‘Disaster Girl’ Girl Made Half A Million Dollars From Turning Her Meme Into NFT
Screenshot via Foundation
Many people would grapple with the idea of overnight fame, but one person who has risen from it is making the most of the situation. Zoë Roth, whose impish four-year-old mug had been immortalized in the infamous ‘Disaster Girl’ meme, recently sold the image as a non-fungible token (NFT) on auction site Foundation.
The digital art, put up as a 2,560 x 1920 pixel piece, was sold for the Ether equivalent of about US$500,000—about the same amount as the NFT minted by the maker of ‘Nyan Cat’.
Not so much of a disaster, eh? Let’s see if Bad Luck Brian can do better.
With the earnings, the now-21-year-old Roth intends to pay for her education, as well as make some donations to charity, she told the New York Times.
If you’re curious about the meme’s origin, it was the student’s father, David Roth, who took the picture. A fire broke out one morning in January 2005, and father and daughter rushed to the outside of a burning house in their neighborhood. It was there that David Roth captured the image of his daughter flashing a mischievous grin while firefighters worked to extinguish the blaze. In 2007, he submitted the photo, entitled Firestarter, in a contest, and won. It was later published for all to see.
Once the internet got hold of the image, young Roth quickly became the face of devil’s advocate. Her mug would be superimposed on countless photos of catastrophic events.
The subject has clearly been welcoming of these visual analogies. In the NFT listing, she even added the description: “When disaster strikes… She is there!”
[via Engadget and The New York Times, cover image via Foundation]
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