The path toward fame is not as easy as it seems. At least it wasn't until now. Social media and internet have paved the way for regular people to become popular once their photos or videos become viral.
Student Becomes Model After Instagram Photos Go Viral
#1
According to The Boston Globe, Anok Yai, a 19-year-old sophomore at New Hampshire’s Plymouth State University, was at a homecoming event at Howard University in Washington, D.C., when a photographer Steven Hall took her photo for his Instagram account.
#2
Hall uploaded the photo of Anok Yai on the Instagram account theSUNK and have since been liked over 11,000 times. But people didn't just like the photo — they also widely shared the post in an effort to get Yai noticed by modeling agencies.
#3
Meanwhile, Yai posted another picture from the event on her own Instagram account that garnered about 20,000 likes.
“My phone just started vibrating rapidly for a long, long time,” Yai told the paper. “At first, I honestly thought someone made a meme of me or something.”
#4
Steven Hall said:
“Mysterious. Just a tall, dark-skinned and insanely beautiful person. I told her ‘I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but you should definitely be photographed and you should be modeling.’ ”
#5
Comments on the photo urged modeling agencies to take the biochemistry student on as a client. "It was a dream that I always wanted, but I wasn't sure if it was going to happen," she said.
Yai said in the interview:
“I got an email from a modeling agency. They said they were interested in having me and they had me call them. And they just set up tons of interviews and it just went on from there.”
#6
She decided to work as a model part time but still pursue her studies to finish her degree in biochemistry.
Yai isn’t the first one to be spotted incidentally and had a big shot to fame. In 2014, a mugshot of Jeremy Meeks, who was arrested on grand theft and firearms charges went viral, making modeling agencies offer him a contract.