About

When referring to Brussels in the “EU” or “European Union” sense of the term, many people talk about the “EU bubble”.

But in all fairness, a bubble is something smooth, soapy clean, that has a tendency to burst easily but first gets a chance to float to unknown heights.

The reality of Brussels is slightly more savage and brutal than that. Hence the title of this satirical hodge podge of skewed, satirical and (hopefully) funny “news”.

But what so we mean by satire is and what does the Brussels Jungle aim to be?

In a definition found on the web (on a site called All Experts which seemed unprofessional enough for us to quote it as true journos would), Satire is defined as “a literary technique of writing or art which exposes the follies of its subject (for example, individuals, organizations, or states) to ridicule, often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change”.

In western European literature, satire has been an accepted form of social commentary since the 5th century B.C., principally in the form of plays and poetry.

Litterature defines two broad categories of satire, namely the Horatian satire, which is gentle and urbane, and the Juvenalian satire, which is biting and bitter. Satire can also flirt with burlesque either in the form of  High burlesque (which consists in taking subject matter which is crude in nature and treating it in a lofty style), or in the form of Low burlesque (which inversely consists in taking subject matter traditionally dealt with in an epic or poetic fashion and degrading it).

At the Brussels Jungle, we will aim to be in-between the Horation and the Juvenalian, bordering on the High Burlesque with flashes of Low.

However, this requires a continuous stream of inventive and original headlines and, for the really inspired, stories that fit in any of our categories.

We know that creativity is abound in the world and that a heck of a lot of people gravitating in the EU Bubble or just bored to death and in urgent need of some “make me smile” therapy. To those desperate civil servants, employees and freelancers, we have one single message: “Write to us, Write for us”.

The system is simple: if you have a crazy thought of headline, just post it on twitter with hash tag #bjnext so that we can spot it and build an article around it. If you feel a burst in creativity that goes beyond 140 characters and wish to send us an article, mail it to editor [at] thebrusselsjungle [dot] com, specifying how you want to be credited for it (we are talking “your name” here, not money).