'Disaster Girl' Meme Sold as NFT for Nearly $500,000

Zoë Roth, popularly known as the girl in the “Disaster Girl” meme, has sold the image to the popular meme as an NFT for almost $500,000, the New York Timesreports.

The image was bought by a Dubai-based music production company known as 3F Music, which spent $411,000 for the image from the Overly Attached Girlfriend meme in April. When asked to explain the reasoning behind their purchase, 3F Music provided NYT with the following statement: “Our management team is always in cooperation with some highly knowledgeable and experienced art advisers who believe that we must grow with technological movements that help us to not only promote our business but also to support artists and the art market.”

In 2005, Roth was only four years old when she had her picture taken by her father David as they witnessed a house, which was donated to the fire department by the home owners as part of a controlled burn to clear the land, set ablaze right in front of them. As she explained in her 2020 interview with BuzzFeedVideo, David was snapping photos of the burning house, and asked her to smile for the camera. Zoë smirked at the camera, and the meme was born.

Roth, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said she will use the money to pay off her student loans. She also plans on donating to charity, but is currently in the process of “researching nonprofits.” Zoë and David will keep the copyright to the image and by “minting” the NFT, they’ll be able to receive 10 percent of any profits earned from a sale of the image as an NFT in the future.