"''Disaster Girl''" is a name given to a

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...

of a young girl staring at the camera with a structure fire behind her. The girl in the photo, Zoë Roth, was four years old when the photo was taken in 2005. A non-fungible token (NFT) based on the photo sold for $470,000 at auction on April 29, 2021.

Photograph

The photograph depicts a four-year-old Zoë Roth overlooking a structure fire while facing the camera. Roth's expression, described by '' The New York Times'' as "a devilish smirk" and "a knowing look in her eyes", jokingly implying that she was responsible for the fire.

History

Conception

When Zoë 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 subject to a

controlled burn A controlled or prescribed burn, also known as hazard reduction burning, backfire, swailing, or a burn-off, is a fire set intentionally for purposes of forest management, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. A control ...

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

, North Carolina, United States. The Roth family lived near a fire station in Mebane, North Carolina, and as they watched a house being burned for training, 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 ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image ...

'' 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, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...

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

extinction of the dinosaurs Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

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 (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, or

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

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

Reception

Marie Fazio of ''The New York Times'' described ''Disaster Girl'' as "a vital part of nternetmeme canon", considering it to be part of the internet meme "hall of fame", alongside the likes of Bad Luck Brian and ''Success Kid''.

References

{{reflist 2005 works 2000s photographs Internet memes introduced in 2005 Alamance County, North Carolina Women in art