Meme Celebrities
Disaster Girl: the smile in front of the fire
Zoë Roth was four when her father photographed her grinning in front of a burning house. The fire was a training exercise; the smirk became immortal.
In January 2005 the fire department in Mebane, North Carolina, set a house on fire on purpose to train its firefighters, and neighbours came to watch. Dave Roth, an amateur photographer, brought his four-year-old daughter Zoë. As the flames went up he took her picture - and she gave him a small, knowing smile, as if she'd lit it herself.
The internet's arsonist
Her father entered the picture in a photography contest and won, and from there it escaped. People pasted Zoë in front of every disaster in history and captioned her as the cheerful villain behind them. Disaster Girl became one of the most recognised faces online - while the real Zoë was just going to school.
Disaster Girl: Someone accidentally sends "reply all" to the whole company.
Taking it back
For years the family had no say over where the picture went. In April 2021 Zoë, by then a university student, sold the original as a digital collectible for about $500,000, keeping the copyright and a share of future sales. She asked for advice from other meme celebrities first, including Bad Luck Brian and Success Kid's mother. She used the money to pay off her student loans and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Watch her tell it
I Accidentally Became A Meme: Disaster Girl (BuzzFeedVideo, YouTube)
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