The 21-year-old who became the most followed star on TikTok in the world without saying a single word

Less is more. This is the recipe that has led to success for Khabane Lame, better known as Khaby Lame, the Senegalese, barely 21 years old, who has become the biggest star on TikTok, with 150 million followers.

Lame has risen to fame with his videos, in which, without saying a single word, he mocks the complicated and sometimes crazy tricks other influencers come up with to solve everyday problems.

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However, his stardom came about almost accidentally.

when a door closes

Lame, who has lived in Italy since her parents immigrated to the European country two decades ago, began shooting videos for TikTok in March 2020.

His foray into the social network came after losing his job in a factory in the city of Chivasso (693 kilometers north of Rome), due to the covid-19 pandemic.

The face and gestures of the young Senegalese have become popular all over the planet. (GETTY IMAGES).

unemployed and pennilessthe young man had to return to his parents’ house, but instead of looking for a new job as his parents requested, he began to record videos.

Despite only having his modest cell phone and not having a tripod to support it or lamps to improve lighting, Lame got the formula that has made him a global celebrity: take other recordings about tricks to face everyday problems that have gone viral, because they don’t make sense and are useless, and respond by providing simple solutions.

The faces he makes with his face and how he uses his hands have done the rest.

One of his great successes was the banana video, where he first showed how another user was removing the skin from the fruit with a sharp knife, while he simply took it with his hands and peeled it. Afterward, he pointed to the fruit with his hand, making a gesture of: “It is done”.

Another recording that went around the world was the one where it showed how a woman, who had left her car keys inside with her little one, tried to reach them with a stick through the window of the vehicle that was ajar. However, at one point she drops the stick and she asks the little boy to fetch it for her, which the boy obediently does.

Lame recreated the video with a boy of the same age, but instead of trying to reach the keys with the stick, he asked the boy to give him the keys and solved the problem.

In his videos, Lame does not utter a single word, but his gestures and faces are extremely comical. (GETTY IMAGES).

Within a few weeks he already had thousands of followers and today he is the king of TikTok beating well-known figures such as the Oscar-winning American actor Will Smith.

Thousand words

For Stevie Osagie, an expert in Marketing and Social Networks, the Lame phenomenon is due to the fact that “it uses a universal language: the comedy“.

“The fact that he does not speak implies that there are no barriers in between and it is not controversial. There is no reason why you cannot see its content“, he told the BBC.

Likewise, Osagie affirmed that the young man was at the right time and place to become the celebrity he is today.

Just a few months ago Lame was awarded the top prize at the World Influencers And Bloggers awards. (GETTY IMAGES).

“When it started everyone was stuck at home (because of the coronavirus lockdowns) and everyone needed something to take them away from negativity and what was going on and that was what drew attention to him,” he explained.

“My face and my expressions make people laugh,” he told the newspaper a few months ago. New York Times.

Being serious pays

Lame has not been limited to TikTok and also produces content for other networks such as Instagram, where it accumulates 80 million followerseight times more than Mark Zuckerberg founder of Facebook and owner of the platform.

However, a few months ago lick suffered a sharp drop in followers on the latter platform. The reason? The publication of a post against racism.

“People follow you for something you do that they like, but if you stray from that you lose followers,” explained Celia Tokosi, an African influencer, who sees Lame’s case as an example for others in the region to follow.

His impact has been such that in 2021 he was invited to the Venice Film Festival, despite the fact that he did not act in any film. He has recorded videos with athletes such as the Spanish driver Carlos Sainz Junior or the Brazilian soccer player Vinícius Junior.

In 2021 he received the Italian National Association of Young Innovators Award (ANGI) for his way of communicating and just a few months ago he obtained the highest distinction at the World Influencers And Bloggers Awards.

Source: Elcomercio