''Disaster Girl'' is a

meme A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that Mimesis, spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying c ...

photograph featuring a young girl staring at the camera with a house fire behind her. The girl in the photo, Zoë Roth, was four years old when the photo was taken in 2005.

Photograph

The photograph depicts a four-year-old Zoë Roth overlooking a structure fire while facing the camera, with her expression, described by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' as "a devilish smirk" and "a knowing look in her eyes", jokingly implying that she was responsible for the fire.

History

Conception

When Roth was four years old, her family went to view a

burning house "Burning House" is a song recorded by American country music singer Cam. It was released on June 16, 2015, as the second single from her second album '' Untamed''. Co-written by Cam along with Tyler Johnson and Jeff Bhasker, the song was inspired ...

that had been set for firefighter training in

Mebane Mebane ( ) is a city located mostly in Alamance County, North Carolina, United States, and partly in Orange County. The town was named for Alexander Mebane, an American Revolutionary War general and member of the U.S. Congress. It was incorpora ...

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

, United States. The Roth family lived near a

fire station __NOTOC__ A fire station (also called a fire house, fire hall, firemen's hall, or engine house) is a structure or other area for storing firefighting apparatuses such as fire apparatus, fire engines and related vehicles, personal protective equ ...

in Mebane, North Carolina, and as they watched a house burning, Roth's father, an amateur photographer, took her picture. Her father entered it into a photo contest in 2007 and it won. The photo became famous in 2008 when it won an Emotion Capture contest in ''

JPG JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...

'' magazine. Roth had given permission to use the image in educational material, but the photo had been used hundreds of times for various purposes, without the Roth family being in control.

Use as an internet meme

''Disaster Girl'' spread as an

internet meme An Internet meme, or meme (, Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''MEEM''), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that spreads across the Internet, primarily through Social media, social media platforms. Internet memes manif ...

, with many editing the photo to depict Roth overlooking historic disasters, such as the

extinction of the dinosaurs Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its last member. A taxon may become functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to reproduce and recover. As a species' potential range may be ...

or the sinking of the ''Titanic''. Roth appreciated the spread of the meme, saying that she loves "seeing how creative people are", and that she is "super grateful for the entire experience" of being the subject of a viral meme.

Non-fungible token auction

After receiving an email in February 2021 suggesting she sell the meme as a

non-fungible token A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchai ...

(NFT) for as much as "six figures", Roth decided to sell an NFT of the photo. On April 17, 2021, Roth sold the NFT for 180

Ether In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group, a single oxygen atom bonded to two separate carbon atoms, each part of an organyl group (e.g., alkyl or aryl). They have the general formula , where R and R� ...

, or

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

486,716 to a collector identified only as @3FMusic. The Roth family retained

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

over the work, as well as an entitlement to 10 percent of proceeds when the NFT is resold. According to Roth, she sold the photograph to take control over its spread, after consulting Kyle Craven / Bad Luck Brian and Laney Griner, the mother of the child depicted in the ''

Success Kid Success Kid is an Internet meme featuring a baby clenching a fistful of sand with a determined facial expression. It began in 2007 and eventually became known as "Success Kid". The popularity of the image led CNN to describe Sammy Griner, the bo ...

'' meme. Roth used the proceeds of the auction to pay off her student loans after earning a BA in Peace, War, and Defense from the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

. As of 2024, Roth works for

S&P Global S&P Global Inc. (prior to 2016, McGraw Hill Financial, Inc., and prior to 2013, The McGraw–Hill Companies, Inc.) is an American publicly traded corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. Its primary areas of business are financia ...

as a Smart Cities & IoT analyst.

Reception

Marie Fazio of ''

'' described ''Disaster Girl'' as "a vital part of nternetmeme

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

", considering it to be part of the internet meme "hall of fame", alongside the likes of

Bad Luck Brian Kyle Edward Craven (born August 10, 1989), commonly known by his Internet nickname "Bad Luck Brian", is an American Internet celebrity known for his photo which was posted on Reddit in 2012, which quickly became a popular Internet meme. Bad Luck ...

and

References

External links

* Zoë Roth describes her experience, 4 minutes * {{Know Your Meme, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/disaster-girl, Disaster Girl launched in 2007. 2005 works 2000s photographs Internet memes introduced in 2005 Alamance County, North Carolina Culture of North Carolina Women in art Internet meme characters People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph