Brazilian girl goes from street cleaner to Internet sensation after Instagram pictures go viral

Meet Rita Mattos, who has suddenly become a viral sensation because … she’s a street sweeper?!

This beauty, dubbed “Sweeper Babe,” has been making waves because she works as a street cleaner for a municipal urban cleaning company in Rio de Janeiro.

After a picture of Rita in her orange uniform was circulated on WhatsApp and then posted to Facebook, an Internet star was born.

She now has nearly 50,000 followers on Facebook and over 40,000 Instagram followers to boot.

What’s shocking to Rita is the number of people commenting that she is too pretty for her job.

“People are surprised when they see a pretty girl working as a street cleaner,” she said in an interview with Brazil’s “Extra.” “They say that I could find a better job than sweeping and weeding. But why should street cleaners necessarily be ugly?”

Although she was first startled by her new fame, she has now begun to embrace it.

“At first I thought it was all a joke in bad taste, that people were criticizing me. But later I saw that the comments were positive, praising my beauty. So I’m now taking it well and hoping that all this exposure will bring me a good opportunity to find modeling work.”

However, she is not about to put down her broom just yet: “I’m very proud of what I do. Apart from working very hard, I have a lot of fun, too.”