Viral photos of college student spurs modeling agency call

Viral photos of college student spurs modeling agency call

Two photographs of a New Hampshire college student which have gone viral on social media are bringing her dream of becoming a model closer to reality.

Anok Yai grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire, and is a sophomore at Plymouth State University. 

A photographer snapped a few images of the 19-year-old for his Instagram account, theSUNK, last weekend while she was attending Howard University's popular homecoming festivities in Washington, D.C.

The artist captioned it: 'Saw her right at the end of Yardfest. Stunning @anokyai'. 

He said he was photographing people with nice outfits and there was a chance her photos could go viral, according to The Boston Globe. 

The photos had been liked more than 11,000 times by Sunday, shocking Yai.

'My phone just started vibrating rapidly for a long, long time,' Yai told the Globe of the moment she realized her photo was going viral. 

'At first, I honestly thought someone made a meme of me or something.' 

Her new followers on the social media app began tagging numerous modeling agencies to give her a contract.

As a result, Yai said she's heard from three modeling agencies.

The biochemistry student who moved to the U.S. with her family from Egypt in 2000 says she's always been interested in fashion and art, but modeling was the dream.

'It was a dream that I always wanted, but I wasn't sure if it was going to happen,' she said. 

The 19-year-old sophomore said that when she first saw the photos she initially didn't like them and considered them 'average'.  

'At first, I questioned what everyone was seeing because I didn’t really see it,” she said. 

'Honestly, I think that people get so used to seeing themselves that people don’t see their own beauty because they see it everyday.”