Why do people love — and hate — Jim Cramer?

“Mad Money” host Jim Cramer writes in New York magazine about the phenomenon that he has become — loved and hated at the same time for the same reasons.

Cramer writes, “God knows why, but there seems to be a market for this kind of idiocy. In that first year, the ratings took off; the network put the show in not one, not two, but three time slots; I made the cover of Business Week; and less than a year later, I was improbably filling college halls with cheering student fans (for some reason, college kids are an especially eager audience for my show). But sometimes it feels like for every person who likes what I do, there are a dozen who hate me for it.

“Mad Money has spawned legions of haters, people who write about the show and my character in really negative, sometimes pretty nasty ways. These people accuse me of being a clown or an idiot. Usually, I agree with them. When people ask for my autograph, I instantly hate myself. Half the time I don’t believe I even deserve a television show, and the other half I spend believing that no one is more deserving of a show. Slap me and I’ll change my mind like Faye Dunaway in Chinatown. People also accuse me of being irresponsible or giving bad advice. I don’t agree with that. Some of them have even questioned my integrity recently. That I find absurd.

“As a 52-year-old father of two, a suburbanite, and a guy whose only big interests are stocks and sports, I find it incredible that I could be popular at all, let alone controversial. It is a mystery to me that I am so loved and hated at the same time, although I’m pretty sure writing an entire story focused on myself, like I’m doing right now, can only push more people into the hate column. When I wrote my first book, Confessions of a Street Addict, a disgruntled former employee came out with his own book about me at roughly the same time. I can’t remember who, but one of the funniest reviewers asked why the heck there was even one book out about Jim Cramer, let alone two!”

Read more here.