‘Disaster girl’ sells her viral meme for a whopping $500,000

Zoe Roth, famously known as the 'Disaster Girl' on the internet, has now made a whopping $500,000 by selling the original copy of the meme as a non-fungible token (NFT).

Hyderabad: Remember the four-year-old girl who became famous overnight after her father photographed her smiling in front of a burning house two blocks away from her own house?

Zoe Roth, famously known as the ‘Disaster Girl’ on the internet, has now made a whopping $500,000 by selling the original copy of the meme as a non-fungible token (NFT).

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Currently a 21-year-old senior at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Zoe received an email in February asking her to sell the meme. An NFT would allow her to create a string of unique computer code for the original photo and store it on a blockchain, which tracks all future transactions. While initially apprehensive, Zoe and her father Dave Roth did some research, turned to advice from other meme celebrities, hired a lawyer, and went ahead with the idea.

Originally, the meme was made in 2005 and the famous fire in the viral photo was in fact a controlled fire purposefully set in a nearby piece of property to clear the land. The Roth family lived close to a fire station and sirens were common in their neighbourhood. Only this time, the girl’s father decided to test his new camera with the fire in the background.

Zoe has now decided to use the auction money to fund her college education and donate to charity.