‘Disaster Girl,’ now 21, makes $473,000 selling the original picture behind her meme 

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The woman in the famous ‘Disaster Girl’ meme has sold the original photograph as an NFT for $473,000. 

Zoe Roth, 21, became an internet sensation at the age of four when she was pictured standing in front of a burning building with a devilish smirk on her face. 

The image has since served as a perfect meme for those who want to depict any disastrous scene or mischievous act.

The picture in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT) – a kind of unique digital asset that has exploded in popularity so far in 2021 – was snapped up for 180 Ethereum, which is equivalent to $473,000, by a collector known only as @3FMusic.

An NFT is a unique digital token encrypted with an artist’s signature and which verifies its ownership and authenticity and is permanently attached to the piece.

It allows ‘original’ versions of popular online content – like viral memes and tweets – to be sold as if they were physical pieces of art. 

The collector @3FMusic is reportedly Farzin Fardin Fard, CEO of a Dubai-based music production company, according to Gizmodo.  

Zoe, now a university student, and her father Dave – who captured the photo – were approached by an anonymous person via email in February who encouraged them to sell the image as an NFT.  

Each NFT has its own blockchain-based digital signature, which serves as a public ledger, allowing anyone to verify the asset’s authenticity and ownership.  

Zoe was pictured by her father in January 2005 when she and her family were living near a fire station in Mebane, North Carolina. 

The family went outside to see a controlled burn – a fire that is intentionally set to clear a property – and Dave snapped a photo of a smirking Zoe in front of the fire.

 Since then, Dave won the JPG magazine’s ‘Emotion Capture’ contest in 2008 and the image went viral after it was posted online. 

‘Nobody who is a meme tried to do that, it just ended up that way,’ Zoe told The Raleigh News & Observer. ‘Is it luck? Is it fate? I have no idea. But I will take it.’   

Since then the photograph has become an internet sensation. The NFT was coded in a way that will allow Zoe and Dave – who have said they will split the profit between them – to acquire 10 per cent of profits whenever the NFT is sold in the future. 

For the first time in 15 years, Zoe and Dave have control over their image. 

‘Being able to sell it just shows us that we do have some sort of control, some sort of agency in the whole process,’ Zoe said. 

Zoe, who is a senior at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, is looking into nonprofit organizations she can donate her proceeds to while Dave hopes to fix the air conditioning of his Honda Civic. 

Others who became famous through their memes have hopped on the NFT bandwagon. 

Chris Torres, creator of Nyan Cat, sold his iconic meme for roughly $590,000 earlier this year and finally gained attribution for the artwork – which he said was a huge factor in why he first sought out NFTs. 

Nyan Cat – which shows a gray kitty with a Pop Tart for a body, flying through space – first went viral back in 2011.

‘Nobody knew who owned it,’ he said to Los Angeles Magazine. ‘It was just kind of free-rein on the internet. It didn’t just appear even though memes are kind of thought that way sometimes.’ 

Tardar Sauce, aka Grumpy Cat, became the most beloved cat in the world and has been featured in all types of work. Even though she died in 2019, the NFT of her notorious meme has sold for $100,859.54. 

Chris Crocker’s infamous ‘Leave Britney Alone’ video dominated when it first hit the scene in 2007, getting parodied in movies and on television. With the #FreeBritney movement in full swing, Crocker has sold the video as a NFT for more than $43,000. 

NFTs – sometimes pronounced ‘nifties’ – are a unique digital token encrypted with  the creator’s signature which verifies its ownership and authenticity and is permanently attached to the piece.

The tokens are similar to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum in that they live on blockchain networks – a decentralized, distributed ledger that records transactions of digital assets. 

But unlike traditional cryptocurrencies, NFTs are non-fungible, meaning that one cannot be exchanged for another. The digital assets have collectors value, and can represent items including still images, GIFs, videos, music and more.    

More than $10 million in NFT transactions are now taking place daily, according to the website DappRadar. The exchanges happen in cryptocurrencies on specialist sites such as Nifty Gateway and OpenSea, on the fringes of the art world. Sales of NFTs are made in Ether, a cryptocurrency that has a fluctuating value. 

The phenomenon is now becoming more mainstream with traditional auction houses keen to cash in, lending the craze, and digital artists, even more credibility.

For creators like Torres, the selling of the NFTs has inspired the internet artists to buy up other NFTs, even going as far as to help set up an auction for meme-makers to sell their work. 

‘It’s digital trading cards, but it’s also a new way for artists to make art. Every artist kind of struggles,’ Torres added. ‘They’ll make art and then it sells, but NFTs give you the option where when you sell your art, if it gets sold again, you still get a percentage of that sale.’

Bad Luck Brian, the meme of Kyle Craven’s hilariously bad yearbook photo, sold for more than $45,000. 

Success Kid, the photo of photographer Laney Griner’s at the time 11-month-old son Sam, has sold as a NFT for approximately $35,000. Sam is almost 15. 

Overly Attached Girlfriend, spawned from a YouTube video of Laina Morris satirically showing her love for Justin Bieber, has sold for $459,260.  

And in March, Twitter boss Jack Dorsey’s first tweet – ‘just setting up my twttr’ – sold as an NFT for just over $2.9million.

It was snapped up by Sina Estavi, the CEO of Malaysia-based blockchain company Bridge Oracle. 

Valuables’ parent company Cent confirmed Dorsey’s tweet-turned-NFT was sold to Estavi, who told Reuters he was ‘thankful’ when asked for comment about the purchase.

It was bought using the cryptocurrency Ether, for 1630.5825601 ETH, which was worth $2,915,835.47 at the time of sale, Cent CEO and founder Cameron Hejazi said. 

Estavi was also rumored to be eyeing an NFT of one of Elon Musk’s tweets, before the eccentric Tesla CEO turned down his $1.1million offer.  

Musk had tweeted out a two-minute original song on March 15 that he claimed he was willing to sell to the highest bidder.