- I accidentally became a meme,
and this is that story.
My name is Zoe Roth, but you may know me as disaster girl.
This all started in 2005.
I was five years old and we were watching TV.
It was a normal day.
Me, my brother Tristan, and my parents.
And we heard all these fire sirens,
so we go, we walk outside and we see like billowing smoke
up just two blocks away.
So we're like, okay, we're gonna go check it out.
My dad had just gotten a new camera.
We start walking down the road
and we see that there's this house on fire.
At the time we thought it was a real fire
but all the fire marshals weren't really
in a rush to put it out.
They were kind of just like walking around.
They're letting like kids put out the fire.
The house that was on fire was donated
to the fire department by the owners for a test burn
because they wanted to clear the land.
Like, I didn't know it was a test fire,
that nobody was hurt, so at the time I remember
like looking inside and trying to figure out
what was going on.
My brother was really into Harry Potter at the time.
So he was dressed up as Harry Potter.
My dad was taking pictures of the house
and everything going on,
and then he said it was my turn to smile.
He was like, "Okay, smile."
So that's why I made that face,
just because that was my smile at the time.
Any picture from that period
I feel like you could look at it and be like
oh, like, this definitely looks like the same girl
because I just had an evil smile.
Fast forward to 2008.
We got a magazine in the mail and my dad said,
"Oh, Zoe, do you wanna look through this magazine?"
I was like, "Okay, whatever."
And I slipped through and like halfway through,
it's my picture in there.
And that's the first time I had seen it.
Like I never even saw it after he took it.
So it turns out there there's this magazine called JPEG
that had this photo competition called emotion capture.
And my dad submitted the picture to it and it won.
So I was in second grade at the time.
I don't really know much about JPEG magazine,
just that my dad liked it a lot.
So I thought that everybody liked it.
So obviously I brought the magazine into my class.
I showed everybody, I showed everybody in the halls,
all my teachers, because I was like, this is me.
I'm famous.
And to this day that's definitely the most famous
I've ever felt, like nothing has ever compared
to me being in second grade, taking my magazine to class.
So a trend started to emerge online where people started
to Photoshop my picture onto different disasters.
So they would take my picture in the corner
and they would put something like horrible behind it.
Like they put Hitler or they put the Hindenburg blowing up,
the dinosaurs going extinct, the atomic bomb,
Brittany Spears doing her disaster performance.
So that was the first wave of the meme.
And then people just started putting like
text over top of it.
I never had any fear of anybody conflating me
with being evil or causing these disasters.
None of my classmates and no one that I know
or I'm close with have ever thought that.
But I feel like random people always think that I'm evil
or that I did start the fire,
but I never take it too seriously
or get worried about it.
Obviously the Hitler one, the alt-right Photoshops,
make me pretty uncomfortable.
And I'd never condone that or enjoy it.
But I also know I can't really do anything about it
so I don't let it get to me.
Being a meme hasn't had a huge impact on my life
like it has for other people,
but there's definitely things here and there
that are super fun.
There's just been a few times where
I'm just living my normal life and I'm suddenly
asked to be a celebrity for an hour.
I'll be working at a restaurant and then
I'm asked to be flown out to do a documentary,
and then I'm back at the restaurant the next day.
So I feel like most of my Instagram following
is from Indonesia, Poland and Brazil.
Hello if you're watching this.
Most of my comments that I get on my Instagram
are people from these countries and my DMs.
I really don't know why these three countries
are so interested, like what the deal is,
but I think it's fun.
I think it's cool.
And I know that there's a portrait of me
in Portugal somewhere.
So if I'm ever in Portugal or if anybody knows where it is,
I would love to go there.
Are we done recording?
- [Male] Yeah, we're done.
So, did you start the fire?
- Yes.
(upbeat music)
I'm just kidding.
Just kidding.