The "Disaster Girl" meme features a photo of a young girl with a sly smile, superimposed onto various backgrounds depicting chaotic scenes like natural disasters or accidents. This editing suggests that the girl in the image is the cause of the turmoil behind her.
The original photo used for the "Disaster Girl" meme was captured by Dave Roth in January 2005 during a controlled fire training exercise by the local fire department two blocks from his home in Mebane, North Carolina. The image shows his daughter Zoe with a mischievous smile, set against the backdrop of a burning house. Initially shared by Roth on Zooomr as "Firestarter" on January 2nd, 2007, the photo didn't gain significant attention until it was entered into JPG Magazine's "Emotion Capture" competition on November 29th, 2007 and later featured in the magazine's February/March 2008 issue. You can explore more about Dave Roth's work on his website and blog. Further, the initial upload to Zooomr can be seen here and the JPG Magazine entry here.
Origin: 2007
Also known as: burning-house-girl, disaster-girl
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You can browse our growing library of popular meme templates, quickly caption images, videos, or GIFs in Caption This, or design completely custom image memes from scratch in our free-form editor with extra AI tools like Magic Prompt, Magic Face Swap, Magic Erase, and Magic Face.
The platform includes three main tools:
Text is fully customizable with font selection, weight controls, colors, and styling like outlines and italics. Each text layer has its own opacity slider, and you can drag text around the canvas or drag layers in the sidebar to control which elements appear on top. Add as many text boxes as you need with the "Add Text" button.
Upload and layer additional images onto your meme with the "Upload Image" button. Each image can be repositioned, resized, and have its opacity adjusted. Paste images directly with CMD/CTRL + V for quick edits.
Enable custom headers above your media with adjustable colors and heights—perfect for adding context or reaction text. This works in both Caption This and when editing templates from the meme library.
Yes! Use Caption This to add text, headers, and captions to videos and animated GIFs. Simply upload your video or GIF file, add your customizations, and download the finished meme. The tool preserves the animation and exports your captioned video or animated GIF ready to share.
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