Disaster Girl: 500 thousand dollars for Zoë Roth, the protagonist of the viral of Internet

Let’s say it’s luck. Zoë Roth was looking at a burning building when her father decided to take a picture of her. The postcard registered a particular smile from the girl and, years later, became viral.

The meme Disaster Girl it was born, and the Internet played with it, modified it, and used it until it was deprecated.

But not in oblivion.

However, there is an ocean of difference between gaining worldwide popularity and selling the photo for $ 500,000.

Roth, furthermore, “maintains copyright” Y “you will receive 10% of the proceeds in future transactions”.

A great business that appeared by chance.

A MEME FOR SALE?

Disaster Girl It is not the first Internet property to be sold for figures that, for some, could be exorbitant considering that they are nothing more than a code that, sometimes, has a message that was once funny.

There is, for example, the meme of Homer Simpson become the Frog Pepe (Homer Pepe). Of course, there is also Nyan Cat, which sold for nearly $ 600,000.

Another type of content is also for sale: the first tweet ever (2.9 million), an article from “The New York Times” (560,000), or the artwork “Everydays: The First 5000 Days”(69 million).

Now, Zoë Roth is part of that club of people who have taken advantage of the NFT, O Non Fungible Token, a concept that, for these cases, goes hand in hand with that of Blockchain.

What is it about? In a good romance, the NFT refers to what is unique, while the Blockchain refers to the registry agreed, valued and authenticated by a community.

In other words, a large community guarantees that a property is unique and, therefore, valuable.

Or as the BBC explains: “NFTs are an ‘inimitable’ asset in the digital world that can be bought or sold like any other type of property, but they have no tangible form in themselves”.

In the case of Roth and the aforementioned, what was sold was the certificate of authenticity.

And the business is round.

Roth is now 21 years old and has stated that she will use the money to pay off her student loans (she attends the University of North Carolina) and donate it to charity.

According to the Vulture portal, which collects information from “The New York Times” and “Times” magazine, before selling, Roth investigated previous cases, such as the memes Bad Luck Brian (36 thousand dollars) Y Good luck Kid.

For her, it is a way to regain control over her image.

“People being on memes and going viral is one thing, but the way the internet has latched onto my photo and kept it viral and relevant is insane.”He declared.

Current image of Zoë Roth.