Celebrity3 min(s) read
The internet has been around for long enough now that some memes have been lost in time, but there are a rare few that stick around.
One of the memes that may not be plastered across social media platforms anywhere, but still grabs the attention of users, is the 'disaster girl' image.
Later generations will be familiar with the iconic snap - there's a house fire in the background, but on the right-hand side of the frame, shooting the camera an evil-looking grin, is a young girl.
The photo could be used in a number of contexts, and it shot four-year-old Zoë Roth to fame overnight.
It came about after her family went to observe a house fire in their neighborhood in Mebane, North Carolina.
In the years following, the snap went viral, and many started to wonder where the girl is today.
As for the fire, firefighters intentionally set the blaze as a controlled fire, so she wasn't smiling at anything serious.
Neighbors gathered around the burning home, with children allowed to take turns holding the hose.
Roth was standing away, watching the house engulfed in flames when her dad asked her to pose for a picture - a thought that would not have crossed many people's minds.
As long as it's a controlled fire, I guess, but many wouldn't have assumed this to be the case.
Roth then posed with a devilish glint in her eyes as the fire continued to blaze behind her, with the frame later becoming known as 'Disaster Girl' in the meme world.
This picture would do the rounds online after Dave Roth, the girl's father, entered it in a photo contest in 2007 and won.
The image has been edited and used to depict several disasters in history, further cementing its place in internet folklore.
Whether it be the Titanic sinking or one of many seismic events in our planet's history, Roth's face has been edited in front of it.
But back in 2021, Roth was back in the headlines as an adult, as she chose to sell the original copy of her meme.
She chose to do so as a non-fungible token, or NFT (remember those?), for an eye-watering figure near $500,000.
In a conversation with the New York Times, Roth admitted that she enjoyed seeing the varying versions of her picture.
Anyone would be pleased with making that amount from a single photo sale, in all fairness, as she said: "You just make it fit however you want to fit it,
"I love seeing them because I'd never make any of them myself, but I love seeing how creative people are."
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