Weeks before the start of a new year, a ubiquitous illustration floods social media depicting a Black woman stepping on the current year onto the next, wearing strappy heels and carrying a bag filled with positive affirmations.
"Black Woman Stepping Into the New Year," which was sketched by British Ghanian graphic artist Peniel Enchill, debuted on the internet in 2014 and has been going viral every year with the tagline "New year, new me."
"I did that artwork in hours. It usually takes me a while to finish up an illustration. But I had what I like to call these days a 'download,' where you literally see the picture in your mind, and it's just a matter of transferring that image from your mind to the paper. I rarely get that, but that was one of them," Enchill said to BuzzFeed News.
Enchill, who resides in Sheffield, England, remembers uploading her artwork to her Instagram page using the platform's Stories feature.
"I remember logging back into Instagram and on my main feed, not on my profile, but on my main feed. I just kept swiping and seeing the image that I've drawn. So these were actual reposts from people that I follow," she said.
The image hit a common nerve, and the image was quickly shared on well-known social media sites — and soon, it was seen all over the internet. Instantaneously, Enchill's Instagram followers grew to 40,000, and her artwork became recognizable. However, she also experienced a downside to her newfound notoriety when memes and re-edits were used for misogynistic commentary.
"All I could see was the negative. Yes, there was positive feedback, but it was clouded by a lot of negative, and I took it quite personally," Enchill said.
She shared that her younger brother guided her to look at this opportunity differently.
"My brother, being my brother, was like, 'Why are you upset? Have you seen how many followers you've got? Have you seen how many people have seen it? It's all over Twitter.' I think it took me a whole day or two to start seeing the positive sides," she said.
The positive attitude shift allowed Enchill to amass more than 270,000 followers on Instagram, which increases at the tail end of every year.
The 29-year-old believes each year brings 365 days of opportunities and fresh beginnings, and she continues to create drawings that emphasize this concept.
"I think I'm still like that. I still enter the year exactly like the girl that I drew. Reflecting on the year before, thinking about what I'm trying to achieve in the new year," she explained.
While she disapproves of how her drawing is edited to promote negative perspectives, she continues to dedicate her art to showcasing Black women who are armed with the idea of dismantling and pushing against social customs and unreasonable expectations placed on them.
"My focus is particularly on the Black community, with an extra focus of Black women and uplifting, inspiring, creating art for us, by us — speaking about issues that are not really spoken about, and celebrating things that affect us directly," Enchill said.
Currently, she has a stationery brand based around her art that she aspires to have in major retail stores.
