Top 10 Selfies

Based on this photo, it looks like reality TV show star and prolific selfie-taker Kim Kardashian was almost injured while trying to pose for a selfie with an elephant in Thailand. The Internet loved this picture, but one major question remains: Will she include this image in the book of selfies that she’s publishing with Rizzoli next year? It’s also possible the elephant just wanted to see how it looked in the shot.

This soccer tournament only happens every four years, so naturally, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was a sport about taking a selfie with the team’s striker Lukas Podolski after Germany beat Portugal to win the 2014 title.

Correction appended, December 8, 2014: The original version of this article misstated Germany’s opponent in the final match of the 2014 World Cup. It was Argentina.

The country music star took a selfie in front of Westboro Baptist Church members protesting his hit song “Alcohol” with “God Hates Drunks” signs before a Kansas concert. He seemed to get a kick out of it because he does’t drink, and the image has racked up nearly 245,000 “likes” on Facebook to date.

In a train-wreck of an idea, a man gets smacked in the head by the conductor while trying to take a photo of himself as a speeding train whizzes by. He admits in the video description that the idea was “messed up,” so kids, don’t try this at home.

During the Pamplona bull run over the summer, a man was wanted by the police for taking a selfie in front of two bulls, violating the Spanish city’s regulation prohibiting the use of mobile devices to ensure festival-goers’ safety. He reportedly faced a $4,100 fine and definitely faced endless ridicule on Twitter.

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover took an out-of-this-world image on June 24 to mark a full Martian year, which is 687 days on Earth. It had a productive year, between collecting rock samples and discovering a former lakebed that NASA says had “essential elemental ingredients for life.” But no word on how close it is to finding living organisms capable of taking selfies.

A young man snapped the selfie of a lifetime with former Beatle Paul McCartney and business tycoon Warren Buffett sitting on a bench outside of an Omaha, Neb., ice cream joint in July.

Australian field hockey player Jayde Taylor was surprised to find the Queen smiling in the background of a selfie she snapped at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games in July.

When Vice President Joe Biden joined Instagram as @vp in April, he showed millennial voters how hip he is by sharing a selfie with President Barack Obama in the back of a car. Around that time, the two were on a joint trip in Oakdale, Pa., to announce an increase in funding for job-training grants. Before you knew it, he was posing for selfies with Katy Perry and with voters at campaign rallies before the midterm elections.

And the award for most retweeted tweet in history (so far) goes to…the selfie Ellen DeGeneres orchestrated at the 2014 Academy Awards, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Channing Tatum, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt, Lupita Nyong’o, Angelina Jolie, Bradley Cooper, Meryl Streep and Jared Leto. It may have been sponsored by Samsung, but that didn’t stop us from retweeting, memeing and talking about it for weeks.