As technology has massively evolved, our way of talking and communicating with people has changed as well. When thinking about how communication has transformed over the years, it’s impossible to not draw connections to social media’s effect on this transformation. While social media is a way of mirroring our life into this world and is also a tool of communication that connects and creates relationships between people, memes are also considered a famous form of today’s communication. According to Alexis Benveniste the memes catch immediately our eye on social media while people are “scrolling through news feeds for hours a day, the meme format catches your eye, and most of them can be read and understood within seconds”(Benveniste 1). All we need is only a few words and a simple image to communicate the most complex ideas and nuanced meaning.
Memes are usually seen as a source of laughs and as a way of connecting people over shared humor but also an effective way to share comments on relevant social and political situations. While we all face challenging situations in our lives, memes are a great way to ease tension in our minds and normalize difficult circumstances. As Benveniste sates “memes encapsulate the era we are living in while also reminding us that it’s not all that serious” (Benveniste 1). However, memes oftentimes carry racism and discriminatory humor, although they are covered with the idea that they are “just jokes.”
A very successful meme that has been entertaining for internet users served as a message for racial justice but at the same time has been used to transmit discriminatory humor is that of the 4-year-old Zoë Roth in 2005. While the world knows her as ‘Disaster Girl’ Zoë Roth’s story behind the picture that became a very famous meme is not what one might think of when seeing the picture for the first time. It all started with a walk of Roth and her family in their neighborhood- Mebane, North Carolina while the local Fire Department was practicing a live drill where an old house was set on controlled fire. While all neighbors gathered around the house Zoë remembers how “firefighters allowed children to take turns holding the hose.” Zoë’s father, Dave Roth who bought a brand-new camera only couple of days ago asked Zoë to smile for a picture. Intrigued by the fire and all that was going on the block, Zoë gave a quick smirk and devilish smile while the house against the burning house on the background.
According to Zoë, her father uploaded her picture to “Zoomr” in 2007 with the caption “Firestarter,” and people did not show any interest in the picture until later that same year when Zoë’s father submitted the picture to JPG Magazine and they were contacted afterward to inform them about the major attention and the popularity the picture has received. Jamie Dubs states for “Know your Meme” that the popularity of the so-known “Disaster Girl” highlighted the best deviates like “Digg, TrendHunter, eBaum’s World Forum, and Best Week Ever” (Know Your Meme 1). Moreover Dubs makes it known that over the years the popularity of the “Disaster Girl” and its derivates were mentioned on Neatorama, photo site DamnCoolPictures, Cracked, and the Huffington Post.”
Zoë’s meme as evolved a lot over the years. Her devilish look has been used and continues to be used to this day to picture multiple purposes and different kinds of socio-political situations.Most iterations of her meme trigger funny moments and jokes in society and our everyday lives.
However, another half of those iterations portray important social and political situations.In a “Buzzfeed Video: I Accidentally Became A Meme” Zoë shares the history of how the “Disaster Girl” meme was born and also her personal thoughts about hundreds of iterations of her picture. One of the best editions of her meme was the one where her picture was used during racial justice protests “Black Lives Matter.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_y88KAPKW0
While this edition made Zoë so proud other editions made her feel anxious and very uncomfortable such as the one where Zoë’s face was attached to Hitler’s body as a way of identifying and equating her devilish smile with the joy, he took on leading a cruel dictatorship and brutality against Jews. On the article “Meming the Party Divide: Representations of Gender in Political Memes” Derek Sparby states that “ironic hatred is still hatred” and such edits of memes are dangerous for democracy. Moreover, on his classification of memes Sparby has a category of memes that fall on the Nazi and Hitler comparisons. When memes are edited by comparing the meme’s face to genocidal dictator like Hitler, memers shut every possible door for discussion or “opportunities for further dialogue” (Sparby 1). It wasn’t any less frustrating when Zoë found her face edited against the Notre Dame Catholic cathedral in Paris engulfed on fire after a terrorist attack in 2019. Moreover, in her video for Buzzfeed Zoë also states that “Last year, some Instagram account used the original picture with a caption about not being able to wave a Confederate flag, and I was like, ‘Ewww.’”
Although Zoë ‘s meme has gone viral and evolved so much since 2007, this meme continues to be relevant and edited in multiple ways. In 2021 Zoe sold her original meme for nearly half a million dollars to NFT to take control of her study loans as well as donate an amount of money for charity. Despite the fact that Zoë has seen her face in some disturbing images, in many interviews she has stated that “She is proud to be Disaster Girl.” Zoë ‘s meme is proof that it takes a small moment to change our lives forever.
Works Cited
Benveniste, Alexis. “The Meaning and History of Memes.” New York Times, 26 January 2022.
Fazio Marie “The World Knows Her as ‘Disaster Girl.’ She Just Made $500,000 Off the Meme” New York Times, 29 April 2021.
I Accidentally Became A Meme: Disaster Girl. BuzzFeedVideo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_y88KAPKW0
Knowyourmeme “Disaster Girl” 2009,https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/disaster-girl
Sparby, Derek M. “Meming the Party Divide: Representations of Gender in Political Memes.” Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture. 24 March, 2022.
Hi Haka,
I feel as though you captured such an important talking point from Benveniste, about how people can scroll for hours and are more likely to stop to look at a meme than a news article, as it is more eye catching. I relate this idea to how people are more likely to share memes that have political arguments, instead of conduct research to learn more about the issues they are sharing on social media. This is one of the dangers that Sparby highlights, of how “memes focused on appearance and distracting or irrelevant information, these memes function demagogically. But these memes are especially dangerous.” Memes such as these become dangerous as they reinforce incorrect information and ideas, and spread easily to affect a mass population that views it.
I feel as the meme you chose, Disaster Girl, encapsulates this very idea that it can be dangerous to have distracting memes project information. The example you use of the girl being photoshopped to be smiling at a terrorist attack, shows how dangerous acts such as terrorism can be edited into cruel and politically driven ways.
Editing and the evolution of memes is constant, however, as you have clearly shown it can evolve into negative representations and be used in ways that becomes disturbing and uncomfortable for the originators and the audience members. I love how you incorporated the feeling of the originator of the meme, to show her distain for certain evolution types, as audience members and those adapting the memes never usually think of how the originator feels. Although she is upset by its evolution, she is still proud of her meme as it had power to make others laugh and be creativity. However, others may not feel the same so it begs the question, would people prefer not to be involved in meme creation, because a once fun meme can become something associated with negative and cruel connotations?
Hi Haka,
I’m really interested in your idea that memes can both ease tension and express one’s political views, as these, on the surface, seem to be at odds; at least in the physical world, the worst thing one can do to find peace is to jump into a heated conversation.
However, the meme format (with its recognizable image and top/bottom text) is so automatic (yet adaptable) that it makes sense that this might work as a personal outlet (for frustration), since the author is in constant flux.
In this way, the meme takes on a collective digital author (ie: those who relate) in much the same way that Hayles suggests, in “Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers,” that digital communication, when filtered through code, is a “mutation” that turns the notion of present/absent signifier into pattern/randomness. Since “pattern tends to overwhelm presence” (81), memes operate a bit like miniature avatars for authors that are not so much absent as they are ever-shifting.
I’d be interested to hear from people who produce or adapt memes about how they view authorship. Do they feel their versions, when adapted from a meme or when referencing another meme, express something personal, even though their voice is just one in a tangle of voices (and lines of code) that shape the image’s argument?
Great post!
-Christopher Munde
Hi Haka! You highlight an important and harmful aspect of meme culture by explaining that offensive content is rationalized through memes and by those who find the memes funny because they are “just jokes.” I believe that while they are being portrayed as jokes, they still carry the weight of being damaging to certain groups, and many individuals hide their actual racism, homophobia, and other discriminatory beliefs through their use of memes. What I mean by this is that these individuals get away with expressing their toxic beliefs online because meme culture often tolerates jarring “humor.” So, I totally agree that memes, while they appear un-alarming, actually carry harmful messages that leave certain communities at risk for further discrimination
Additionally, your use of the “Disaster Girl” meme is a perfect example of how memes can spiral out of control. As you said, “Disaster Girl,” aka Zoe, was fine with some iterations of her meme that displayed funny or relatable situations about our everyday lives. However, she started to get uncomfortable when people were using them for more sinister situations. I watched the Buzzfeed interview that Zoe did, and I really felt for her because even though she enjoys being “Disaster Girl,” the defeated statements she makes about knowing how the internet works and realizing people can create anything they want once you put something out there is an unfortunate truth about our society. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about how we could alleviate this problem? I know that many social media sites have terms and agreements on what you can post, but often, not all content that goes against the terms gets deleted/reported. I wonder if there is a way to strengthen this algorithm to rid our feeds of this content. Or would people claim their freedom of speech is being violated? I am not sure, but in my opinion, some things should be off the internet for the safety and well-being of others. Great post!
Hi Haka!
I really enjoyed reading your post. I found your response to be so thought-provoking and well written. As someone who has seen several of these memes in the media, it was interesting to learn about its relationship with a historical context. I always thought memes just had a sole purpose of providing humor for people and that there wasn’t much significance behind it.
In the case of the girl Zoë, I’d be curious to see the emotional/psychological background that coincides with such content. Once the photo has gone viral, there’s no way of controlling what people would do with the picture. I wonder what that must feel like.
Hi Haka,
The background information on the girl behind the meme here, Zoe, is so interesting and this reads like a marketable short article as I’m sure that many people don’t know this much about her. She’s now an adult and, like many children who went viral for one reason or another in the oughts when these old memes because viral, has to carry a burden of fame that she had no control over or recompense for. I’m actually quite glad that she was able to recoup so much money for the NFT, although I generally thing NFTs are a scam. There’s an oddness and disturbance to the image of a living human being being treated like a letter of the alphabet and used to write with, although it also has a naturalness to it–when you think about it, the symbols of language had to come from somewhere and may have a living history behind them. They are used to write poetry, sacred texts, love letters, and also hate speech, and becomes these conduits–like water jugs used to pass water or wine that bear traces of imagery that wear off over time and use.
I see memes as a kind of placeholder for emotions. In that way, the water jug also might be a decent metaphor. Where does the humor come from? You look at a meme and there is no pressure to respond to it. So the humor has to come from a spark of recognition. The juxtaposition of images and words in the Disaster Girl is where the spark comes from, but first you recognize the girl’s smirk (unless this is the first time you’ve seen it). The spark of humor is recognition of a shared value or sentiment. Zoe was reading her own memes, and revealing her own values when she loved the BLM meme but was disgusted by the Nazi and Confederate memes.
Hi Haka,
Thanks for this great post! I see this “Disaster Girl” meme all the time on social media. You have me thinking so much about the people in the photos . . . What is crazy to me is that I never actually thought about the people in the memes (and now I feel like a horrible person for not realizing they are actual people). I feel like there’s such a disconnect between reality and photos used for memes, and so there’s a kind of dehumanization of the subject. (Or, I’m the only one who failed to realize these people are people . . .). Memes are not a form of fame that is chosen. Maybe we become so accustomed to seeing celebrities on television and in magazines who chose to become famous that we begin to see all fame as chosen? I’m not sure.
But you give some really, really interesting background information about Zoe, including this kind of moral discomfort that she experiences with her face being used for immoral memes. Not to mention, though she’s an adult now, the photo is of a child. Like you said, her father (so her legal guardian, I assume) posted the photo on the internet and submitted it to JPG Magazine. This is totally legal. But is it moral? To circulate and use a minor’s likeness?
Thanks for this fantastic post, Haka!
Hello Haka
Your post does a great job of going through the history and evolution of the “Disaster Girl” meme. It was really interesting to find out that it started with her Dad taking a picture of her during a controlled fire drill. The look on her face was especially intriguing. I especially liked when you stated, “Her devilish look has been used and continues to be used to this day to picture multiple purposes and different kinds of socio-political situations.Most iterations of her meme trigger funny moments and jokes in society and our everyday lives.”
At the same time, I was saddened to learn that her image was used for more negative memes when you stated, “It wasn’t any less frustrating when Zoë found her face edited against the Notre Dame Catholic cathedral in Paris engulfed in fire after a terrorist attack in 2019. Moreover, in her video for Buzzfeed Zoë also states that “Last year, some Instagram account used the original picture with a caption about not being able to wave a Confederate flag, and I was like, ‘Ewww.’” After reading about those negative memes, I was especially glad to hear that, “In 2021 Zoe sold her original meme for nearly half a million dollars to NFT to take control of her study loans as well as donate an amount of money for charity. Despite the fact that Zoë has seen her face in some disturbing images, in many interviews she has stated that ‘She is proud to be Disaster Girl.’” While Zoe’s father had impeccable timing when he took that photo of his daughter, Zoe had even better timing in selling her original meme as an NFT for nearly half a million dollars!