Who Is Khabane Lame And Why Is He 'Just Silent'?

Who Is Khabane Lame And Why Is The World’s Most Followed Tiktoker “Just Silent”?

Once a factory worker, Khabane Lame has now become the most followed social media star on TikTok in the world. Success came to him after two years he created an account on the social networking platform TikTok. It all started from a "happy" idea, that he wanted to do something to ease his sadness while unemployed, amid the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lame (22 years old) has officially become the social network star with the most followers on TikTok in the world in June.

His story was mentioned by many news outlets as an inspirational story, showing many people that opportunity is always around us, especially in today's world, when all it takes is a phone to connect to the internet, and you can create your own opportunities in life.

Lame has always talked about himself as a comedian, often sharing humorous clips parodying meaningless clips posted by some other social media stars. Before his latest success on the TikTok platform, Lame has yet to comment.

Who Is Khabane Lame?

Photo: Getty Images

Khabane Lame (born 9 March 2000) is a Senegalese social media personality based in Italy. He is known for his TikTok videos in which he silently mocks overly complicated life hack videos. As of June 2022, Lame is the most-followed TikToker.

Khabane Lame: Early Life & Career

Lame was born in Senegal on 9 March 2000. His family moved to a public housing complex in Chivasso, Italy, when he was one year old. He has three siblings. He studied in Italian schools, however at the age of fourteen, his parents decided to send him to study temporarily in a Quranic school near Dakar. Lame worked as a CNC machine operator at a factory near Turin, before getting laid off in March 2020.

Photo: Youtube

After he was laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lame began posting on TikTok. His early videos showed him dancing and watching video games, and were mostly filmed in Italian and included Italian subtitles. He rose to popularity with his video responses in the form of TikTok's "duet" and "stitch" features to videos depicting overly complicated "life hacks", in which he performs the same task in a simple way, without saying anything. In April 2021, he surpassed Gianluca Vacchi as the most-followed Italian TikToker, and, in July 2021, he surpassed Addison Rae to become the second most-followed TikToker. In August 2021, Lame appeared as a co-star for Juventus F.C.'s announcement of Manuel Locatelli. In September 2021, he attended the Venice Film Festival as a special guest for the first screening of French film Lost Illusions by Xavier Giannoli. In January 2022, Lame signed a multi-year partnership with Hugo Boss and was featured in the #BeYourOwnBoss campaign.

On June 22, 2022, Lame became TikTok’s most followed creator, surpassing Charli D'Amelio with 142.1 million followers.

Taylor Lorenz and Jason Horowitz of The New York Times attributed Lame's success to his "universal exasperated everyman quality" and described his rise to fame as different from most TikTok stars as it was "entirely organic". Samir Chaudry, the founder of The Publish Press, a newsletter focused on the creator economy, stated that Lame's appeal was due to him representing "authenticity over production" and "not trying too hard". Christina Ferraz, the founder of American marketing agency Thirty6Five, stated, "His exasperation is relatable, and feelings are universal." Lame has credited his own rise to fame to his humorous facial expressions and his silence, which he has described as "a way to reach as many people as possible". As of October 2021, 8 of the 25 most-liked videos on TikTok are his.

Khabane Lame: Personal Life

Photo: Getty Images

Khaby Lame is a Muslim. Lame announced his engagement to Zaira Nucci in October 2020. As of 2021, Lame lives in Milan as an expat with his agent. Although he has lived in Italy since he was an infant, he is a Senegalese citizen and does not hold Italian citizenship. He has stated, "Sincerely, I don't need a piece of paper to define myself as Italian". However, on 24 June 2022, the Italian Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior Carlo Sibilia announced that Lame would be granted citizenship.

Some Lesser Known Facts About Khaby Lame

→ Khaby Lame is an Italian TikTok video creator who is known for his funny videos and reactions to DIY TikTok videos posted by other creators.

→ Khaby Lame was born in Senegal, West Africa, but he moved to Chivasso, Turin, Italy to complete his education. He started creating TikTok videos and his videos got noticed in March 2020.

→ By March 2021, Khaby Lame became popular on the video-sharing platform TikTok. He amassed over 5 million followers on his Instagram account and more than 25 million followers on his TikTok account.

→ Khaby Lame is a huge fan of the professional NBA basketball player LeBron James. He often plays basketball with his friends.

→ Khaby Lame is managed by the social media manager Riggio Alessandro. Riggio also handles the accounts and business dealings of 179 other artists and creators in his portfolio.

→ Khaby Lame secured 41st place on the list of top 100 TikTok creators based on the number of followers.

→ On 22 June 2022, Khaby Lame overtook American sensation Charli D’Amelio to become the most followed star on TikTok; he had 142.8 million followers on the social media app that he created after losing his job during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Khabane Lame: Net Worth

Photo: Tiktok

Khaby owns three luxury apartments in Italy, and a while back gifted his family a well-furnished house worth more than $230,295. The house is in a public housing complex in Chivasso, Italy. He also gave himself two apartments in Italian.

As of 2022, Khaby Lame’s net worth is estimated to be $6 million. Khaby is now the most followed person on TikTok with over $143.2 million followers and over 2.3 billion likes. Most of his income comes from sponsorships, endorsement deals, and the TikTok creator fund. He has partnered with international brands such as Netflix, Wearemeta, and the Italian food company Barilla. He has 8 of the top 25 most-liked videos on TikTok. Lame’s fondness for football has been matched by collaborations and meetups with players.

Why Does Khaby Lame Just Stay “Silent”?

Photo: Instagram

In an interview with business magazine Forbes (USA) this year, Lame shared: "When the pandemic just started, I was unemployed, I felt bored because I had too much free time, so I started making video clips posted to TikTok".

Lame noticed that on social networks there are many people with a large following, but posting meaningless and silly clips to the point of humor. These clips often revolve around content instructing the online community on tips to do simple things in everyday life, but the tips given are often very silly and funny.

Lame decided to mock these clips. Surprisingly, Lame created a great effect on social networks, although in the clips he never said anything, but only expressed through posture, gestures, and facial expressions.

Lame believes that the reason he has caused a fever with the social networking community of TikTok is because he always uses facial expressions and body language, not words, so he does not face any language barriers.

Now, as a social media star, Khabane Lame said he has a stable income and can help his family. Before that, when he first started making clips posted online, Lame was living in worries about the future, when a stable job at the factory was no longer available.

In fact, at the present time, Lame has just started learning English to be able to use this popular language to communicate with the international online community.

"I consider myself a simple person, but always full of ideas and inspiration. Making people laugh is my biggest passion in life," Lame said.

Photo: Instagram

The phenomenon of Khabane Lame on social networks has attracted attention from many reputable news outlets. The New York Times (USA) believes that Lame's success is due to his simplicity and approachability, no different from other normal social network users.

"The video clips of Khabane Lame are not polished, elaborate, sophisticated like most famous social network stars today, Lame's popularity comes completely naturally," the New York Times assessed.

Experts who analyze trends on social networks also find that Lame always shows authenticity in his clips.

It is this that creates his own appeal to the online community, making social network users also feel that Lame does everything very naturally, simply, easily, without trying to "strive" to do something that is meant to impress or attract attention in an "obvious" way. It was his sense of authenticity and closeness that made him successful.

Lame shared with Forbes magazine that, although his video clips are quite simple, in fact he thought a lot before embarking on implementation: "Every day, I spend at least 3 hours searching to find them to make appropriate videos and parody clips.

I always try to be careful not to offend anyone by watching my videos. I want everyone to understand it's a light humour, even the parody is fun and light."

Conclusion

Photo: Instagram

Lame's video clips have now reached 2.3 billion "likes", each video clip he makes often attracts tens of millions of views, these numbers make Lame an influential social media star, and the biggest influence in the world today.

Lame said that he himself is still amazed by the huge success that has come to him on social networks, he never expected to become famous. Currently, Lame hopes that he will have opportunities in the Hollywood movie capital.

"I made the clips posted online just for fun, at first, I didn't expect anything. The background from which I came and the journey that I went through gave me the strength to believe in dreams. Because I believe that with serious efforts and persistent patience, dreams can come true," Khabane Lame affirmed.

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