best european BACKGROUNDs FOR SELFIES in 2013 

Published on December 18, 2013

LifestyleSelfie Dossier

In this delightful ar­ti­cle we pre­sent the most pop­u­lar Eu­ro­pean back­grounds for self­ies in 2013. Where and when was it most worth taking a selfie in Europe this year?

A SELFIE WITH THE NEW POPE

Pope Fran­cis, who has been ful­filling his hon­or­able func­tions since 13 March 2013, was de­clared 'Man of the Year' by 'Time' magazine. He vanquished a cer­tain Miley Cyrus, who has recently re-established herself as a media favourite by lick­ing metal tools. Our new Holy Fa­ther is no stranger to self­ies himself, quickly establishing himself as the most me­dia-friendly pope in the his­tory of the cosmos.

Selfie with anti-gov­ern­ment demon­stra­tions

The Turk­ish protests, which began in late May in Is­tan­bul, ini­tially sought to prevent the con­struc­tion of a shop­ping cen­ter in the city’s park Gezi. How­ever, they quickly turned into full-blown anti-gov­ern­ment demon­stra­tions. In June, Bul­gar­i­ans also began to protest against their gov­ern­ment's policies. The peo­ple’s main pos­tu­late was the re­moval of the oli­garchy from power. The streets of Ukraine's capital, Kiev, have been flooded with pro­test­ers since No­vem­ber. Demon­stra­tions were or­ga­nized in re­sponse to the gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to aban­don  the sign­ing of an as­so­ci­a­tion agree­ment with the EU. Riot police at­tacked the pro-EU protestors with tear gas and ba­tons.

SELFIE WITH CROA­TIA IN THE EU­RO­PEAN UNION

The Eu­ro­pean Union wel­comed its 28th mem­ber on 1 July. We have complete confidence that it was a rash decision on the part of neither parties seeing as Croa­tia's ac­ces­sion ne­go­ti­a­tions lasted nearly a decade (since 2003).

Selfie with the le­gal­iza­tion of gay mar­riage

In April, amidst enor­mous con­tro­versy and fervent demon­stra­tions, the French Na­tional As­sem­bly passed a bill le­gal­iz­ing same-sex mar­riage. France is the 14th coun­try to le­gal­ize mar­riage be­tween peo­ple of the same sex. The first coun­try in the world to le­gal­ize the ex­is­tence of ho­mo­sex­ual unions was Den­mark in 1989. The first country to le­gal­ize marriage between per­sons of the same sex was the Nether­lands in 2001.

Selfie with snowden and the nsa spying scandal

In June, 29-year-old Ed­ward Snow­den, a for­mer em­ployee of the CIA and the NSA, re­vealed to the press the ex­is­tence of a colossal U.S. gov­ern­ment pro­gram surveilling its own cit­i­zens. The NSA has been mon­i­toring emails, phone calls and ac­tiv­ity on so­cial net­works. The pro­gram co­op­er­ates with, among oth­ers, Mi­crosoft, Face­book, Apple and Google. Snow­den is wanted by the U.S. au­thor­i­ties on charges of espionage and the dis­clo­sure of state se­crets. He is cur­rently hid­ing in Rus­sia, which has granted him asy­lum.

Selfie with the ROYAL BABY

27 July was the day the long-awaited suc­ces­sor to the British throne was born (3.8 kilo­grams at birth). In honor of George Alexan­der Louis, a splendid name for a splendid baby, the foun­tains in Trafal­gar Square were stained in blue – the most manly colour known to man. The web was inundated with a glorious flood of exquisite memes. In the UK it is currently in good taste to de­vote small ­tal­k to the ques­tion of whether the Royal Baby has even the smallest chance of enjoying a vaguely nor­mal child­hood.

Selfie with the eco­nomic CRI­SIS

To pass com­ment on this issue is prob­a­bly un­nec­es­sary. Britain has no cause for com­plaint, and UK citizens feel  no envy towards truly buggered nations such as Greece, Spain and Italy.

Selfie with the Eu­ro­pean brain drain

Ac­cord­ing to Eu­ro­stat data, un­em­ploy­ment in the euro zone reached 12% in Feb­ru­ary (un­em­ploy­ment among peo­ple under 25 reached 23.5% in the same time period). This is the high­est level of unemployment since 1995. South­ern Eu­rope has been par­tic­u­larly af­fected by this phe­nom­e­non - Greece (26.4%), Spain (26.3%) and Por­tu­gal (17.5%). In this sit­u­a­tion it is not sur­pris­ing that ed­u­cated un­em­ployed youths from the south of the con­ti­nent are mi­grating north in search of jobs and bet­ter liv­ing con­di­tions.

selfie With MERKEL

In Sep­tem­ber, Germany elected rep­re­sen­ta­tives to the Bun­destag. The Chris­t­ian De­mo­c­ra­tic Union, with Angie Merkel at the helm, won the elec­tions for the third consecutive time. On this oc­ca­sion the Ger­man Chan­cel­lor decided to par­tic­i­pate in the widely lauded hip­ster rally.

This article is part of Cafébabel's 2013 'Narcissism' series. There are four more articles in the series which are currently being translated and will soon be available in English.

Translated from europejskie tła do samojebek 2013 roku