible. How Gen Z makes Kafka go viral.
Franz Kafka has become the heartthrob of Generation Z. Young women and girls in particular share their newfound love for the author on Tiktok. At first glance, this may not sound obvious: an author from the early 20th century, whose complex and multi-layered work is the subject of literary scholars, suddenly inspires young people. And that in a medium that doesn’t necessarily stand for profundity with its short, fast-paced videos.
But if you look at some of these small Kafka declarations of love and hymns of praise, it is by no means surprising that young people in particular are discovering the author for themselves. His works are about beetles and fleas and monkeys, about metamorphoses, about bureaucracy monsters and dependencies and in the end it is usually not quite clear who has blocked what here. Ultimately, everyone is lost in this world in their own way.
Franz Kafka fits well into a world full of crises
Pandemic, war, climate change – Gen Z is growing up in crisis mode. No wonder she likes the Kafkaesque, the unfathomably menacing. Kafka’s work often deals with situations of helplessness. Who would know what to do if he suddenly wakes up in the form of a beetle, like Kafka’s Gregor Samsa in “The Metamorphosis”. The book is particularly well received on Tiktok.
In the app, young women compare their dating experiences with sentences by Kafka, obviously feeling understood by the suffering, melancholic writer.
Kafka was born in 1883 as the son of a Jewish merchant in Prague, where he also spent most of his life. At the request of his father, with whom Kafka had a very difficult relationship, he worked in an insurance company. He started writing early on and studied German as well as law. So Kafka wrote his famous works more or less on the side. His language was German, which was not unusual given the relatively large German-speaking community in Prague at the time.
A young woman writes in English in a Tiktok: The fact that Kafka died thinking that he had failed hurts her more than anything else. “I wish I could tell him how many lives he has changed through his work and how amazing he was and always will be.”
Luckily his legacy was preserved
Kafka died of laryngeal tuberculosis in 1924 at the age of 40. He actually wanted his literary legacy to be destroyed. His friend Max Brod prevented that. Luckily. In the meantime, his books have long been part of world literature, translated into several languages.
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The exchange about books and a new joy in literature has long been part of Tiktok, #booktok is a huge thing. Young readers present their book favourites, ranked titles, stage plots and give tips. New book clubs are formed. Not lazy to read. And now in love with Kafka.
Find out more about other current social media trends from Y2K to Dark Academia to Royalcore here.