Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. Hello sixteenth minute listeners. Jamie here just
Speaker 1: reminding you that if you're in the LA area, or
Speaker 1: even if you're not, we're doing a big Bechdel Cast
Speaker 1: celebration show that is my movie podcast that I co
Speaker 1: host with Caitlin Dorante at Dynasty Typewriter right after the
Speaker 1: Oscars on March second, at seven point thirty. It's going
Speaker 1: to be a big show with all of our favorite
Speaker 1: guests from the show and attendance. We're going to be
Speaker 1: cosplaying as Oscar winners, We're going to be talking about
Speaker 1: the ceremony, and we're just going to be doing stand
Speaker 1: up and celebrating women in film. How about it? So
Speaker 1: you can get tickets irl still if you are interested,
Speaker 1: and if you're not in the area, we are also
Speaker 1: selling streaming tickets that you can get at the link
Speaker 1: in the description. See you there. Enjoy the episode. Name
Speaker 1: a story about becoming famous as a kid that is normal.
Speaker 1: You kind of can't like it's an abnormal state of affairs.
Speaker 1: But we only really see a couple different kinds of
Speaker 1: narratives that are centered around this kind of fame. The
Speaker 1: first is this big breakout moment where a kid who
Speaker 1: enjoys performing does so on a larger scale than most
Speaker 1: kids could dream of. In a lot of cases, were
Speaker 1: led to marvel at their media training. Wow, they're a
Speaker 1: little adult. Macaulay Culkin comes to mind.
Speaker 2: Did you want to go into the business or did
Speaker 2: your mom and dad think it would be a good
Speaker 2: thing for you?
Speaker 3: How'd it happened?
Speaker 4: Well, just kind of popped up, like my friend, well
Speaker 4: she was a stage manager, so like.
Speaker 3: At a Broadway show though, right or Broadway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or as the case may be. Wow, they're a
Speaker 1: little sex object. Here is Natalie Portman reflecting on her
Speaker 1: career as a kid.
Speaker 5: Being sexualized as a child. I think took away from
Speaker 5: my own sexuality because it made me afraid and it
Speaker 5: made me feel like the way that I could be
Speaker 5: safe was to be like, I'm conservative and I'm like
Speaker 5: serious and you should respect me, and I'm smart and like,
Speaker 5: don't look.
Speaker 3: At me that way.
Speaker 1: And then we get a variation on a few adult
Speaker 1: narratives for former child stars. There's the where did they go? Narrative,
Speaker 1: which is almost always answered by they're a person. They
Speaker 1: have a normal life in their normal There's the kid
Speaker 1: that moves seamlessly into stardom as an adult, occasionally referencing
Speaker 1: the more uncomfortable parts of child stardom in interviews. There's
Speaker 1: the most troubling outcome where a child star grows into
Speaker 1: a very troubled adult for myriad reasons, whether it's the
Speaker 1: lingering effects of financial or parental exploitation, abuse at the
Speaker 1: hands of exploitative Hollywood types, or any mix of mental
Speaker 1: health and substance abuse, issues that could happen to anybody
Speaker 1: and can be exacerbated by the pressure of living so
Speaker 1: publicly so young. Because while there are plenty of redemption
Speaker 1: narratives on a longer timeline for stars like this, most
Speaker 1: young celebrities who either struggle or are just normally rebellious
Speaker 1: like kids are, are shamed in the moment, which is
Speaker 1: never in the history of the world helped anybody. But
Speaker 1: as time goes on, the nature of child stardom has
Speaker 1: changed with entertainment mediums. A lot of the narratives that
Speaker 1: I grew up with focused on kids that got their
Speaker 1: start in film or TV, or may have been discovered
Speaker 1: online and then made the transition to film and TV
Speaker 1: and never looked back. So how did it happen?
Speaker 5: Did someone call you and say hey, I saw your
Speaker 5: song on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Well, first basically.
Speaker 6: I got this email from was it.
Speaker 1: I think it was like Mari Povich.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, he wanted me on his show to do
Speaker 7: this conversation, and my mom.
Speaker 8: Was like no.
Speaker 1: There was a whole generation of millennial and Gen Z
Speaker 1: musicians who were discovered either on YouTube or SoundCloud, and
Speaker 1: slowly you'd stop hearing stories about kids being discovered at
Speaker 1: the mall and started hearing about them being found online.
Speaker 1: And the ethics there are just as murky, if not
Speaker 1: further complicated by that. But the pursuits here are pretty
Speaker 1: consistent music, acting, occasionally dance. The exploitation has been terrifyingly consistent,
Speaker 1: launching kids into a world that they and often their
Speaker 1: families have no understanding of, and into a pretty exploitative
Speaker 1: industry while they're really vulnerable. But when the Internet took over,
Speaker 1: there was this new, separate group of kids who became
Speaker 1: famous just because they did. Sure, some had posted something
Speaker 1: online themselves, but in the internet is a void sense,
Speaker 1: not in the sense that it was attempting to be
Speaker 1: noticed or famous in any meaningful way. And in the
Speaker 1: last few years we've started to hear from the now
Speaker 1: adult former children. Surely there's an easier way to say
Speaker 1: that who were turned into lifestyle content before they could
Speaker 1: possibly consent to it. These young adults are the results
Speaker 1: of family vlogs and reality TV, kids that don't have
Speaker 1: performance aspirations, but who are conditioned to view their life
Speaker 1: as a performance for others, even if things are remarkably
Speaker 1: different for them when the cameras turn off.
Speaker 9: Now, we're going to go to our GMA exclusive with
Speaker 9: the eldest daughter of mom influencer Ruby Frankie, who pleaded
Speaker 9: guilty to child abuse last year. Sherry Frankie is now
Speaker 9: sharing her story in a new book, including allegations about
Speaker 9: her mom's relationship with her former mentor.
Speaker 1: But in the not too distant past, for some kids,
Speaker 1: their fame online was out of the control of them,
Speaker 1: their parents, and basically everybody. These are people whose old
Speaker 1: home videos were up floated before a lot of people
Speaker 1: understood what happened when viral fame came their way. A
Speaker 1: prominent example is the parents of the Charlie Bitme kids
Speaker 1: were not expecting or trying for their video to become
Speaker 1: a global household topic, and in the case of some
Speaker 1: early meme stars, the moment or image that goes viral
Speaker 1: wasn't even uploaded by them, and in some cases was
Speaker 1: a photo or video clip that was from years ago.
Speaker 1: I jump right to the uh irma gird girl if
Speaker 1: you were on the internet in twenty twelve. Here she
Speaker 1: is telling BuzzFeed about how she learned this old image
Speaker 1: had been posted of her. Years later.
Speaker 8: I started getting messages from my mom wondering why my
Speaker 8: photo was all over the internet and that there was
Speaker 8: some kind of German writing on my photo and it
Speaker 8: was all over and I was like, okay, Mom, I
Speaker 8: know she does not know.
Speaker 1: How the internet worked, so I just ignore.
Speaker 3: But then I get a message.
Speaker 8: From a friend from high school and she says, Hey,
Speaker 8: just so you know that this other guy who went
Speaker 8: to high school with is sharing that photo of you
Speaker 8: all over Facebook.
Speaker 10: And I did end up messaging him like.
Speaker 8: Hey, I wouldn't mind if you just ask, but it's
Speaker 8: a really stranger just doing this without my consent, Like
Speaker 8: what's going on.
Speaker 1: But no matter how one becomes famous, whether they're at
Speaker 1: the Oscars or assigning booms to snack foods on TikTok,
Speaker 1: there is this underlying expectation that no matter how fame
Speaker 1: comes your way, you should probably want it right at
Speaker 1: this point. To suggest you wouldn't want it can be
Speaker 1: regarded as kind of weird or anomaly. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: even talked about it on this show with Matt Pacerro
Speaker 1: the Wicked Witch of the Eastborough. But there's something especially
Speaker 1: bizarre to me when this logic is applied to kids
Speaker 1: who have grown up online. It's such a cultural assumption
Speaker 1: that everyone would want this, that it's treated as superhumanly
Speaker 1: humble to not be Internet famous, and as bleak as
Speaker 1: that can sound, it's not based on nothing. Tech understandably
Speaker 1: has shifted kids' aspirations. Just think of all those beermongering
Speaker 1: clickbait articles that say kids used to want to be teachers,
Speaker 1: kids today want to be YouTubers. Should we kill them?
Speaker 1: What I think does hold true is that a desire
Speaker 1: to be prominent is assumed, especially somewhere like the US.
Speaker 1: So what happens if you're a kid who becomes Internet
Speaker 1: famous and you're kind of not into it. It was
Speaker 1: a normal day in Mebane, North Carolina, in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five when the Roth family smelled smoke. They walked
Speaker 1: outside and saw a few blocks down there was a
Speaker 1: house on fire. They panicked at first, but were soon
Speaker 1: put at ease. The burn was a controlled one planned
Speaker 1: by the local fire department, and the home had actually
Speaker 1: been donated by a family that was hoping to clear
Speaker 1: that plot of land. So Dave took his kids, Tristan
Speaker 1: and Zoe over to watch the burn, along with a
Speaker 1: few others in the neighborhood. And Dave was an amateur photographer,
Speaker 1: so he brought his camera. There's actually a few photos
Speaker 1: from this day that are memorable. Tristan was a huge
Speaker 1: Harry Potter kid. It was two thousand and five, many
Speaker 1: such cases, and he was dressed up as Harry basically
Speaker 1: all the time. So a kid in a wizard costume
Speaker 1: in front of a burning house pretty good, pretty weird.
Speaker 1: But Zoe, who was only four at the time, was
Speaker 1: operating on another level. She wasn't wearing a costume with
Speaker 1: a pink T shirt and a sandy brown bob that
Speaker 1: only a four year old girl could pull off, and
Speaker 1: she was transfixed by the fire. Her dad told her
Speaker 1: that no one was inside the house and it was okay,
Speaker 1: But that's kind of a weird concept for a four
Speaker 1: year old to wrap their head around, but after a while,
Speaker 1: she seems to get it and cannot stop staring at
Speaker 1: this fire. So when Dave tells her to turn around
Speaker 1: so he can take a picture, Zoe just turns over
Speaker 1: her shoulder and smiles in what she'll later describe as
Speaker 1: my smile at the time, a close lipped smile with
Speaker 1: her head felted slightly down. It's adorable, but as Zoe's
Speaker 1: dad noticed at the time, it's also a little menacing.
Speaker 1: And a few years later this image would inspire the
Speaker 1: Internet because if you look at this picture, a four
Speaker 1: year old girl smirking in front of a house on fire,
Speaker 1: it kind of looks like she did it. But did
Speaker 1: she want the fame that comes with being a viral star?
Speaker 1: Well that's another story completely. Zoe Roth aka disaster Girl.
Speaker 1: Your sixteenth minute starts now.
Speaker 3: I'm not story.
Speaker 1: Stay get to the moment.
Speaker 3: Six six six.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we take
Speaker 1: a look at the Internet's main characters, see how their
Speaker 1: viral moment affected them and what that moment says about
Speaker 1: us and the Internet. I'm your host, Jamie Loftus, and
Speaker 1: this week I am delivering a long requested episode of
Speaker 1: this show and O g meme Girley Zoe Roth aka
Speaker 1: Disaster Girl, And yes I did get the chance to
Speaker 1: speak with Zoe and she is just so lovely. I
Speaker 1: feel like a proud auntie talking to her. That interview
Speaker 1: will be in a bit And she's a super unique
Speaker 1: subject for this show because while she didn't have much
Speaker 1: of an interest in parleying her virality into a career,
Speaker 1: as we'll talk about, she was never really bumped by
Speaker 1: everyone around her assuming that she would want to turn
Speaker 1: the viral moment into a career. And that's probably because
Speaker 1: she's the first guest I've spoken to on this show
Speaker 1: that's a true died in the wool. Internet native expectations
Speaker 1: that have baffled older guests who grew up with analog
Speaker 1: technology are not bizarre or unfamiliar to her. Zoe went
Speaker 1: viral at a very particular moment in Internet history before
Speaker 1: she was fully forming memories and brings one of the
Speaker 1: most interesting stories around fame and consent that I think
Speaker 1: we've ever got, So return with me if you dare to.
Speaker 1: January two thousand and seven, Irish becomes the twenty first
Speaker 1: language officially recognized by the EU, not that they give
Speaker 1: a shite what the EU thinks. President Bush. The Little
Speaker 1: One says that the NSA has definitely stopped wiretapping American citizens,
Speaker 1: which is kind of just like a funny little joke
Speaker 1: he made. And nearly two years after Dave Roth took
Speaker 1: a photo of his little girl watching a neighbor's house
Speaker 1: burn down, the Internet discovered it too. Dave Roth had
Speaker 1: always been interested in photography, and so like any dad
Speaker 1: with a specific gadget based hobby, his kids quickly became
Speaker 1: a part of it. And he wasn't an idiot. The
Speaker 1: picture of Zoe, which he titled Firestarter, is a really
Speaker 1: good one, but his ambitions for it at first were
Speaker 1: fairly conventional. So bear with me and get ready to
Speaker 1: hear some very very extinct website titles. Dave first uploads
Speaker 1: Firestarter to something called Zoomer, which was a stock image
Speaker 1: hosting service whose website now redirects to a scammy seeming
Speaker 1: Gemstone site.
Speaker 11: But today's going to be killed a day because we're
Speaker 11: going to start to finally release Mark three. Zoomer Mark
Speaker 11: three six months in the making, a work two winner
Speaker 11: from Tenue features the ability to sell your photos of
Speaker 11: stock and keep ninety percent of the sale, but.
Speaker 1: The Firestarter photo doesn't get much traction there. Around the
Speaker 1: time Zoe was heading into elementary school, her dad tried
Speaker 1: submitting Firestarter to a second publication, this time a photo
Speaker 1: publication called Jpeg Magazine.
Speaker 3: Basically, these are really high quality magazines that feature one
Speaker 3: subject matter per an issue, and they're pretty affordable too.
Speaker 1: And Jpeg sees the potential in Dave's now two year
Speaker 1: old image and they publish it in their February March
Speaker 1: print issue in two thousand eight, the theme of which
Speaker 1: was Emotion Captured. And I'll talk to Zoe about how
Speaker 1: she felt seeing her photo in a magazine this young,
Speaker 1: because yes, by this time she was sentient enough to
Speaker 1: understand what was happening. But this is an Internet show,
Speaker 1: and so of course it is online where fire Starter
Speaker 1: starts to get a ton of attention. It was shared
Speaker 1: on the jpeg blog in November two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: and before the time the image really took off quickly,
Speaker 1: racking up over ninety five thousand views and in time
Speaker 1: ran its way up to the outer reaches of the Internet.
Speaker 1: And you know this old chestnut, the site that really
Speaker 1: helped Firestarter, which would soon be rebranded as Disaster Girl,
Speaker 1: Get Really Big was none other than BuzzFeed. On October
Speaker 1: twenty seventh, two thousand and eight, over three years after
Speaker 1: the original picture was taken, BuzzFeed writer Scott Lamb wrote
Speaker 1: the following.
Speaker 12: Is aster Girl. She loves starting fires, but this devilish
Speaker 12: girl is responsible for other disasters too. Upload yours below.
Speaker 1: This text was a tool that helped you meme the image,
Speaker 1: so you could put Zoe's image over any background you
Speaker 1: wanted and then add the primitive look that most memes
Speaker 1: had in the two thousands, that static, customizable white text
Speaker 1: where you could add your own caption and upload it
Speaker 1: to the community. Hilarious examples include she asked me to
Speaker 1: watch the oven. I asked her to watch her attitude.
Speaker 1: My mother told others we had a happy, warm home.
Speaker 1: Now she's not lying. Dark humor is like food. Not
Speaker 1: everyone gets it. This kind of viral spread seems so
Speaker 1: like Hallmark sassy magnet coded to me. Now, So to
Speaker 1: put you in this time, let's take a step back
Speaker 1: to Rember exactly what the internet was like in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. The Internet of my unrequited horny youth.
Speaker 1: Around the time this all happened. I was in high
Speaker 1: school and desperately in love with a saxophone player who
Speaker 1: had gone to college for the saxophone and eventually broke
Speaker 1: up with me so he could have more time to
Speaker 1: play the saxophone. This was the year of that really
Speaker 1: bad shil above Indiana Jones movie of the first Obama election.
Speaker 1: The year of low By flow Rider, the year the
Speaker 1: app store launched, The year Netflix and Hulu started streaming online.
Speaker 1: A world where the Jersey Shore was still a place
Speaker 1: and not the most fascinating sociological study ever put on television,
Speaker 1: but for our purposes. Two thousand and eight was a
Speaker 1: time where social media was becoming more important, but it
Speaker 1: still wasn't quite all important. My Space had recently capitulated
Speaker 1: to Facebook as a social network of choice for young
Speaker 1: people at the time. It's hyperstyleed HTML induced seizure backgrounds
Speaker 1: replaced by the smooth land interface of Mark Zuckerberg, where
Speaker 1: teenagers could send each other something called bumper stickers. Everyone
Speaker 1: under twenty five is like, okay, Grandma, go to bed,
Speaker 1: and we were obsessively checking each other's hyperlinked relationship statuses
Speaker 1: like a sixteen year old with the gall to list
Speaker 1: their status as it's complicated with someone else's hyperlinked government
Speaker 1: name beside it. It was a nasty time, and social
Speaker 1: media was one of the venues that the disaster girl
Speaker 1: memes spread, but there were still plenty of places that
Speaker 1: curated this viral content curated by humans. If you can
Speaker 1: imagine before Zoe Roth's four year old face would make
Speaker 1: it to your friend's Facebook page. BuzzFeed was a huge
Speaker 1: viral aggregator in two thousand and seven, having just been
Speaker 1: launched by Jonah Peretti two years before, and our having
Speaker 1: gained the reputation for being a site of aggregated memes,
Speaker 1: viral stories, and these gnarly personality quizzes which were inexplicably
Speaker 1: meth to earnest millennial teenagers. I looked back at some
Speaker 1: here my favorites.
Speaker 12: Create a sampler platter, and we'll guess your age and height?
Speaker 12: What percent nerdy are you? Can you spot the fuck boy?
Speaker 12: We know the name of your next lover based on
Speaker 12: the food you order from McDonald's. How stereotypically white are you?
Speaker 1: No accounting for this? We should be embarrassed. There was
Speaker 1: also cracked dot com, founded in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: By a guy I've never met before and who certainly
Speaker 1: doesn't hold my livelihood in his very hands. Jack O'Brien,
Speaker 1: who went on to hire some of the world's greatest writers, comedians,
Speaker 1: and journalists who shall not be named no idea who
Speaker 1: they are cracked was an edgier, funnier, more researched version
Speaker 1: of the BuzzFeed model, and they did similar short form,
Speaker 1: written and eventually video pieces. A Disaster Girl thrived on
Speaker 1: both of these websites, and after Zoe's image first popped
Speaker 1: up on BuzzFeed, she or I guess, disaster Girl became
Speaker 1: an overnight sensation. The next day, BuzzFeed posted some of
Speaker 1: the hits of the meme generator from the day before,
Speaker 1: in which Zoe was photoshopped smirking in front of other
Speaker 1: ostensible tragedies, so Zoe's smirking at the dinosaur's extinction, Zoe's
Speaker 1: smirking in front of Jesus on the Cross, Zoe at
Speaker 1: Lincoln's assassination, the Grassy Knoll, and some really in poor taste,
Speaker 1: bone chilling Holocaust images. Today. This really to me, reeks,
Speaker 1: of all of the tragedies that will happen in the world,
Speaker 1: have already happened in this extremely naive and dare say
Speaker 1: neo liberal way, Let's keep moving Jpeg magazine knew this
Speaker 1: was the time to jump on the publicity train for
Speaker 1: Disaster Girl and had an interview with Dave and Zoe
Speaker 1: the next day, October twenty eighth. Here's that piece.
Speaker 12: Disaster Girl is coming for you. Roth's photo has popped
Speaker 12: up on a few bookmarking sites where you can upload
Speaker 12: a Firestarter template to enter in your own background silly fun.
Speaker 12: We recently spoke with Dave about his fifteen minutes. He
Speaker 12: and Zoe the fire Starter herself are digging the photoshop
Speaker 12: versions as well as the captions and our jazz that
Speaker 12: the attention to the photo has gotten. Perhaps the lives of
Speaker 12: a disaster Girl and her father are a bit more
Speaker 12: fun and maybe even more mischievous than one would expect.
Speaker 1: And off of this, Disaster Girl's lore spread across the
Speaker 1: world wide Web to all the must click, pop up,
Speaker 1: nightmare aggregate sites of the day, dig make your own
Speaker 1: Disaster Girl background.
Speaker 12: Ebom's World, Disaster Girl strikes again.
Speaker 1: Best week ever Disaster Girl, thenew fail, Cracked dot Com.
Speaker 12: Six images of kids two insane to be real that
Speaker 12: really are.
Speaker 1: Man, those headline formats really trigger my fighter flight response.
Speaker 1: But people were just not getting sick of using the
Speaker 1: disaster Girl meme. According to the All Knowing Know Your Meme,
Speaker 1: Google search peaks for disaster Girl wouldn't hit until nearly
Speaker 1: three years later, in May twenty eleven. And if this
Speaker 1: image went viral today, there would be a terrifying, albeit
Speaker 1: relatively clear pipeline for the roths to take license the image,
Speaker 1: maybe get her on late night, start a branded social
Speaker 1: media career, participate in I don't know a crypto scam.
Speaker 1: All the waves of things that we'd see on the
Speaker 1: Internet in the years to come from the Ellen pipeline.
Speaker 4: If you haven't been hearing the words damn Daniel in
Speaker 4: the last twenty four hours, you've not been on the internet.
Speaker 4: Our first guests are two friends who posted a video
Speaker 4: showing off some stylish clothes. In a matter of days,
Speaker 4: it's been viewed over forty five million times.
Speaker 1: Take a look to Hey, we wel just doing damage
Speaker 1: control about the hawk coin scam to no avail just
Speaker 1: a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna start by saying thank you to all my
Speaker 7: true fans and all the people that actually watch my
Speaker 7: stuff and they keep up with me. We're trying to
Speaker 7: sort out all the pieces and stuff to like get
Speaker 7: all this figured out and make everything right. Oh my god,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna cry.
Speaker 1: But this was two thousand and seven and two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. It wasn't just the Roths that weren't sure
Speaker 1: how to approach this moment with their now second grade daughter.
Speaker 1: It was that no one would know how to approach
Speaker 1: this moment. I'm not going to give you a full
Speaker 1: history here, but the term meme was coined all the
Speaker 1: way back in nineteen seventy six by Richard Dawkins, and
Speaker 1: became associated with the Internet in nineteen ninety three. In
Speaker 1: a piece by Mike Godwin in Wired, Internet memes were
Speaker 1: revised to mean a pre existing image quote deliberately altered
Speaker 1: by human creativity unquote in twenty thirteen, half a decade
Speaker 1: after Disaster Girl became a popular image. So Zoe Ross
Speaker 1: is unintentionally very early to the meme game. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying she's the first. There were plenty of videos and
Speaker 1: images like the Dancing Baby, Gary Brolsma's Newman Numa video, Lolcats, Rickrolling,
Speaker 1: and my personal favorite will it blend videos that had
Speaker 1: gone viral before her, but the two thousands still have
Speaker 1: this reputation of being the wild West era of memes.
Speaker 1: I want to focus on two thousand and seven here
Speaker 1: because it was arguably the first year that some of
Speaker 1: the most potent means to date entered our lives.
Speaker 6: A brief preview, Lity, Some Stay Dry and the Pain
Speaker 6: chok LITZI Gotta Cry the Best can.
Speaker 1: Lay Ready Alone?
Speaker 10: Please?
Speaker 1: These all came out in two thousand and seven. It's
Speaker 1: pretty wild, But I don't think that this was because
Speaker 1: it was a particularly potent year for creativity. For context,
Speaker 1: this is also the year that b Movie came out,
Speaker 1: but it was a big year for increased success on
Speaker 1: aggregate websites like BuzzFeed and cracked at a time when
Speaker 1: social media and YouTube were becoming increasingly popular and easier
Speaker 1: for people to add access, and some of the subjects
Speaker 1: of these memes were able to parlay their fame into
Speaker 1: sustained popularity through a combination of luck and early meme managers.
Speaker 1: And the most successful meme manager maybe of all time,
Speaker 1: is this guy named Ben Lashes. He didn't represent the
Speaker 1: roths or the disaster Girl meme during its heyday because
Speaker 1: the family didn't seek out management, as we'll get into,
Speaker 1: but Ben Lashes does become a weirdly important player in
Speaker 1: this story. So how do you become a prominent meme manager? Well,
Speaker 1: he started as a musician in the two thousands.
Speaker 2: Is so long.
Speaker 13: Inside say success inside of mind.
Speaker 1: I was seeing in the comments that this track came
Speaker 1: for free on the Sony Ericsson brick phone in the
Speaker 1: mid two thousands. Pretty sick. But after he left music behind,
Speaker 1: Lashes pivoted to media in the late two thousands and
Speaker 1: interviewed musicians for Spin dot com.
Speaker 13: All right, folks, it's the biggest night in Hollywood. It's
Speaker 13: being again Ben Lashes. You're ace reporter, stuck in traffic
Speaker 13: at its rush hour the Hollywood Freeway one oh one North,
Speaker 13: going to see Slash at Guitar Center in north Ridge.
Speaker 1: And in two thousand and nine, he pivoted again and
Speaker 1: made his first prominent meme discovery. You know him, you
Speaker 1: love him Keyboard Cat And I'm not gonna harp on
Speaker 1: this because it really should be its own episode. But
Speaker 1: not for nothing. The Keyboard Cat video, you've seen it.
Speaker 1: It's a tabby cat and a Little Blue Shirt playing
Speaker 1: the ones and twos. This video was shot in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four by a family friend of the Lashes, which
Speaker 1: is how he knew about it in the first place.
Speaker 1: But the meme doesn't happen until two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: So think about that math. With regards to how long
Speaker 1: cats live, Keyboard Cat had, in fact died twenty years
Speaker 1: before he became famous. Rip de Fatso the cat, which
Speaker 1: begs the question how does a dead cat have a
Speaker 1: manager and create new content? They recast Keyboard Cat after
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven. They hired a similar looking cat
Speaker 1: named Bento, who debuted in a video called Keyboard Cat
Speaker 1: Reincarnated being a cat. Bento also died. Rip Bento, here's
Speaker 1: his owner.
Speaker 3: He had a big start and and it stayed big
Speaker 3: all the way.
Speaker 14: He had quite a run and.
Speaker 2: Well, he says there's a chance of a third Keyboard
Speaker 2: Cat if he finds one with the right personality at
Speaker 2: a shelter.
Speaker 1: And we will get to that another day, but for context,
Speaker 1: Ben Lashes describes his pivot from music to management like
Speaker 1: this in an interview with Digital Trends in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 12: I was the singer in a band called The lashes.
Speaker 12: We started in age, got signed to an indie label,
Speaker 12: then a major label. We rode the roller coaster of
Speaker 12: success and failure in the music industry and all that
Speaker 12: kind of stuff. I've always been really into the business
Speaker 12: side of things, of marketing and hype and pop culture,
Speaker 12: the way it works together. I'm really kind of a nerd.
Speaker 1: And he had a knack for plucking out and effectively
Speaker 1: promoting meme successes like Scumbag, Steve, the success Kid, the
Speaker 1: ridiculously photogenic guy, Neon Cat, and Grumpy Cat very successful
Speaker 1: in the cat market I've noticed, and Grumpy Cat has
Speaker 1: in fact become his most successful client to date, in
Speaker 1: spite of the fact that Grumpy Cat has been dead
Speaker 1: for six years. Rip Tartar sauce the cat. But if
Speaker 1: you remember the Grumpy Cat heyday, it genuinely was huge.
Speaker 1: There was even this TV movie starring Aubrey Plaza as
Speaker 1: Christmas Grumpy Cat. Don't get sappy on me it I forgot.
Speaker 3: It's a lifetime movie.
Speaker 1: All pets are off Cat.
Speaker 6: Cat.
Speaker 1: They don't even make paintball guns.
Speaker 7: For the cats.
Speaker 1: Fodrey Plaza brings the Internet sensation to life.
Speaker 10: This is the best Christmas ever, go ahead ignore the
Speaker 10: title of my movie Pluffie Cat's Worst Christmas.
Speaker 15: Ever.
Speaker 1: So, while it's not clear if Ben Lashes reached out
Speaker 1: to the Roth family in the moment, he tends to
Speaker 1: work with clients or I guess grieving pet owners to
Speaker 1: make their memes their whole livelihood, hopefully to the tune
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars. But the Robs don't really seem
Speaker 1: to want to do that in part, as we'll discuss,
Speaker 1: because Zoe was a normal kid who wasn't into the
Speaker 1: idea of being hyper exposed. From that same interview, here
Speaker 1: is Ben Lash's philosophy of promotion.
Speaker 12: Once it got to a point where there was a
Speaker 12: foundation of stuff that we'd done, I'd become so immersed
Speaker 12: in the meme world and thinking it was kind of
Speaker 12: a wild West where certain companies would take images and
Speaker 12: sell them and make t shirts, and everyone kind of
Speaker 12: had this idea that once it hits the Internet, it's free.
Speaker 12: I'm a huge fan of pop art, and the digital
Speaker 12: memes that go around now are a social form that's
Speaker 12: going to be studied four years to come, and it's
Speaker 12: totally a new way of communicating with people. So I
Speaker 12: love the art side of it, the sharing and the
Speaker 12: mashing up. But I hate when the snakes get in
Speaker 12: there and start making products and squatting on sites. It
Speaker 12: just steals the fun out of it.
Speaker 1: And again, I cannot overstate his success in this world.
Speaker 1: While Tartar Sauce the Grumpy Cat passed away and to
Speaker 1: my knowledge, had no use for human money, Ben Lashes
Speaker 1: and the cat's owner, Tabitha Bundsen, made her the wealthiest
Speaker 1: pet on earth, valued at an approximate ninety nine million dollars.
Speaker 1: What labor episode forthcoming, probably so we'll come back to
Speaker 1: Ben Lashes in a bit. But in the moment, Zoe
Speaker 1: recalls in the late two thousands that her family didn't
Speaker 1: really know how to and weren't particularly motivated to engage
Speaker 1: with it, so life went on. Zoe grew up in
Speaker 1: relative anonymity. There were some local people who knew, but luckily,
Speaker 1: people rarely look like their four year old selves. For
Speaker 1: long as she got older, she had an Internet presence
Speaker 1: like any kid who came of age in the early
Speaker 1: to mid twenty tens, but these profiles were just for
Speaker 1: her friends and family, outside of occasional family photos that
Speaker 1: her dad would post on the Flicker photo platform, the
Speaker 1: public kind of lost track of Zoe, even though throughout
Speaker 1: these years, the disaster Girl meme remained extremely popular, so
Speaker 1: while she was still a kid, there was only one
Speaker 1: time that the family engaged with monetizing Zoe's fame. In
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, when Zoe was in high school, they were
Speaker 1: asked by a company called Fuck Jerry to have the
Speaker 1: meme featured in a card game they were kickstarting, called,
Speaker 1: and I hate to tell you this, what do you meme?
Speaker 3: Do you like spicy memes?
Speaker 10: Of course you do, That's why I Fucked Jared created.
Speaker 3: What do you mean? What the cards? Chrisby?
Speaker 10: The rules are simple, just like the memes that you
Speaker 10: see on Instagram. There are photos and there are captions.
Speaker 12: Your job is to match the best caption with the photo.
Speaker 1: For what it's worth, Zoe's image is featured twice in
Speaker 1: this trailer, and the game is what It sounds like
Speaker 1: a ripoff of Cards against Humanity or Apples to Apples,
Speaker 1: but with memes. The game quickly raised its ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars goal on Kickstarter and then some, and went on
Speaker 1: to haunt the impulse by area of urban outfitter stores
Speaker 1: for years to come now if it sounds familiar, Fuck
Speaker 1: Jerry is an Instagram account that was started by one
Speaker 1: guy not named Jerry and then turned into a bunch
Speaker 1: of guys not named Jerry. And those there aren't hard
Speaker 1: numbers on the sales of what do You Mean? It
Speaker 1: did very well. The games still exist today, and they
Speaker 1: later partnered with big brands like SpongeBob, Friends, Seinfeld's, and
Speaker 1: Tricia Patus to make other versions of the game, and
Speaker 1: Zoe's image is featured prominently in the first run of
Speaker 1: the game, including an appearance on the back of the box,
Speaker 1: and as we'll talk about in the interview, she says
Speaker 1: that her family didn't really know what to ask for
Speaker 1: in terms of money here, so they were compensated, but
Speaker 1: not to the degree that it seems like the game
Speaker 1: was successful, And in part that's because the Roths brokeer
Speaker 1: this agreement with fuck Jerry without representation, and so they
Speaker 1: seem to get ripped off because Fuck Jerry, if their
Speaker 1: name and demeanor weren't a tip already are notorious rifters,
Speaker 1: though to the family's credit, that wasn't well known at
Speaker 1: this time. If you've heard the name FuG Jerry, before.
Speaker 1: It's probably because of the Fire Festival.
Speaker 16: We're going to turn now of that trouble for the
Speaker 16: Fire Music Festival, hit with a class action lawsuit from
Speaker 16: concert goers who spent thousands of dollars for what was
Speaker 16: supposed to be a luxury weekend of food, art, and
Speaker 16: music in the Bahamas, didn't turn out quite that way.
Speaker 16: ABC's Gio Benitez in Miami with the details.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Geo, Hey George, Good morning to you those
Speaker 2: concertgoers coming here to Miami all week and long. The
Speaker 2: event's co founder, Joe Rule says it's not his fault,
Speaker 2: but that he's deeply sorry.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 1: Fire Festival the notorious twenty seventeen shit show where influencers
Speaker 1: paid thousands of dollars to attend a luxury concert on
Speaker 1: an island that resulted in a Lord of the Fly
Speaker 1: situation and leaving the founder in jail for fraud, and
Speaker 1: this inspired two documentaries, one which was suspiciously produced by
Speaker 1: Fuck Jerry to.
Speaker 10: Hudoc actually draws attention to this, not only bringing up
Speaker 10: the competing Netflix documentary, but also calling them out for
Speaker 10: being co produced by none other than Jerry Media, the
Speaker 10: company that did the advertising for Fire festival in the
Speaker 10: first place. Remember how I said that the Netflix documentary
Speaker 10: tended to have better looking footage. That's largely because it
Speaker 10: looks like its old, unused advertising footage, which naturally Jerry
Speaker 10: Media had access to.
Speaker 1: As you just heard, there were two competing documentaries that
Speaker 1: streamed about this nightmare situation around the same time, on
Speaker 1: Netflix and Hulu respectively, one of which was produced by
Speaker 1: Fuck Jerry, who claimed to have been involved in the
Speaker 1: early promotion of the festival but left when things got sketchy.
Speaker 1: But on the Hulu doc they are directly implicated in
Speaker 1: promoting and being aware of the scheme throughout, along with
Speaker 1: the agreed upon villains of the story Billy McFarland and
Speaker 1: jah Ruhle or maybe you for of them from the
Speaker 1: hashtag fuck fuck Jerry campaign of twenty nineteen, where prominent
Speaker 1: comedians accused the company of stealing their jokes without credit
Speaker 1: or compensation, either to use on the fuck Jerry Instagram
Speaker 1: or wait for it, in prompt cards for what do
Speaker 1: you mean? These guys famously fucking suck, and they suck
Speaker 1: even worse for screwing Zoe and her family over. But
Speaker 1: whatever frustration that caused was short lived because outside of this,
Speaker 1: particularly as Zoe came into her own and enrolled at
Speaker 1: UNC Chapel Hill for college, she didn't seem to want
Speaker 1: much to do with the meme. She popped up a
Speaker 1: few years later at a BuzzFeed event called Internet Live
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, which was sort of a best of
Speaker 1: of the Internet of the twenty tens. There were performances
Speaker 1: from Lil nas X and Jojo Siua, The Damn Daniel
Speaker 1: Guys were there, the Jersey Shore Girls, there was some
Speaker 1: nine year old I've never heard of, and one of
Speaker 1: the Internet's most noxious senior citizen, Jason Nash, and Zoe
Speaker 1: the Disaster Girl. She pops up again in late twenty twenties,
Speaker 1: in the throes of the pandemic lockdown, in a very
Speaker 1: successful BuzzFeed video series called I Accidentally Became a Meme.
Speaker 1: It's currently hovering around eight million views because for most
Speaker 1: people this was their first time seeing Zoe speak, much
Speaker 1: less speak as a full grown adult.
Speaker 17: I Accidentally Became a meme, and this is that story.
Speaker 17: My name is Zoe Roth, but you may know me
Speaker 17: as Disaster Girl. This all started in two thousand.
Speaker 1: And five, but even though she dipped her toe in
Speaker 1: engaging with Disaster Girl. In her young adulthood, she said
Speaker 1: she viewed it as more of a fun fact about
Speaker 1: her than a defining quality in her life. This is
Speaker 1: from April twenty twenty one, during her senior year of college.
Speaker 15: Yeah, honestly, I've thought about this so much, like why
Speaker 15: it's so viral, why it comes back up every year,
Speaker 15: because most of the memes that came out when mine
Speaker 15: did two thousand and four, two thousand and five are
Speaker 15: like dead memes, people don't use them anymore. But I
Speaker 15: see mind recycled more often, and I think especially with
Speaker 15: twenty twenty, because twenty twenty was just such a horrible
Speaker 15: year for a lot of people. It was like the
Speaker 15: perfect meme for that because everything was on fire, nothing
Speaker 15: was going right, like everybody was struggling with so many
Speaker 15: different things, it was like, and that meme is just chaos,
Speaker 15: so perfect for twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1: So by early twenty twenty one, Zoe is talking about
Speaker 1: the meme more than she ever has publicly, and later
Speaker 1: this month it becomes clear maybe why that was re
Speaker 1: enter Ben Lash's late April twenty twenty one. Only since
Speaker 1: we last encountered him. He's gotten really into Is it
Speaker 1: a heypop? Is it b Instagram infographics on tolerance or
Speaker 1: is it c an all but inevitable footnote in every
Speaker 1: story we talk about here crypto and NFTs, it is,
Speaker 1: of course c. He was into crypto now and wanted
Speaker 1: to mint an fts and was very successful at this,
Speaker 1: I might add. So he combined this new passion with
Speaker 1: his past experience and meme representation of the twenty tens
Speaker 1: and ends up teaming up with a number of meme
Speaker 1: subjects like Zoe Like past guest of the show Lena
Speaker 1: Morris aka Overly Attacked Girlfriend, as well as others like Padlock,
Speaker 1: Brian success Kid, and Irma gard Girl, who all teamed
Speaker 1: up with Lashes to sell their iconic memes as NFTs.
Speaker 1: He told The New York Times that his clients had
Speaker 1: cumulatively made over two million dollars in late April twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, and Zoe Rot's NFT was the top earner.
Speaker 1: It sold for one hundred and eighty ether, which around
Speaker 1: the time was half a million dollars. And if you're
Speaker 1: a regular listener, you'll know we also talked about this
Speaker 1: in our Lena Morris episode. I am not a fan
Speaker 1: of NFTs, but the way that most have characterized this
Speaker 1: decision to sell their meme as an NFT during this
Speaker 1: big pandemic era boom was because they had been previously
Speaker 1: unable to control the Internet proliferation of their image, and
Speaker 1: so this seemed like a chance to get compensated in
Speaker 1: some way for years of being out of control of
Speaker 1: their own image. And that's a tricky thing to argue
Speaker 1: with because how do you quantify that. Really there's no
Speaker 1: direct answer, But I do understand the appeal of finally
Speaker 1: getting something out of this weird element that has haunted
Speaker 1: you your entire life, after growing up with people photoshopping
Speaker 1: your image over Hitler rallies and getting screwed over by
Speaker 1: the likes of Fuck Jerry. At the time, Zoe Roth
Speaker 1: told The New York Times this people who are in
Speaker 1: memes didn't really have a choice in it. The Internet
Speaker 1: is big. Whether you're having a good experience or a
Speaker 1: bad experience, you kind of just have to make the
Speaker 1: most of it. Zoe and I talk more about that
Speaker 1: in the interview, including the heavy speculation of how she
Speaker 1: used that money, But after the NFT sale, Zoe graduates
Speaker 1: from school, and in a poetic turn, I think she
Speaker 1: stumbles into a career in tech research analysis. So the
Speaker 1: kid who became a child meme is now the same
Speaker 1: person advising tech companies on how to grow their businesses. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly clear on what Zobe does, but I
Speaker 1: know she's really smart. Sorry I can't get more specific.
Speaker 1: I just write MP three's that will soon be considered
Speaker 1: thought crimes our talk when we come back. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to sixteenth minute. Here's a thought I have never quite
Speaker 1: mastered the late capitalism email initiation that something like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: hope everything's well except the world is ending, but otherwise
Speaker 1: hope everything's well. Like I don't know, I just like
Speaker 1: don't want that kind of email coming from my dentist.
Speaker 1: I don't know. If you're listening to this and there's
Speaker 1: a protest for trans writes in your area, you should
Speaker 1: fucking go. And here's my interview with the one the
Speaker 1: Only disaster girl, Zoe Roth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm Zoe Roth.
Speaker 17: I'm most well known for a viral photo of me
Speaker 17: that was taken of me standing in front of a
Speaker 17: burning house and smiling.
Speaker 1: I want to go through the beats of the story
Speaker 1: very quickly to get the stuff out of the way
Speaker 1: that everyone has questions about and then get into the
Speaker 1: meat of this interview. Do you remember this day with
Speaker 1: any clarity?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do remember the day.
Speaker 17: All I remember of it was looking in the windows
Speaker 17: of the house and looking at things that were burning
Speaker 17: and thinking.
Speaker 3: Like, oh my god, this sucks, Like I wish I'm
Speaker 3: so glad this isn't my house.
Speaker 17: We were two blocks down the road, and at the
Speaker 17: time we didn't know it was like a test fire,
Speaker 17: so it was planned and organized and it was totally safe,
Speaker 17: they say.
Speaker 3: But all I remember was looking in the windows of
Speaker 3: the house and being like, wow, that sucks.
Speaker 1: I feel like the added context of it being a
Speaker 1: planned burn, which I don't even think I realized was
Speaker 1: a thing, completely changes the image.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 17: I had a friend reach out and she was like,
Speaker 17: I'm so sorry if that was traumatizing to you, to
Speaker 17: like watch a house burn down, and now this meme is.
Speaker 3: All over the place.
Speaker 17: I was like, Oh, it's really fine, Like it wasn't
Speaker 17: traumatizing at the time, even though I didn't know that
Speaker 17: it was a planned burn.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit more about how you grew
Speaker 1: up where you grew up.
Speaker 17: Yeah, so I grew up in mepin North Carolina, which
Speaker 17: is right in the middle of the state. I have
Speaker 17: an older brother.
Speaker 3: I feel like I grew up.
Speaker 17: I had a pretty average childhood, like I did sports,
Speaker 17: I did running, I traveled a bit as a kid.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I feel like pretty average as far as
Speaker 3: it comes.
Speaker 1: And you're four years old at the time this picture
Speaker 1: was taken.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was four, about to turn five.
Speaker 1: Your dad enters the picture into a contest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So my dad posted it.
Speaker 17: It was either on Zoomer or flicker like all of
Speaker 17: these old old like photo sharing early Instagram type apps,
Speaker 17: and he submitted it to JPEG magazine, which was a
Speaker 17: physical and I guess they had an online magazine as well,
Speaker 17: and that's as far as we know probably where it
Speaker 17: got picked up. So there was they had a submission
Speaker 17: of like Emotion. It was the Emotion series of the magazine.
Speaker 17: So he submitted it and it got printed. And I
Speaker 17: was in second grade at the time, and they've emailed
Speaker 17: us or they gave us the physical magazine.
Speaker 3: I brought it to school. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: I'm so famous, Like to.
Speaker 17: This day, that is the most famous I've ever felt
Speaker 17: in second grade, like with this magazine of myself. But
Speaker 17: they posted on the website as well, so we figure
Speaker 17: that's probably where it got the traction.
Speaker 3: And then from there, like my dad saw.
Speaker 17: His coworkers like had it in their Cubic goals, and
Speaker 17: like my aunts and uncles would be like, oh, somebody
Speaker 17: I know just posted this on Facebook.
Speaker 3: Or I funny, and we're like what, like, I don't
Speaker 3: know how that got there, Like wait, isn't this zoey?
Speaker 3: Like why why do wait? Why is this photo on
Speaker 3: my Facebook feed? And we're like, we have no idea.
Speaker 1: That's really wild. I also just the very two thousands
Speaker 1: nis of a physical magazine called Jpeg Magazine. Yes, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: So you're not totally sure how the image went viral online.
Speaker 3: I know we've always wondered. I'm like, maybe when I'm old,
Speaker 3: I'll try to like track the provenance down.
Speaker 17: I'm like, it's probably just one person sent it somewhere
Speaker 17: else from there and it's like blown up, but we've
Speaker 17: never known exactly where it took off from.
Speaker 3: That's just my theory, the jpeg theory.
Speaker 1: The sounds menacing, so you're in second grade when this
Speaker 1: comes out, the feeling of like, oh my god, I'm famous,
Speaker 1: I'm cool, I'm in a magazine. Do you remember that feeling?
Speaker 1: Do you remember talking to other kids about it, like
Speaker 1: how do people react to it?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 17: At the time, I mean jpeg was the coolest thing,
Speaker 17: and then I think, no, your meme made a video
Speaker 17: about it that same year, which is two thousand and eight.
Speaker 17: So both of those was just like awesome. You know,
Speaker 17: they were awesome for a few days, and then I
Speaker 17: kind of forgot about it. It was mostly more interesting
Speaker 17: when people would like send it to me on Instagram
Speaker 17: or I Funny, or send me texts like oh my god,
Speaker 17: I saw this and it has a million hits on
Speaker 17: I Funny or like Twitter. And as a kid, it
Speaker 17: was just like these sporadic interactions. I would have people
Speaker 17: who already knew me and saying like, oh look, I
Speaker 17: saw this. This is crazy, and I'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 17: that is crazy, and they're like, oh, so, what's the story.
Speaker 17: I'm like, oh my gosh, I need a video record.
Speaker 17: I needed like an audio thing I just send.
Speaker 1: Out very early. And do you forming memories a part
Speaker 1: of your life? What was your relationship with the Internet,
Speaker 1: like as I feel like I was.
Speaker 17: Very early on the Internet, like I got on Facebook
Speaker 17: and like elementary school, which looking back, I was like,
Speaker 17: that's probably not a great idea.
Speaker 3: Like Instagram, as early as you could have it.
Speaker 17: I was always kind of like looking to be on
Speaker 17: these new platforms, and then anytime I was on a
Speaker 17: new platform, I would end up seeing the meme and
Speaker 17: I was like, that's kind of funny.
Speaker 3: It's like following me wherever I'm going on the Internet.
Speaker 17: But it definitely I feel like I was on the
Speaker 17: It kind of grew up with me on the Internet.
Speaker 3: As long as I've been on the Internet, it was
Speaker 3: there as well, like living.
Speaker 17: Its own life. So that's always kind of an interesting thing.
Speaker 17: When there's new platforms, it shows up there as well,
Speaker 17: and I.
Speaker 1: Just kind of let it be What personalities were you
Speaker 1: drawn to? What areas of the Internet.
Speaker 17: I feel like I was a big I mean initially
Speaker 17: I loved I funny, and I've always been like on Instagram.
Speaker 17: There's a lot of times growing up, like in high
Speaker 17: school and in college, I was like, should I like
Speaker 17: make this my bit, Like should I make a YouTube channel?
Speaker 17: Like should I like figure out how to monetize this.
Speaker 17: But I was just like, I don't really want to
Speaker 17: be I never wanted it to be my whole thing,
Speaker 17: Like I didn't want to build my life around it,
Speaker 17: and so I kind of actively made that choice, like
Speaker 17: when I was pretty young, like I'm going to go
Speaker 17: to college, I'm going to get a career, Like this
Speaker 17: is going to live on its own and I'm going
Speaker 17: to do my own thing. But I've kind of, yeah,
Speaker 17: I kind of try to like decenter it in my life,
Speaker 17: and when it comes up, it comes up, and it's
Speaker 17: like a fun little party conversation.
Speaker 3: But that's kind of what I try to keep it up.
Speaker 1: I want to sort of get into the idea of
Speaker 1: you know, your becoming this famous symbol. Did you experience
Speaker 1: any internal or external pressure, like walk me through that decision?
Speaker 1: And what were people around you sort of recommending or
Speaker 1: saying at the time.
Speaker 17: Yeah, I think I always had friends that would be like, oh,
Speaker 17: it would be so cool if you do a YouTube channel,
Speaker 17: And there would be occasional times where I would go
Speaker 17: to a meme event and people would be like, oh,
Speaker 17: what's your handle, what's your.
Speaker 3: Channel, and like I don't, I'm not I don't really
Speaker 3: have that. Me and some of the other memes.
Speaker 17: We all get in touch like every once in a while,
Speaker 17: like when there's something going on, like when the NFT
Speaker 17: thing happened and we're all like, what are you guys doing,
Speaker 17: Like we hadn't really talked before that. But I've never
Speaker 17: felt like an internal pressure to do anything with it
Speaker 17: or really externally like to me, this is like satisfying
Speaker 17: enough to do an occasional interview and like see it
Speaker 17: every once in a while, and I've never felt like
Speaker 17: I needed to do something more with.
Speaker 3: It for purposes of like satisfying or like you know,
Speaker 3: me or others.
Speaker 1: And as you're getting older, you're realizing, like I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a full time YouTuber just because technically
Speaker 1: that is on offer. What were your interests? What was
Speaker 1: sort of developing as you were becoming a person growing up?
Speaker 17: I spent my summers like working in Tahoe. I have
Speaker 17: an uncle that has a restaurant there, so I'd go
Speaker 17: to work in Tahoe. I was always working, like I
Speaker 17: always had a job in high school. A big part
Speaker 17: of my life growing up was speaking and learning Chinese.
Speaker 17: So the school I went to in Chapel Hill was
Speaker 17: an immersion Chinese school, so it was always like a
Speaker 17: big part of my identity, like trying to figure out
Speaker 17: how I could go to China, Like I ended up
Speaker 17: studying abroad in China and high school, and that was
Speaker 17: kind of like my focus, Like how can I like
Speaker 17: go to college for this, How can I like set
Speaker 17: up my professional career around like Chinese and international relations?
Speaker 17: Like that was really my focus as long as I
Speaker 17: can remember, figuring out what did I wanted to do professionally, and.
Speaker 3: This just was never a part of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that seems really farfield. That's so fascinating.
Speaker 1: Did you become interested in Chinese culture because of the
Speaker 1: immersion school? Yeah? How did that come about? That's really cool?
Speaker 17: Yeah, I think it was just the immersion school, Like
Speaker 17: it was kind of a pilot project that the school
Speaker 17: I went to in Chuckle Hill was working on. So
Speaker 17: I was the first or second class, so we spent
Speaker 17: half the day in Chinese and the other half in English,
Speaker 17: and I did it all the way through college.
Speaker 3: So it's always just been something like.
Speaker 17: I've always been like that's kind of cooler, Like everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 17: the meme, Like that's your fun fact.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, okay, well there's other things too.
Speaker 1: You're also yeah, like these nets that is cooler objectively,
Speaker 1: what did you go to school for?
Speaker 17: So I ended up going to school for international relations
Speaker 17: and Chinese boats, so I kind of stuck with that.
Speaker 17: And then my first job out of college I was
Speaker 17: doing something similar, and then I pivoted over to doing
Speaker 17: technology research. So that's what I do now, basically a
Speaker 17: technology journalist. So again like nothing related to what I've
Speaker 17: done in the past, and nothing related to the meme.
Speaker 17: Everything is so like jumping around between different different things.
Speaker 1: You're becoming like this very interesting person with a wide
Speaker 1: variety of interest, and there is just always this thing.
Speaker 1: Was there any point growing up with this and then
Speaker 1: being an adult with this and it's just it's going
Speaker 1: to be there forever. Were there ever moments where it
Speaker 1: was like frustrating or uncomfortable or like enough?
Speaker 17: It's definitely there's times where it gets frustrating. I think
Speaker 17: like a lot of people use it in ways that
Speaker 17: I don't like condone.
Speaker 3: Or agree with.
Speaker 17: But pretty from an early age, I've kind of had
Speaker 17: the mindset that I can't control, like how people are
Speaker 17: going to use it or.
Speaker 3: How it's going to like travel across the internet.
Speaker 17: So being like frustrated or irritated about it isn't going
Speaker 17: to change the fact that I'm going to see it.
Speaker 17: I'm going to see like old interviews that I've done,
Speaker 17: like it's going to be there, and like that's kind
Speaker 17: of how it's been. What frustrates me most now is like,
Speaker 17: as I'm trying to build like a professional career and
Speaker 17: like obviously an identity out of this if you.
Speaker 3: Look me up, like that is the first thing that's
Speaker 3: going to show up.
Speaker 17: Like if I wanted to get a new job, or
Speaker 17: if I'm interviewing somebody and they want to see like,
Speaker 17: oh what does she write about? First, They're going to
Speaker 17: see all this meme shit. Instead I'm like, oh mind there.
Speaker 17: Wait then it's like, oh, well tell me the story,
Speaker 17: like wait, how old are you?
Speaker 3: Like how is this?
Speaker 17: And it kind of like overshadows, So it's more like
Speaker 17: the digital privacy thing, like I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 17: I can't wait to get a new last name.
Speaker 3: Like I can't wait till.
Speaker 17: Because right now you can look up, you can find
Speaker 17: out anything that you want to do vertty much about me,
Speaker 17: which I think that is the thing that kind of
Speaker 17: scares me the most, and it's like the biggest externality
Speaker 17: about it.
Speaker 1: Again, I think it's like an interesting conversation generationally that
Speaker 1: because you grew up online, what's the point of getting
Speaker 1: mad about it? It's an inevitability. When I talk to
Speaker 1: people who are you know, like gen X or even older,
Speaker 1: they're like, what the fuck? Why can't I get this
Speaker 1: to go away?
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly because their relationship with the Internet is so different.
Speaker 1: But just bizarre to have this thing that happened when
Speaker 1: you were four years old come up at a job interview.
Speaker 17: Yes, it came up in this interview. The first time
Speaker 17: I did like a webinar for my job, I was
Speaker 17: so nervous. I didn't sleep the night before, so nervous.
Speaker 17: The first piece of feedback that comes in, wait are
Speaker 17: you Zoe Roth? That's the meme, I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 17: I prepared all this stuff, like no questions about the
Speaker 17: topics of like the webinar, just like wait are you her?
Speaker 3: I'm like, look it up, like do I look like her? Like,
Speaker 3: let's not. I'm not engaging with this conversation right now.
Speaker 1: Good for you, Like I think you are well within
Speaker 1: your rights to be like.
Speaker 3: Fuck off, yeah, look it up, Like I can't. I'm
Speaker 3: always just like look up, tell me the story. I'm like,
Speaker 3: look it up. I'm not telling you this story.
Speaker 17: And it's like, honestly, when I meet people, like when
Speaker 17: I make new friends, like I recently moved to Utah,
Speaker 17: I never tell anybody because they end up finding out,
Speaker 17: like they will find out on their own and they're like.
Speaker 3: Wait, what you didn't tell me about this? Like I
Speaker 3: can't believe.
Speaker 17: Recently, it was like the twenty year anniversary, so I
Speaker 17: posted all these stories and a bunch of my friends
Speaker 17: in new chart are like wait what, like that's you? Like,
Speaker 17: why didn't you tell me? I'm like, well, I'll tell
Speaker 17: you now, Like now you know I like that.
Speaker 1: It's like, how dare you keep this?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Exactly, answering secret I want to. Yeah, I mean talk
Speaker 1: about first these like meme conventions and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: which now feel kind of like this weird bygone era.
Speaker 1: How did appearances like that come together? And then what
Speaker 1: was that experience?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 17: So, I honestly didn't have any like opportunities to travel
Speaker 17: or anything for this until I was in high school.
Speaker 17: So I never ended up even going to like the convent,
Speaker 17: like the Comic cons or whatever. The first like big
Speaker 17: event I did was actually hilarious. I was in Shanghai
Speaker 17: for the summer as a summer camp counselor, like with kindergarteners,
Speaker 17: like literally just like in the weeds with these like
Speaker 17: kindergarteners who didn't speak English, being a camp counselor, and
Speaker 17: BuzzFeed like emails me and they're like, hey, we're doing
Speaker 17: this event next week in New.
Speaker 3: York, like do you want to come?
Speaker 17: And I was like, well, that would be great, but
Speaker 17: I'm in Shanghai, like and I have a job like
Speaker 17: at the summer camp, so I need to get off
Speaker 17: the summer camp and then you guys have to fly
Speaker 17: me back to New York and then back to Shanghai.
Speaker 3: And they're like, okay, yeah, we can do that.
Speaker 17: So I need to explain to my boss like another
Speaker 17: camp counselor, like, hey, so someone's offering to fly me
Speaker 17: to New York.
Speaker 3: For the weekend, Like can I have Friday off so
Speaker 3: I can go and do that? Like with that be okay.
Speaker 17: And so it was like the BuzzFeed Internet Awards or something,
Speaker 17: and Jojo c like gave me and the Dan Daniels
Speaker 17: kids like this like a meme trophy, which now I'm like,
Speaker 17: where is my meme trophy?
Speaker 3: Like I do wonder where that is. But that is
Speaker 3: definitely That's probably the only event, like I think I've
Speaker 3: ever been to I.
Speaker 1: Have seen that picture and you're just like, Wow, what
Speaker 1: a time, what a moment?
Speaker 17: Oh my god, I hate it. It was so uncomfortable.
Speaker 17: It was like walking out in front of all these people.
Speaker 17: I was like, I'm never going to do something.
Speaker 3: Like this again.
Speaker 1: By that point, what it's been at least ten years, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's happened. If you're not interested in like performing, it
Speaker 1: sounds uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was definitely uncomfortable and like and everyone's like cheering.
Speaker 17: I'm like, I know, I could never be like an actual,
Speaker 17: like famous person, Like I do not like this level
Speaker 17: of like recognition.
Speaker 1: Because I want to talk a little bit about the NFTs,
Speaker 1: because I talked to Lena about that as well, this
Speaker 1: idea of not having control over your own likeness, because
Speaker 1: this took off during a time where I feel like
Speaker 1: that discussion basically didn't happen and no one was thinking
Speaker 1: about like what is this gonna feel like in twenty years?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Is there a way to get control of this? Like
Speaker 1: what are your options?
Speaker 3: We never like, we never like sat down as a family.
Speaker 3: We're like, what do we do?
Speaker 17: How can we get this back? We've always known like
Speaker 17: you know, once it's out, the cats out of the bag.
Speaker 17: There was like like for a while we had a
Speaker 17: relationship with fuck Jerry who made that game?
Speaker 3: What do you mean? And it was on the back
Speaker 3: of the box.
Speaker 17: And that's probably like the biggest thing that happened, like
Speaker 17: for the most part, besides the NFT because on the box,
Speaker 17: like on every box, you can spin it around in
Speaker 17: my photo, so anytime you're shopping in an urban or
Speaker 17: like at the airport, like, oh my god, where's me, Like,
Speaker 17: let's go find Zoe. I'm in the I'm in the box.
Speaker 17: And we're like, this is just going to be probably
Speaker 17: the biggest thing. And that was the first time we
Speaker 17: ever got paid for us, so we're like, wow, we're
Speaker 17: so rich. Looking back, it was, Yeah, it was not
Speaker 17: a great deal. They were not great to work with.
Speaker 17: That is kind of like something that looking back on
Speaker 17: we're like, oh, we were not well informed on this negotiation.
Speaker 17: I think it was like twenty sixteen, so a full
Speaker 17: like ten to twelve years later, and we're like.
Speaker 3: Wow, this is so cool, Like finally we can get
Speaker 3: paid for this.
Speaker 17: Like before that, it was like, oh, my dad had
Speaker 17: a red bubble shop, but so did all these other
Speaker 17: people that were just like stealing the photo and posting
Speaker 17: their own.
Speaker 3: Like we're like, what are we going to do? Like
Speaker 3: hey take this down? Like we didn't have lawyers, we
Speaker 3: didn't have a team. It was just like me and
Speaker 3: my dad.
Speaker 17: So we're just like, well, every once in a while,
Speaker 17: like somebody would be like, oh, can I get an autograph?
Speaker 17: Like somehow they would find us on the internet, like, hey,
Speaker 17: can I have an autograph?
Speaker 1: How did your like family feel about this as time
Speaker 1: went on, because it seems like the kind of thing
Speaker 1: where it's really cool at first, but then it keeps
Speaker 1: going and going and going.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's mostly been me and my dad
Speaker 3: like managing all of it. Like he took the photo,
Speaker 3: I'm in it.
Speaker 17: My brother was there and there's pictures of him too,
Speaker 17: and we're always like, oh, it should have been him,
Speaker 17: Like what are the odds? Like they were all posted
Speaker 17: in the same places, but like Tristan didn't get famous.
Speaker 17: I'm so sorry, Tristan. But me and my dad are
Speaker 17: always the ones kind of like managing those conversations and
Speaker 17: figuring out the opportunities when they're bigger, like we'll involve
Speaker 17: everybody and be like, oh, what do you guys think?
Speaker 17: But for the most part that I was like, oh,
Speaker 17: this is so cool, Like what a fun, cool little
Speaker 17: side gig for y'all.
Speaker 1: So you are able to capitalize it a little bit
Speaker 1: with the sport game is the next time that comes up.
Speaker 1: For the NFTs.
Speaker 3: It was very sporadic like it was.
Speaker 17: I would get a lot of like random interview requests
Speaker 17: from people. Sometimes I would do them, sometimes I wouldn't,
Speaker 17: But like big opportunity wise, it was it was like
Speaker 17: the fuck Jerry game and then the.
Speaker 1: NFT because I talked about it with Lene as well.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you were in conversation with her directly,
Speaker 1: but she also mentioned She's like, yeah, we were all
Speaker 1: talking to each other trying to figure out, first of all,
Speaker 1: what this is, what we can accomplish by doing it?
Speaker 17: Yeah, yeah, exactly, So I'll paint the picture. It was
Speaker 17: my last semester of college, so I'm like senior year,
Speaker 17: like I'm just gonna chill out.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be so.
Speaker 17: Fun, Like I've taken barely any classes. And I start
Speaker 17: getting all these emails, which I'm also.
Speaker 3: Like, how do these people?
Speaker 17: I guess my email is like pretty easy to guess,
Speaker 17: but anyway, all these people start emailing me like you
Speaker 17: should make this token. It was all about this token,
Speaker 17: this fungible token, and I was like, what is this
Speaker 17: and I'm looking it up. It's all these like web
Speaker 17: three discourse.
Speaker 3: I don't know what this is.
Speaker 17: And at this point it was just still me and
Speaker 17: my dad. So I think I like DMed Lena and
Speaker 17: bad Luck Brian and maybe like the Success Kid. I
Speaker 17: was like, are you guys like doing this? We had
Speaker 17: a few people reach out and like we'll sell it
Speaker 17: for you and we'll give you ten percent. I was like,
Speaker 17: I'm not that's not really like giving Like I don't
Speaker 17: think we're going to let that happen, right, And so
Speaker 17: I talked to Baut like Brian, and he was like, yeah,
Speaker 17: you can like pretty much do it yourself, like you
Speaker 17: can if you want to. And then I reached out
Speaker 17: to the Success Kid his mom laany manages that, and
Speaker 17: she's like, yeah, we have like a manager, like a
Speaker 17: me manager and lawyer like combo that will like do
Speaker 17: this for you. And so I was like, oh, put
Speaker 17: me in contact with him. And so now that at
Speaker 17: that point, I was like, Okay, well we'll have this
Speaker 17: me manager and lawyer like set this all up. And
Speaker 17: then we're like, yeah, let's do it, like let's set
Speaker 17: up the NFT and see what happens.
Speaker 1: I mean, and then it was it seemed like it
Speaker 1: was really successful.
Speaker 17: Yeah, that day of my life was like, oh my god,
Speaker 17: I wish i'd like live streamed it for my own
Speaker 17: personal because it was like a like an eBay bid,
Speaker 17: so people are just like bidding on it every few hours,
Speaker 17: and me and my dad were like, I'm only going
Speaker 17: to look every two hours. I'm only going to look
Speaker 17: every three hours, like I don't want and then we
Speaker 17: go to bed and we go wake up, and I
Speaker 17: went to work that day, like I worked at a
Speaker 17: restaurant inside of a hotel, so all my coworkers knew
Speaker 17: that I was like doing that, didn't know what it was. Like, Yeah,
Speaker 17: Zoe's selling like a something and like the bid keeps
Speaker 17: going up and I was like seating tables and taking
Speaker 17: people back and it would go up in ethereum.
Speaker 3: I'm like, wait, do the math how much ethereum is? Like,
Speaker 3: so that day was just yeah crazy.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if this was your like introduction to
Speaker 1: web three in blockchain, and what a weird introduction that
Speaker 1: must be. So when who works in tech now? Were
Speaker 1: you happy with sort of the management situation that ended
Speaker 1: up coming together, because it sounds like there were some
Speaker 1: scammy or people reaching out to you earlier.
Speaker 17: Yeah, in the end, it is really nice to have
Speaker 17: we still have the same like management team and they
Speaker 17: handle everything and then when we get a contract, Like
Speaker 17: if we had this team when we got that contract
Speaker 17: ten years ago for the game, like, it would not
Speaker 17: have happened like it did. So they can definitely like
Speaker 17: do the negotiation and cut through the bullshit better than
Speaker 17: me and my dad that are just like, yep, this
Speaker 17: looks good enough to us, like I'm not reading the
Speaker 17: fine print, like, so we really like working with them.
Speaker 1: Once the kind of tea happens, the auction closes, are
Speaker 1: you still at work?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: How does the rest of that day?
Speaker 6: Though?
Speaker 17: So I did get to leave work early because everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 17: so you're quitting, like this is gonna shame.
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, I will.
Speaker 17: And I came back to work and I say the
Speaker 17: right pump, like I thought you like left the country
Speaker 17: or something. I'm like no, like I'm still here. At first,
Speaker 17: I was like, oh, I'm gonna buy a new car
Speaker 17: with my money. I have like not touched that money,
Speaker 17: like it's still like sitting in like a crypto wallet.
Speaker 17: Like I'm not going to like go crazy and like
Speaker 17: change my life about this. Like if I need this
Speaker 17: for like a house, like that's kind of my plan,
Speaker 17: Like oh okay.
Speaker 3: I'll use it then.
Speaker 17: But all in all, like there was a lot of
Speaker 17: like media outreach like oh, like Good Morning America like
Speaker 17: New York Times, and I was like, I do not
Speaker 17: I'm not going to be on Good Running America. Like
Speaker 17: I would rather die like emailing somebody from work like hey, no,
Speaker 17: thank you, like thank you for the offer, But I
Speaker 17: don't want to go do that. And so I was
Speaker 17: like after that same deal, I was like, I'm going
Speaker 17: to do one interview about this because I don't need
Speaker 17: to talk to ten people and say the same thing.
Speaker 3: And I decided to do my one interview, and that
Speaker 3: was that.
Speaker 1: That moment is so fascinating because even outside of like
Speaker 1: the nft of it all, it is so interesting to
Speaker 1: me that it's like this is some sort of exchange
Speaker 1: or like compensation for your likeness being outside of your
Speaker 1: control for twenty years. It feels like you should get
Speaker 1: something for that having happened to you. But qualifying what
Speaker 1: it is is so hard to do.
Speaker 17: Yeah, it is challenging, and I feel like a lot
Speaker 17: of people, like afterwards, people would ask me, like, oh,
Speaker 17: do you feel like you finally have control over it?
Speaker 17: Like not really, like it's still going to do what
Speaker 17: it does, Like it didn't change the fact that anybody
Speaker 17: could use it however they wanted to, and people can
Speaker 17: still print shirts and people can make like horrifying text
Speaker 17: on top of it.
Speaker 3: Like, we still don't have control over it, but at
Speaker 3: least we finally got paid.
Speaker 1: Is that enough? Like what would be ideal? I guess
Speaker 1: in that situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, like what's enough? Like who owes
Speaker 3: me what?
Speaker 17: Like everybody uses it and that's always been how it's been,
Speaker 17: Like I've never thought that I deserved anything out of it,
Speaker 17: And that's kind of like you know, this could have
Speaker 17: happened to anybody. The fact that that memes viral and
Speaker 17: it's still viral now like poof speed to this day.
Speaker 17: Like I didn't do anything unique for that to happen,
Speaker 17: So I don't feel like I deserved anything out of it,
Speaker 17: which is why I've kind of like tried to build
Speaker 17: my life, you know, as it is around it, like
Speaker 17: I'll keep that on the side, and as it comes
Speaker 17: up and there's opportunities, I'll engage with that, but I
Speaker 17: will keep doing my own like thing, getting a job,
Speaker 17: like having my life, because it's just kind of something.
Speaker 3: That happened to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I'm like weirdly like proud of you
Speaker 1: for doing that, because if everyone around you is like whoa,
Speaker 1: you could like totally change your life.
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah exactly.
Speaker 17: There was like a few times when I was super
Speaker 17: broken college, like Okay, how am I going to figure
Speaker 17: this out? And then of course, right before I graduate,
Speaker 17: we get the NFT money. I'm like, if I knew
Speaker 17: I wasn't going to be broke this whole time, Like, oh,
Speaker 17: come on the fact that I happened right before my graduation,
Speaker 17: I was like, that's just the cherry on top of
Speaker 17: the cake. After being like working all these horrible jobs
Speaker 17: in college, I'm like, oh, so the mean money was
Speaker 17: coming in the end.
Speaker 7: What are you.
Speaker 1: Excited about right now we're in and how are we
Speaker 1: going to move this to page two of your Google results?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's kind of like the burden
Speaker 3: of my life.
Speaker 17: I'm like, I need to figure out what I can
Speaker 17: do that could pretend that could be bigger than this,
Speaker 17: Like could I ever do anything that would displace like
Speaker 17: when you look me up that it's like auto fills
Speaker 17: like meme smiling disaster girl. Like I don't know if
Speaker 17: that's and I don't know if that's like fair to
Speaker 17: myself to be like thinking I need to do something
Speaker 17: bigger than something that I didn't really like having control over.
Speaker 3: In the first place.
Speaker 17: I think it's just generally like yeah, growing in my career,
Speaker 17: like I might go back to school, Like I just
Speaker 17: want people to know me, like for what I do
Speaker 17: at work, and like I like these you know this
Speaker 17: niche I'm in, like these companies know me, and like
Speaker 17: these people know me. But I think just growing that
Speaker 17: and kind of keeping that trajectory on my career and
Speaker 17: you know, keeping this in the backseat.
Speaker 1: Right, and also like, like you're saying, is such a
Speaker 1: bizarrely specific burden to have put on you because who
Speaker 1: else has this problem?
Speaker 17: Yeah, exactly, Like we need like a meme support group
Speaker 17: or something like we just need to get together for
Speaker 17: like a twenty four hour period, Like they're the only
Speaker 17: people that get it, Like there's like ten of us
Speaker 17: that will like truly understand.
Speaker 3: And even like the way.
Speaker 17: We've all navigated it has been so different, like it's
Speaker 17: not anything like you know, some people have leaned more
Speaker 17: into it, some have kept it more private. It's very
Speaker 17: different when it happens. She was a kid and like, Okay,
Speaker 17: I can go to the grocery store, no one's going
Speaker 17: to recognize me. Like only once in my life have
Speaker 17: I ever been recognized in person.
Speaker 3: And it was like shocking.
Speaker 17: I was like I can't do this right now, Like
Speaker 17: I don't know how you know who I am, but
Speaker 17: this is not like my vibe.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was like at a bar in Salt Lake City
Speaker 3: where I live, Someone's like, are you the girl? Are
Speaker 3: you the disaster girl? And I was like no, and
Speaker 3: I just walked away like I don't know what you're
Speaker 3: talking about. I've never heard of that before.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Zoe Roth. You can follow
Speaker 1: her at the link in the description, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to request that you don't bug her with the same
Speaker 1: three jokes She's been hearing for her entire sentient life,
Speaker 1: and I'm very, very grateful she took the time to talk.
Speaker 1: Something that really stuck with me about this interview is
Speaker 1: how regardless of someone's generation, there are still a million
Speaker 1: ways to relate to the Internet, and that that can
Speaker 1: be a good thing. Recently, I've seen discussions around gen
Speaker 1: Z slip into some disdain after this same generation was
Speaker 1: being hailed as the kids who will save the world
Speaker 1: just a couple years ago, but with time the reputations
Speaker 1: of most generations sour, and gen Z has been more
Speaker 1: recently typecast as excessively nihilistic and addicted to their phones.
Speaker 1: I wonder why two recent subjects on this show, Zoe Roth,
Speaker 1: the Disaster Girl and Haley Welch be talked to a
Speaker 1: girl because we just love to call a main character girl.
Speaker 1: Lady and wife are very close in age. Zoe was
Speaker 1: born around two thousand and Haley was born around two
Speaker 1: thousand and two. And they both became very famous online
Speaker 1: at times that they couldn't really consent to it. Zo
Speaker 1: he was just a kid, and Haley was drunk and
Speaker 1: never formally agreed to her clip being aired. But their
Speaker 1: reactions to this virality couldn't be more different, with Zoe
Speaker 1: actively choosing to cash out once and otherwise stay the
Speaker 1: course and explore her other passions, while Haley tried to
Speaker 1: reclaim her image through a series of sketchy cations and
Speaker 1: sketchy management. Everyone has a different relationship to the Internet,
Speaker 1: and while it has something to do with generational trends,
Speaker 1: not to mention that these stories happened seventeen years apart,
Speaker 1: I think it has just as much to do with
Speaker 1: the issues that always affect people, the level of familial
Speaker 1: stability and educational access people have, race, class ability, mental health,
Speaker 1: whether you think TikTok is really addictive or you're like
Speaker 1: me and think it's too loud. The list goes on,
Speaker 1: and the Internet is programmed to respond to these factors
Speaker 1: about us. But there is a commonality to Internet natives
Speaker 1: that I've noticed, Like we talked about last week on
Speaker 1: The Backroom's episode, there has been this distinct change in
Speaker 1: how someone who doesn't remember a world before the Internet
Speaker 1: approaches the phenomenon of becoming a main character. To younger people,
Speaker 1: this is just a fact of life, and whether you
Speaker 1: have any interest in becoming the main character, there's always
Speaker 1: a chance that one day you'll just be that. And
Speaker 1: how will you handle it? Because it seems increasingly expected
Speaker 1: that if you don't want it, that doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem easy. But I find a lot of
Speaker 1: comfort in seeing someone like Zoe who says fuck you,
Speaker 1: no thanks, Zoe Roth the disaster Girl. Your sixteenth minute
Speaker 1: ends now enjoy and for your moment of fun, question Mark,
Speaker 1: here's a clip of the most recent disaster girl trend.
Speaker 1: I was able to find some disgusting AI slop that
Speaker 1: envisioned Zoe as a real child murderer. Sweet Dreams sixteenth
Speaker 1: Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: It is written, posted, and produced by me Jamie Lostus.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Sophie Elekterman and Robert Evans Limas.
Speaker 14: Me Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.
Speaker 14: Our theme song is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is
Speaker 14: from a grant creator and pet.
Speaker 1: Shout outs to our dog producer Anderson, my kat's flea Casper,
Speaker 1: and my pet Rockberd, who will outlive us all. Bye.