Where Are They Now? Here's What 'Disaster Girl' Zoe Roth Has Been Up To Since Her Childhood Photo Became A Meme

The internet has a knack for taking perfectly innocent photos and turning them into something unhinged. Case in point: Disaster Girl.

You've seen it — the image of a grinning little girl as a house blazes behind her, looking less like a concerned onlooker and more like a budding supervillain who just executed her master plan.

Since the Advice Animal image macro's rise to meme fame in the late 2000s, the photo has been photoshopped onto countless disaster scenes, cementing its place in internet history. It's even the official error page image for Know Your Meme.

But what's the real story behind the meme, and what does Zoe Roth – the once-smirking kid in the photo – think of her viral fame? Let's find out what Roth's life has been like since the internet decided she was its go-to chaos gremlin.

Who Is "Disaster Girl," And How Did She Become A Meme?

Zoe Roth's meme career began in January 2005 when her dad, Dave Roth, took a photo of her in front of a burning house in their hometown of Mebane, North Carolina.

But before you start drafting a true crime doc about her, the fire was actually part of a controlled training exercise for the local fire department — no one was in danger, and no tiny masterminds or child arsonists were involved.

Dave Roth, an amateur photographer, captured his daughter Zoe (4 years old at the time) and her mischievous smile as she looked at the camera, unknowingly creating one of the most iconic images of the internet age that still sees usage to this day.

He later uploaded it to the photo-sharing site Zoomr, but it wasn't until November 2007 when he submitted it to JPG Magazine's "Emotion Capture" contest that the image started gaining traction online. The magazine published it in early 2008, and from there, the internet took over.

By October 2008, BuzzFeed had featured it, kicking off its transformation into a full-fledged meme. Soon, "Disaster Girl" was being edited into historic catastrophes, fictional explosions and every disaster scenario imaginable, always with the implication that Zoe was somehow responsible.

The meme took off across sites like Digg, TrendHunter and eBaum's World, with its sinister yet adorable undertones making it an instant classic.

What's The Backstory Behind The Burning Building In The Meme?

Despite what the internet might have you believe, Zoe Roth did not personally set that house ablaze. The reality? Just a case of good timing and a dad with a camera.

In an interview with Know Your Meme in late 2020, Roth explained that her family had heard sirens and spotted smoke billowing just a block away.

Curious, they then walked over and found firefighters conducting a live fire drill on a house set to be demolished. Zoe Roth remembers peering through the windows and seeing everything inside burning, but since no one else seemed concerned, she figured it was all fine.

At that moment, her dad snapped the now-infamous photo — Roth, slightly amused, possibly distracted, standing in front of a roaring inferno. Zoe Roth says that her dad has "always been a big internet guy" in addition to his knack for photography and that her iconic photo eventually made its way into a published collection of his photographs.

What Does Zoe Roth Think About Her Virality, And Did She Ever Capitalize On Her Meme Fame?

For most of her life, Zoe Roth's reaction to her meme status has been a mix of amusement and mild disbelief. At first, she thought it was cool — her classmates and friends certainly did. But growing up with your childhood face immortalized in internet lore is a strange experience.

Over the years, she's received messages from people around the world, sometimes in languages she doesn't even understand. "Probably every day or two, I get a DM of the meme in a foreign language and save it into an album," she said.

Zoe Roth has also made a few media appearances, including interviews with BuzzFeed Live New York, embracing her meme legacy without letting it define her.

Unlike some meme figures who try (and fail) to escape their online notoriety, Roth decided to take control of hers. In 2021, she and her dad minted Disaster Girl as an NFT, selling it for a staggering $500,000 … not bad for an old family photo.

The sale wasn't just about cashing in either, it was about reclaiming ownership over an image that had been used freely for years, which is an experience many meme celebs have shared with us in interviews over the years. She also stated her plans to put the money toward student loans and charitable causes.

What Is Zoe Roth Up To Now, And Will She Ever Pursue A Career On The Internet?

Yes — but not in the way you'd think. It's 2025, and Zoe Roth isn't cashing in on meme fame or launching a YouTube channel. Instead, she's an Internet of Things researcher at S&P Global, where she analyzes smart city applications, intelligent transportation systems and next-gen smart spaces.

In her Know Your Meme interview, she joked about wanting Disaster Girl to finally be bumped to page two of her Google results.

Well, mission accomplished — she's now a speaker at the Women in Tech Global Conference, presenting "Breaking into IoT: Perspectives from a Gen Z Analyst."

Despite its darkly comedic undertones, "Disaster Girl" remains one of the internet's most beloved memes. While Zoe Roth may no longer be the mischievous-looking child in the photo, her image will forever live on as the face of meme-induced chaos.

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For the full history of Disaster Girl, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information. To see the rest of our "Where Are They Now" series, you can find them all here. Stay tuned for next week's editorial!

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