Evil girl looking back at the viewer in front of a burning house

Disaster Girl

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About

Disaster Girl is a photoshop meme in which an exploitable photo of a smiling girl is superimposed on to images of natural disasters and accidents 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 2005[2] during the local fire department's live drill training 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.



Roth first uploaded the photo of his daughter, which he titled "Firestarter," to the image hosting service Zooomr[3] on January 2nd 2007. However, it did not receive much attention until later that year on November 29th when Roth submitted the same image to JPG Magazine[4] for an "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 gained over 95,000 views.[2] The original photo was posted to Buzzfeed[7] on October 27th, 2008 with a followup[8] post the next day highlighting the best derivatives, followed by similar posts on Digg[9], TrendHunter[10], 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]


38 Just as I planned

Notable Examples



ATRWAYS OAE

Disaster Girl Now

Roth has continued to post photos of Zoe on his Flickr[17] account over the years.



Interview with Know Your Meme

On December 18th, 2020, KYM interviewed Zoe as part of their editorial series that follows up on people featured in prominent memes. In the interview, we spoke with Roth to get a glimpse into what it was like growing up with her image plastered all around the internet — even to this day.


A 38 When you're trick-or-treating gives you a box of raisins When you're cutting wrapping paper and the scissors start to glide and someone CONTENTS: 360 Caption Cards 75 Photo Cards 1 Sexy Easel GAME PLAY Think you've got what it takes to out-meme your friends IRL? AGES PLAYERS TIME 17+ 3 то 20+ Compete to create the funniest meme by pairing Caption Cards with the Photo Card in play. A rotating judge picks the best combination each round. 30-90 MINS CE Made in China Copyright 2017 WHAT DO YOU MEME, LLC. New York, New York. WhatDoYouMeme.com Play until you're hungry, at which point stop playing and order a pizza. 60649 00030 0, wou rap the verse When correctly

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

[1] The Traveling Roths – Home

[2] The Traveling Roths – I Have A Meme: Disaster Girl

[3] Zooomr (via Wayback Machine) – Firestarter

[4] JPG Magazine (via Wayback Machine) – Firestarter

[5] JPG Magazine – Issue 14

[6] JPG Magazine (via Wayback Machine) – Disaster Girl is Coming for You

[7] Buzzfeed – Disaster Girl!

[8] Buzzfeed – The Amazing True Story of Disaster Girl

[9] Digg – Make Your Own 'Disaster Girl' Background

[10] TrendHunter – Viral Compassion Through Photoshop

[11] eBaum's World Forum (via Wayback Machine) – Disaster Girl Strikes Again

[12] Best Week Ever (via Wayback Machine) – Disaster Girl: The New Fail

[13] Neatorama – Disaster Girl

[14] DamnCoolPictures – Disaster Girl Grown Up

[15] Cracked – 6 Images of Kids Too Insane to Be Real (That Totally Are)

[16] Huffington Post – 6 Amazing Kid Photos

[17] Flickr – TravelingRoths

[18] - Wikipedia – A Girl Named Disaster

[19] Macrochan (via Wayback Machine) – Disaster Boy

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