Zoe Roth, better known to the internet as Disaster Girl, became a meme sensation after a 2005 photo of her smirking in front of a burning house went viral. The image, captured by her father during a controlled fire training exercise, took off in the late 2000s as an Advice Animal meme, with users photoshopping her into chaotic scenes as if she were responsible for every disaster. Over the years, Roth embraced her internet fame and in 2021, she sold the image as an NFT for $500,000, using the proceeds to pay off student loans and donate to charity. Now, in 2025, she works in tech as an Internet of Things researcher at S&P Global, shifting from viral meme icon to a career in smart city technology. Though she no longer actively engages with her meme status, her image remains one of the most recognizable in internet history.
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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.