Disaster Girl

About

Disaster Girl is the subject of a photoshop meme in which she is superimposed on images to imply that she has caused some type of calamity depicted in the background.

Origin

The photograph of the girl and the burning house was taken by Dave Roth^[1] in January 2004^[2] during the local fire department’s training session with real fire that was held two blocks away from his home in Mebane, North Carolina. While observing the fire, Dave caught his daughter, Zoe, smiling devilishly juxtaposed against the burning house.

He first uploaded the photo, which he titled “Firestarter” to image hosting service Zooomr^[3] on January 2nd 2007. However, it did not receive much attention until it was submitted to JPG Magazine^[4] on November 29th of that year for a themed “Emotion Capture” competition. The photo was selected for publication in the February / March 2008 print issue of the magazine.^[5]

Spread

In October 2008, JPG Magazine^[6] spoke with Dave and Zoe, who were both “jazzed” by the attention the photo had received. By November 2008, the initial JPG Magazine post had over 95,000 views.^[2]

The original photo, along with an editor to add Zoe into other photos, was posted to Buzzfeed^[7] on October 27th, 2008 with a followup^[8] post the next day highlighting the best derivatives. These were then shared on Digg^[9], TrendHunter^[10], the eBaum’s World Forum^[11] and Best Week Ever.^[12]

Over the years, the photo and its derivatives have been mentioned on Neatorama^[13], photo site DamnCoolPictures^[14], Cracked^[15] and the Huffington Post.^[16]

Notable Examples

Disaster Girl Now

Roth has continued to post photos of Zoe on his Flickr^[17] account over the years. She is now 12.

Search Interest

Search for Disaster Girl didn’t begin until October 2008, when the photos were posted to Buzzfeed. Search peaked in May 2011.

External References