# Auschwitz Selfie

The Auschwitz Selfie is a smiling self-portrait posted to Twitter in 2014 by American teenager Breanna Mitchell outside the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. When the picture went viral a month later, it drew heavy online backlash and days of news coverage before Mitchell stepped away from the tweet.

## Overview
The Auschwitz Selfie is a photo of American teenager Breanna Mitchell smiling outside the former Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, which she posted from her Twitter handle @PrincessBMM[1]. The image pairs a bright smile and a smiley-face emoticon caption with the site of a Nazi death camp, and that contrast drove the reaction once the tweet caught wider attention[2].

When the photo was rediscovered a month after posting, Twitter split between people who called the pose offensive and others who felt the harassment aimed at a teenage girl had gone too far, and Mitchell said she took the picture in remembrance of her father[1].

## How It Spread
Once the tweet trended on July 20, 2014, angry replies flooded in alongside a growing group of defenders[1]. In less than 48 hours the original post gathered nearly 4,000 retweets and over 2,600 favorites, and Mitchell retweeted more than 150 messages from supporters[1].

Same-day articles ran on Business Insider, Buzzfeed, and Newsday, with the New York Post and The Mirror in the UK covering the story the following day[2]. Mitchell briefly leaned into the attention, tweeting "I'm famous yall" after Business Insider wrote her up[1]. She soon asked people to stop retweeting the picture and stepped back from the mentions[1].

## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Auschwitz Selfie?
The Auschwitz Selfie is a smiling photo teenager Breanna Mitchell took of herself outside the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland and posted to Twitter under the handle @PrincessBMM[1].

### Where did Auschwitz Selfie come from?
Mitchell tweeted the picture from her Twitter account on June 20, 2014, and it went viral about a month later on July 20, 2014, when a wider audience began sharing it as a trending topic[1].

### What does Auschwitz Selfie mean?
It became shorthand for the clash between casual selfie culture and serious historical sites, and for arguments about online pile-ons directed at teenagers[1].

### How do you use Auschwitz Selfie?
The Auschwitz Selfie is a specific 2014 news event rather than a template, and it typically comes up as a reference in discussions of Holocaust tourism, selfie etiquette, and social media shaming[2].

### Is Auschwitz Selfie still popular?
The Auschwitz Selfie was a short July 2014 news cycle, and Mitchell stepped back from the mentions within days of the tweet going viral[1].

## References
1. [https://nypost.com/2014/07/21/smiling-auschwitz-selfie-sparks-twitter-outrage/](<https://nypost.com/2014/07/21/smiling-auschwitz-selfie-sparks-twitter-outrage/>)
2. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/auschwitz-selfie](<https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/auschwitz-selfie>)

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Source: https://meme.com/memes/auschwitz-selfie
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