A honeymooning friend of mine, who is travelling in Europe, recently posted some pictures from Berlin on social media. It is a series of selfies taken in front of Berlin’s landmark that evokes memories of the death of a million innocent people — the Holocaust memorial. The picture wasn’t entirely disrespectful; they weren’t slouched on one of the slabs or pictured jumping off the numerous concrete blocks that characterise the memorial. It was tame — both smiling, looking straight into their phone’s selfie camera.
Nevertheless, it’s due to ignorance that they chose to freeze their happy moment in front of a memorial known for the unspeakable tragedies of genocide in the pages of history. They did have their clues — what was a terrible giveaway that this could be inappropriate was the location tag, which reads ‘The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe’.
Not to single them out in their selfie pursuits, they weren’t alone in letting their selfie enthusiasm in front of a sombre memorial dilute the importance of its history. There are more than a few tourists who are either unaware of history or certain etiquette on how to act in front of such memorials. Shahak Shapira, a Berlin-based visual artist, documented a few of them in his photo project called Yolocaust.
Shapira, who lives near the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, went through inappropriate Instagram pictures posted by tourists in front of the memorial — selfies in different poses, individual portraits of people performing acrobatics, and other such photographs, and superimposed them on the original pictures of Holocaust victims. The result is a catalogue that named and shamed such individuals, and perhaps taught them a lesson or two on the importance of the memorial. The individuals were obviously given a chance to retract their pictures from the project.
In this age, when travel seems to be solely an exercise in instagrammable selfie-brags, how does a historically unaware traveller know what’s appropriate travel etiquette? For one, there is the location tag, like in this case. For the rest, be self-aware, perhaps? Educate yourself?
It’s not as hard as reading pages of written text before visiting a memorial, for lord knows we have the attention span of a gold fish in the digital age. But it’s as simple as reading the numerous plaques and information pamphlets strewn around a monument you visit. Because, you know, tourism is big business, especially dark tourism, and the agencies responsible for these locations make every effort to educate the traveller.
It’s understandable that the pressure to generate more likes on Instagram could drive one to unlikely places. The latest travel trend, I discover, is stripping to show your posterior in the backdrop of beautiful landscapes. It is a trend spotted in Instagram and it is all being recorded on an account called Cheeky Exploits. Men and women, alone or with friends, are dropping their pants for the Cheeky Exploits account that has 240K followers on Instagram and promises, “making the world happier through butts”.
Now, for the sake of journalistic integrity, I must confess that I have posted my own cheeky exploit(s) once (just once) on Instagram. That’s because the extraordinariness of the situation demanded it, and additionally, I assure you, there was no posterior involved. While on the train across Russia (commonly called Trans-Siberian train), I took a detour to Lake Baikal, and on this particular day, as I hiked, the lake was shimmering on a rare sunny day in the Siberian summer. I decided to skinny-dip. Naturally, it resulted in an Instagram post, but the picture showed only my leg — no travel etiquette sidestepped, nobody’s sensibilities offended. If there was a cheeky exploit for legs, my picture would surely find a place there.
Now, cheeky exploits or otherwise, I just hope my friends don’t end up in Shapira’s Yolocaust.
The writer is an independent journalist who lives in Stuttgart, Germany, and often writes stories that intersect food and travel .
