Woman in ‘Disaster Girl’ meme sells the original photo for more than $473k
Picture of mischievous looking Zoe Roth was taken opposite burning building by her father in 2005
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The woman in the “Disaster Girl” meme has sold the original photo as an NFT for more than $473,000.
Zoe Roth, 21, is Internet famous for being the four-year-old girl pictured in a photograph standing in front of a burning building with a mischievous look on her face.
Zoe, who is now a university student, decided to sell the picture as a Non-Fungible Token, which have become a craze in digital art during the pandemic.
NFT’s are tokenised versions of assets that can be traded on a blockchain, which is the digital ledger behind cryptocurrency such as bitcoin and ethereum.
Digital artist Beeple hit the headlines in march when his “Everydays” NFT sold for $68m at Christie’s.
Ms Roth decided to turn the meme photo, which was taken by her amateur photographer father Dave, into an NFT, after receiving an email in February that said it was worth a significant figure in the market.
The picture was taken in January 2005 when Zoe and her family were living two blocks away from a fire station in Mebane, North Carolina.
Firefighters were performing a controlled burn to clear a nearby property and her father decided to test out his new camera.
It later won JPG magazine’s “Emotion Capture” contest before appearing on a host of image sharing websites.
Ms Roth listed the NFT on an auction site for 24 hours earlier this month and following a string of bids it sold for 180 ether, coins of the cryptocurrency ethereum.
Those coins were worth $2,644 each as of Tuesday afternoon.
The NFT was coded in such a way that Ms Roth and her father will also receive 10 per cent of the sale any time the NFT is bought in the future.
She says she will share the money among her family and give her portion to non-profits.
“Nobody who is a meme tried to do that, it just ended up that way. Is it luck? Is it fate? I have no idea. But I will take it,” Ms Roth told The Raleigh News & Observer.
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments