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The College Student Whose Photo Went Viral During Homecoming Actually Got A Modeling Contract

Meet the model student.

Last month at Howard's annual homecoming (and turn-up), 19-year-old, Sudanese student, Anok Yai attracted a lot of attention from her viral photo taken by Steven Hall, aka @thesunk.

Naturally, the internet lost it and campaigned for her to get a modeling contract, stat! Well, looks like they helped her out — Anok is now signed to Next Management in London. 

Turns out Kyle Hagler, the president of Next Management, was one of Anok's nearly 100K followers that she received nearly overnight. 

Kyle also attended an HBCU (Morehouse College to be specific) and grew up making trips to D.C. for Howard's homecoming. While he didn't make it this year, he shared with Vogue.com that he was "watching the festivities virtually" from London. 

He found Anok to be special and definitely model material. “She’s not only beautiful, but she’s intelligent and has a real understanding of community," Kyle shares. 

While Anok has always aspired to model, she wasn't exactly sure how to break into the industry. Now, she is looking forward to representing dark-skinned models and giving them more of a presence in the industry. 

“When I was younger, I was insecure about my skin because I looked up to people in the media and, though I looked up to the Black women, I never saw Black women that were as dark as me,” Anok told Vogue.com.

“I definitely want to be a role model for young dark-skinned girls and girls in general — I want to bring to light ideas of self-love and self-confidence,” she shares. 

We couldn't be more thrilled for Anok's new chapter. Are you surprised she landed her dream job through social media?

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