WEBVTT - zoë roth the disaster girl: a lifetime of virality 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:07.600 Cool Zone Media. Hello sixteenth minute listeners. Jamie here just 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:10.240 reminding you that if you're in the LA area, or 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:12.760 even if you're not, we're doing a big Bechdel Cast 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.320 celebration show that is my movie podcast that I co 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:19.040 host with Caitlin Dorante at Dynasty Typewriter right after the 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.880 Oscars on March second, at seven point thirty. It's going 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.080 to be a big show with all of our favorite 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.520 guests from the show and attendance. We're going to be 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:29.440 cosplaying as Oscar winners, We're going to be talking about 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:31.840 the ceremony, and we're just going to be doing stand 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:36.919 up and celebrating women in film. How about it? So 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.599 you can get tickets irl still if you are interested, 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:42.680 and if you're not in the area, we are also 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:45.640 selling streaming tickets that you can get at the link 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:52.239 in the description. See you there. Enjoy the episode. Name 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:57.440 a story about becoming famous as a kid that is normal. 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:02.080 You kind of can't like it's an abnormal state of affairs. 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:04.920 But we only really see a couple different kinds of 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:09.040 narratives that are centered around this kind of fame. The 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.880 first is this big breakout moment where a kid who 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:16.960 enjoys performing does so on a larger scale than most 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:20.200 kids could dream of. In a lot of cases, were 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:23.440 led to marvel at their media training. Wow, they're a 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.720 little adult. Macaulay Culkin comes to mind. 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:28.760 Did you want to go into the business or did 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:30.000 your mom and dad think it would be a good 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:30.399 thing for you? 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:31.199 How'd it happened? 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:36.640 Well, just kind of popped up, like my friend, well 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.119 she was a stage manager, so like. 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.959 At a Broadway show though, right or Broadway. 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.480 Yeah, or as the case may be. Wow, they're a 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:50.600 little sex object. Here is Natalie Portman reflecting on her 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:51.560 career as a kid. 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:56.400 Being sexualized as a child. I think took away from 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:00.760 my own sexuality because it made me afraid and it 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:03.080 made me feel like the way that I could be 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:07.400 safe was to be like, I'm conservative and I'm like 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:10.760 serious and you should respect me, and I'm smart and like, 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:11.600 don't look. 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:12.200 At me that way. 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:16.040 And then we get a variation on a few adult 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:20.880 narratives for former child stars. There's the where did they go? Narrative, 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:25.079 which is almost always answered by they're a person. They 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.040 have a normal life in their normal There's the kid 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:32.399 that moves seamlessly into stardom as an adult, occasionally referencing 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:36.600 the more uncomfortable parts of child stardom in interviews. There's 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.840 the most troubling outcome where a child star grows into 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.840 a very troubled adult for myriad reasons, whether it's the 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:48.720 lingering effects of financial or parental exploitation, abuse at the 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:52.560 hands of exploitative Hollywood types, or any mix of mental 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:56.040 health and substance abuse, issues that could happen to anybody 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:59.200 and can be exacerbated by the pressure of living so 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:03.280 publicly so young. Because while there are plenty of redemption 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:07.000 narratives on a longer timeline for stars like this, most 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:10.920 young celebrities who either struggle or are just normally rebellious 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:14.600 like kids are, are shamed in the moment, which is 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:18.640 never in the history of the world helped anybody. But 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.440 as time goes on, the nature of child stardom has 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.840 changed with entertainment mediums. A lot of the narratives that 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.320 I grew up with focused on kids that got their 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:30.560 start in film or TV, or may have been discovered 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.799 online and then made the transition to film and TV 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.720 and never looked back. So how did it happen? 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.400 Did someone call you and say hey, I saw your 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:40.480 song on YouTube. 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:42.520 Well, first basically. 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:48.360 I got this email from was it. 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:49.680 I think it was like Mari Povich. 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:52.360 Oh yeah, he wanted me on his show to do 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:54.520 this conversation, and my mom. 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:54.880 Was like no. 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.640 There was a whole generation of millennial and Gen Z 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:03.200 musicians who were discovered either on YouTube or SoundCloud, and 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:07.680 slowly you'd stop hearing stories about kids being discovered at 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.280 the mall and started hearing about them being found online. 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:14.680 And the ethics there are just as murky, if not 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:19.200 further complicated by that. But the pursuits here are pretty 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:26.240 consistent music, acting, occasionally dance. The exploitation has been terrifyingly consistent, 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.360 launching kids into a world that they and often their 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:33.400 families have no understanding of, and into a pretty exploitative 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:37.640 industry while they're really vulnerable. But when the Internet took over, 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.640 there was this new, separate group of kids who became 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:47.039 famous just because they did. Sure, some had posted something 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.480 online themselves, but in the internet is a void sense, 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:53.039 not in the sense that it was attempting to be 0:04:53.160 --> 0:05:04.200 noticed or famous in any meaningful way. And in the 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:07.200 last few years we've started to hear from the now 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.840 adult former children. Surely there's an easier way to say 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.320 that who were turned into lifestyle content before they could 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.799 possibly consent to it. These young adults are the results 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:22.400 of family vlogs and reality TV, kids that don't have 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:25.920 performance aspirations, but who are conditioned to view their life 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.919 as a performance for others, even if things are remarkably 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.320 different for them when the cameras turn off. 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:34.919 Now, we're going to go to our GMA exclusive with 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.520 the eldest daughter of mom influencer Ruby Frankie, who pleaded 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.360 guilty to child abuse last year. Sherry Frankie is now 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:43.960 sharing her story in a new book, including allegations about 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:46.640 her mom's relationship with her former mentor. 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.480 But in the not too distant past, for some kids, 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:54.120 their fame online was out of the control of them, 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.760 their parents, and basically everybody. These are people whose old 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.599 home videos were up floated before a lot of people 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:05.680 understood what happened when viral fame came their way. A 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.359 prominent example is the parents of the Charlie Bitme kids 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:13.280 were not expecting or trying for their video to become 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.200 a global household topic, and in the case of some 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:21.800 early meme stars, the moment or image that goes viral 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.320 wasn't even uploaded by them, and in some cases was 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.480 a photo or video clip that was from years ago. 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.000 I jump right to the uh irma gird girl if 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.520 you were on the internet in twenty twelve. Here she 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.640 is telling BuzzFeed about how she learned this old image 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:40.599 had been posted of her. Years later. 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.680 I started getting messages from my mom wondering why my 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.240 photo was all over the internet and that there was 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.320 some kind of German writing on my photo and it 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:51.719 was all over and I was like, okay, Mom, I 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:52.640 know she does not know. 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:54.640 How the internet worked, so I just ignore. 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:56.880 But then I get a message. 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:58.640 From a friend from high school and she says, Hey, 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.159 just so you know that this other guy who went 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:03.919 to high school with is sharing that photo of you 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:05.160 all over Facebook. 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:07.080 And I did end up messaging him like. 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:09.680 Hey, I wouldn't mind if you just ask, but it's 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.200 a really stranger just doing this without my consent, Like 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:12.960 what's going on. 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.720 But no matter how one becomes famous, whether they're at 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:20.040 the Oscars or assigning booms to snack foods on TikTok, 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:25.280 there is this underlying expectation that no matter how fame 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:29.640 comes your way, you should probably want it right at 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.400 this point. To suggest you wouldn't want it can be 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:36.120 regarded as kind of weird or anomaly. I mean, we've 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.880 even talked about it on this show with Matt Pacerro 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.720 the Wicked Witch of the Eastborough. But there's something especially 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:46.280 bizarre to me when this logic is applied to kids 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:50.080 who have grown up online. It's such a cultural assumption 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:54.040 that everyone would want this, that it's treated as superhumanly 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:58.160 humble to not be Internet famous, and as bleak as 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:02.440 that can sound, it's not based on nothing. Tech understandably 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.840 has shifted kids' aspirations. Just think of all those beermongering 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:11.320 clickbait articles that say kids used to want to be teachers, 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:17.120 kids today want to be YouTubers. Should we kill them? 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.239 What I think does hold true is that a desire 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:25.480 to be prominent is assumed, especially somewhere like the US. 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:28.560 So what happens if you're a kid who becomes Internet 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:34.640 famous and you're kind of not into it. It was 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.600 a normal day in Mebane, North Carolina, in two thousand 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:41.840 and five when the Roth family smelled smoke. They walked 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.000 outside and saw a few blocks down there was a 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.760 house on fire. They panicked at first, but were soon 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.040 put at ease. The burn was a controlled one planned 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:54.800 by the local fire department, and the home had actually 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.360 been donated by a family that was hoping to clear 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:02.480 that plot of land. So Dave took his kids, Tristan 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.560 and Zoe over to watch the burn, along with a 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.679 few others in the neighborhood. And Dave was an amateur photographer, 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:12.640 so he brought his camera. There's actually a few photos 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.880 from this day that are memorable. Tristan was a huge 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:18.440 Harry Potter kid. It was two thousand and five, many 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:21.760 such cases, and he was dressed up as Harry basically 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.560 all the time. So a kid in a wizard costume 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.200 in front of a burning house pretty good, pretty weird. 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.560 But Zoe, who was only four at the time, was 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:38.199 operating on another level. She wasn't wearing a costume with 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.000 a pink T shirt and a sandy brown bob that 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.319 only a four year old girl could pull off, and 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.600 she was transfixed by the fire. Her dad told her 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:50.880 that no one was inside the house and it was okay, 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.559 But that's kind of a weird concept for a four 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.840 year old to wrap their head around, but after a while, 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.800 she seems to get it and cannot stop staring at 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.760 this fire. So when Dave tells her to turn around 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.840 so he can take a picture, Zoe just turns over 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.400 her shoulder and smiles in what she'll later describe as 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:14.440 my smile at the time, a close lipped smile with 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:19.800 her head felted slightly down. It's adorable, but as Zoe's 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.080 dad noticed at the time, it's also a little menacing. 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.160 And a few years later this image would inspire the 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.360 Internet because if you look at this picture, a four 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:34.000 year old girl smirking in front of a house on fire, 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.840 it kind of looks like she did it. But did 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:42.600 she want the fame that comes with being a viral star? 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:48.280 Well that's another story completely. Zoe Roth aka disaster Girl. 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:50.720 Your sixteenth minute starts now. 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:58.160 I'm not story. 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.400 Stay get to the moment. 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:18.040 Six six six. 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.800 Welcome back to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we take 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.439 a look at the Internet's main characters, see how their 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:50.080 viral moment affected them and what that moment says about 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:53.360 us and the Internet. I'm your host, Jamie Loftus, and 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.920 this week I am delivering a long requested episode of 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:01.720 this show and O g meme Girley Zoe Roth aka 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.000 Disaster Girl, And yes I did get the chance to 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:08.280 speak with Zoe and she is just so lovely. I 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:12.760 feel like a proud auntie talking to her. That interview 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.160 will be in a bit And she's a super unique 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:18.559 subject for this show because while she didn't have much 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:21.800 of an interest in parleying her virality into a career, 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.040 as we'll talk about, she was never really bumped by 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:28.000 everyone around her assuming that she would want to turn 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.640 the viral moment into a career. And that's probably because 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.000 she's the first guest I've spoken to on this show 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:39.679 that's a true died in the wool. Internet native expectations 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.960 that have baffled older guests who grew up with analog 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:47.960 technology are not bizarre or unfamiliar to her. Zoe went 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:52.400 viral at a very particular moment in Internet history before 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.800 she was fully forming memories and brings one of the 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.439 most interesting stories around fame and consent that I think 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:04.160 we've ever got, So return with me if you dare to. 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:10.400 January two thousand and seven, Irish becomes the twenty first 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.719 language officially recognized by the EU, not that they give 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:17.679 a shite what the EU thinks. President Bush. The Little 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:23.079 One says that the NSA has definitely stopped wiretapping American citizens, 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:25.480 which is kind of just like a funny little joke 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.600 he made. And nearly two years after Dave Roth took 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.560 a photo of his little girl watching a neighbor's house 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:36.440 burn down, the Internet discovered it too. Dave Roth had 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:40.160 always been interested in photography, and so like any dad 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:44.480 with a specific gadget based hobby, his kids quickly became 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.440 a part of it. And he wasn't an idiot. The 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.600 picture of Zoe, which he titled Firestarter, is a really 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.640 good one, but his ambitions for it at first were 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:58.559 fairly conventional. So bear with me and get ready to 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:04.040 hear some very very extinct website titles. Dave first uploads 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:08.880 Firestarter to something called Zoomer, which was a stock image 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:12.680 hosting service whose website now redirects to a scammy seeming 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:13.880 Gemstone site. 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:16.360 But today's going to be killed a day because we're 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.440 going to start to finally release Mark three. Zoomer Mark 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.760 three six months in the making, a work two winner 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.680 from Tenue features the ability to sell your photos of 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.360 stock and keep ninety percent of the sale, but. 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:32.760 The Firestarter photo doesn't get much traction there. Around the 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:36.280 time Zoe was heading into elementary school, her dad tried 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:41.040 submitting Firestarter to a second publication, this time a photo 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.000 publication called Jpeg Magazine. 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:48.840 Basically, these are really high quality magazines that feature one 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.320 subject matter per an issue, and they're pretty affordable too. 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:55.880 And Jpeg sees the potential in Dave's now two year 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:58.800 old image and they publish it in their February March 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.480 print issue in two thousand eight, the theme of which 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:05.320 was Emotion Captured. And I'll talk to Zoe about how 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.360 she felt seeing her photo in a magazine this young, 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:12.080 because yes, by this time she was sentient enough to 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.440 understand what was happening. But this is an Internet show, 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:19.480 and so of course it is online where fire Starter 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:23.600 starts to get a ton of attention. It was shared 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.480 on the jpeg blog in November two thousand and seven, 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:30.080 and before the time the image really took off quickly, 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.360 racking up over ninety five thousand views and in time 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:36.320 ran its way up to the outer reaches of the Internet. 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.440 And you know this old chestnut, the site that really 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.200 helped Firestarter, which would soon be rebranded as Disaster Girl, 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:50.400 Get Really Big was none other than BuzzFeed. On October 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.280 twenty seventh, two thousand and eight, over three years after 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.240 the original picture was taken, BuzzFeed writer Scott Lamb wrote 0:15:58.280 --> 0:15:59.360 the following. 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:05.120 Is aster Girl. She loves starting fires, but this devilish 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:10.400 girl is responsible for other disasters too. Upload yours below. 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.200 This text was a tool that helped you meme the image, 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.840 so you could put Zoe's image over any background you 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.520 wanted and then add the primitive look that most memes 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:25.320 had in the two thousands, that static, customizable white text 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.880 where you could add your own caption and upload it 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:32.640 to the community. Hilarious examples include she asked me to 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:37.360 watch the oven. I asked her to watch her attitude. 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.160 My mother told others we had a happy, warm home. 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:46.320 Now she's not lying. Dark humor is like food. Not 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:51.240 everyone gets it. This kind of viral spread seems so 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:56.880 like Hallmark sassy magnet coded to me. Now, So to 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.600 put you in this time, let's take a step back 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:03.560 to Rember exactly what the internet was like in two 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:08.320 thousand and eight. The Internet of my unrequited horny youth. 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:11.760 Around the time this all happened. I was in high 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:15.160 school and desperately in love with a saxophone player who 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.000 had gone to college for the saxophone and eventually broke 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.280 up with me so he could have more time to 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.879 play the saxophone. This was the year of that really 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:28.240 bad shil above Indiana Jones movie of the first Obama election. 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.240 The year of low By flow Rider, the year the 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:36.119 app store launched, The year Netflix and Hulu started streaming online. 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.760 A world where the Jersey Shore was still a place 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.760 and not the most fascinating sociological study ever put on television, 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:45.520 but for our purposes. Two thousand and eight was a 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:49.439 time where social media was becoming more important, but it 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:55.040 still wasn't quite all important. My Space had recently capitulated 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:57.640 to Facebook as a social network of choice for young 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:03.000 people at the time. It's hyperstyleed HTML induced seizure backgrounds 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:07.920 replaced by the smooth land interface of Mark Zuckerberg, where 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:12.560 teenagers could send each other something called bumper stickers. Everyone 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.280 under twenty five is like, okay, Grandma, go to bed, 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:20.560 and we were obsessively checking each other's hyperlinked relationship statuses 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.639 like a sixteen year old with the gall to list 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:29.920 their status as it's complicated with someone else's hyperlinked government 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:34.080 name beside it. It was a nasty time, and social 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.200 media was one of the venues that the disaster girl 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:40.280 memes spread, but there were still plenty of places that 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:45.560 curated this viral content curated by humans. If you can 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:49.760 imagine before Zoe Roth's four year old face would make 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:53.719 it to your friend's Facebook page. BuzzFeed was a huge 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:56.840 viral aggregator in two thousand and seven, having just been 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:00.520 launched by Jonah Peretti two years before, and our having 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:03.880 gained the reputation for being a site of aggregated memes, 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:10.760 viral stories, and these gnarly personality quizzes which were inexplicably 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:15.480 meth to earnest millennial teenagers. I looked back at some 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:16.560 here my favorites. 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:21.240 Create a sampler platter, and we'll guess your age and height? 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:26.240 What percent nerdy are you? Can you spot the fuck boy? 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.520 We know the name of your next lover based on 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:37.040 the food you order from McDonald's. How stereotypically white are you? 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.080 No accounting for this? We should be embarrassed. There was 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.400 also cracked dot com, founded in two thousand and five. 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:45.800 By a guy I've never met before and who certainly 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.480 doesn't hold my livelihood in his very hands. Jack O'Brien, 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.560 who went on to hire some of the world's greatest writers, comedians, 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:56.440 and journalists who shall not be named no idea who 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:01.320 they are cracked was an edgier, funnier, more researched version 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.560 of the BuzzFeed model, and they did similar short form, 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:09.560 written and eventually video pieces. A Disaster Girl thrived on 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:12.960 both of these websites, and after Zoe's image first popped 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:18.840 up on BuzzFeed, she or I guess, disaster Girl became 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:23.560 an overnight sensation. The next day, BuzzFeed posted some of 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:25.959 the hits of the meme generator from the day before, 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.280 in which Zoe was photoshopped smirking in front of other 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:35.720 ostensible tragedies, so Zoe's smirking at the dinosaur's extinction, Zoe's 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:38.399 smirking in front of Jesus on the Cross, Zoe at 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:43.080 Lincoln's assassination, the Grassy Knoll, and some really in poor taste, 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:47.560 bone chilling Holocaust images. Today. This really to me, reeks, 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:51.119 of all of the tragedies that will happen in the world, 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:56.000 have already happened in this extremely naive and dare say 0:20:56.040 --> 0:21:00.080 neo liberal way, Let's keep moving Jpeg magazine knew this 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:02.560 was the time to jump on the publicity train for 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:05.720 Disaster Girl and had an interview with Dave and Zoe 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.320 the next day, October twenty eighth. Here's that piece. 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:14.359 Disaster Girl is coming for you. Roth's photo has popped 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:16.879 up on a few bookmarking sites where you can upload 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:20.880 a Firestarter template to enter in your own background silly fun. 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.800 We recently spoke with Dave about his fifteen minutes. He 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.720 and Zoe the fire Starter herself are digging the photoshop 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:32.000 versions as well as the captions and our jazz that 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:35.159 the attention to the photo has gotten. Perhaps the lives of 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:38.280 a disaster Girl and her father are a bit more 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:42.000 fun and maybe even more mischievous than one would expect. 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:46.320 And off of this, Disaster Girl's lore spread across the 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:50.040 world wide Web to all the must click, pop up, 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:56.000 nightmare aggregate sites of the day, dig make your own 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:58.479 Disaster Girl background. 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:02.000 Ebom's World, Disaster Girl strikes again. 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:08.720 Best week ever Disaster Girl, thenew fail, Cracked dot Com. 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:13.119 Six images of kids two insane to be real that 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:13.919 really are. 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:19.160 Man, those headline formats really trigger my fighter flight response. 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.159 But people were just not getting sick of using the 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:27.440 disaster Girl meme. According to the All Knowing Know Your Meme, 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:31.760 Google search peaks for disaster Girl wouldn't hit until nearly 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:36.359 three years later, in May twenty eleven. And if this 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:41.200 image went viral today, there would be a terrifying, albeit 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:45.960 relatively clear pipeline for the roths to take license the image, 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:49.040 maybe get her on late night, start a branded social 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:53.159 media career, participate in I don't know a crypto scam. 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:55.760 All the waves of things that we'd see on the 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:59.119 Internet in the years to come from the Ellen pipeline. 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:02.080 If you haven't been hearing the words damn Daniel in 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:04.520 the last twenty four hours, you've not been on the internet. 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:06.880 Our first guests are two friends who posted a video 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:09.640 showing off some stylish clothes. In a matter of days, 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:12.600 it's been viewed over forty five million times. 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:15.280 Take a look to Hey, we wel just doing damage 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:18.679 control about the hawk coin scam to no avail just 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:19.600 a couple weeks ago. 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:22.119 I'm gonna start by saying thank you to all my 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:24.480 true fans and all the people that actually watch my 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:27.240 stuff and they keep up with me. We're trying to 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:29.440 sort out all the pieces and stuff to like get 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:32.120 all this figured out and make everything right. Oh my god, 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:32.760 I'm gonna cry. 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:35.560 But this was two thousand and seven and two thousand 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:38.160 and eight. It wasn't just the Roths that weren't sure 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:40.960 how to approach this moment with their now second grade daughter. 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:43.919 It was that no one would know how to approach 0:23:43.960 --> 0:24:01.680 this moment. I'm not going to give you a full 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:04.720 history here, but the term meme was coined all the 0:24:04.720 --> 0:24:08.000 way back in nineteen seventy six by Richard Dawkins, and 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:11.080 became associated with the Internet in nineteen ninety three. In 0:24:11.160 --> 0:24:14.880 a piece by Mike Godwin in Wired, Internet memes were 0:24:14.920 --> 0:24:19.280 revised to mean a pre existing image quote deliberately altered 0:24:19.320 --> 0:24:24.280 by human creativity unquote in twenty thirteen, half a decade 0:24:24.400 --> 0:24:29.240 after Disaster Girl became a popular image. So Zoe Ross 0:24:29.359 --> 0:24:33.639 is unintentionally very early to the meme game. I'm not 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:36.159 saying she's the first. There were plenty of videos and 0:24:36.200 --> 0:24:42.240 images like the Dancing Baby, Gary Brolsma's Newman Numa video, Lolcats, Rickrolling, 0:24:42.600 --> 0:24:45.879 and my personal favorite will it blend videos that had 0:24:45.920 --> 0:24:49.359 gone viral before her, but the two thousands still have 0:24:49.480 --> 0:24:54.040 this reputation of being the wild West era of memes. 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:56.120 I want to focus on two thousand and seven here 0:24:56.440 --> 0:24:59.359