00:00The internet has a knack for turning innocent photos into viral sensations,
00:03and you are as iconic as Disaster Girl.
00:06You've seen it before, a grinning little girl standing in front of a burning house,
00:10her smirk suggesting she executed the perfect master plan.
00:13Since its rise to meme fame in the late 2000s,
00:15the image has been photoshopped into countless disaster scenes,
00:18cementing itself as a piece of internet history.
00:20But what's the real story behind the meme,
00:22and what does Zoe Roth, the once smirking child in the photo, think about her viral fame?
00:26Let's find out where Disaster Girl is now.
00:29Zoe Roth's meme journey began in January 2005,
00:32when her dad, Dave Roth, took a photo of her in front of a burning house
00:35in their hometown of Mabin, North Carolina.
00:37Despite the internet's wild theories, Zoe was not an arsonist in training.
00:41The fire was actually a controlled training exercise for the local fire department.
00:44Her family had heard sirens and spotted smoke billowing just blocks away.
00:48Curious, they walked over and saw firefighters
00:50conducting a live fire drill on a house set to be demolished.
00:53Zoe, just four years old, remembers peering through the windows
00:56and seeing everything inside burning,
00:58but since no one seemed concerned, she figured it was all fine.
01:00At that moment, her dad snaps the now-famous shot,
01:03Zoe, slightly amused, standing in front of the roaring flames.
01:06Dave Roth, an amateur photographer and early internet enthusiast,
01:10later uploaded the image to the photo-sharing site Zoomer.
01:12But it wasn't until November 2007,
01:14when he submitted it to JPG Magazine's Emotion Capture Contest,
01:18that the image started gaining traction.
01:20The magazine published it in early 2008,
01:22and soon, Disaster Girl began its transformation into an internet meme.
01:26By October of that year, BuzzFeed picked it up,
01:28and it spread rapidly across sites like Dig, Trent Hunter, and Ebombsworld.
01:32The meme took on a life of its own,
01:33with Zoe's face being edited into every disaster scenario imaginable,
01:37always implying that she was somehow responsible for the chaos.
01:40For most of her life, Zoe's reaction to her meme status
01:43has been a mix of amusement and disbelief.
01:46At first, she thought it was cool. Her classmates and friends certainly did.
01:49But growing up with your childhood face immortalized in internet history
01:52is a strange experience.
01:53Over the years, she's received messages from people around the world,
01:56sometimes in languages she doesn't even understand.
01:59Despite the widespread attention,
02:00Zoe has embraced her meme legacy without letting it define her.
02:03She's even made media appearances, including interviews with BuzzFeed
02:06where she's discussed how it felt to be internet famous
02:09before she was even old enough to understand it.
02:11Unlike some meme figures who try to escape their online notoriety,
02:14Zoe took control of hers.
02:15In 2021, she and her dad minted Disaster Girl as an NFT,
02:19selling it for a staggering $500,000.
02:22But for Zoe, it wasn't about cashing in.
02:24It was about reclaiming ownership over an image
02:26that had been used freely for years.
02:28In many ways, she followed the trend of meme celebrities
02:30capitalizing on their own likeness,
02:31similar to figures like Success Kid and Bad Luck Brian.
02:34She stated that her plans for the money included paying off student loans
02:38and donating to charitable causes,
02:39proving that she was able to turn her viral fame into something meaningful.
02:43Where is Disaster Girl now?
02:44In 2025, Zoe Roth isn't cashing in on meme fame
02:47or launching a YouTube channel.
02:49Instead, she's an Internet of Things researcher at S&P Global,
02:52where she analyzes smart city applications,
02:54intelligent transportation systems, and next-gen smart spaces.
02:57She's also become a speaker at the Women in Tech Global Conference.
03:00In a recent interview, she joked about wanting Disaster Girl
03:03to finally be bumped to page two of her Google results.
03:06Despite its darkly comedic undertones,
03:08Disaster Girl remains one of the internet's most beloved memes.
03:11While Zoe Roth may no longer be the mischievous-looking child in the photo,
03:15her image will forever live on as the face of meme-induced chaos.
03:18And in her own way, she's left a lasting mark on the digital world,
03:21both as an internet icon and a tech researcher shaping the future.
03:24Who knows? Maybe in another decade,
03:26we'll check back in to see if Zoe Roth finally managed to escape her meme past,
03:30or if the internet just won't let her go.
03:32But one thing's for sure, Disaster Girl will never be forgotten.
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