A Senegalese-born comedian has officially become the most followed TikTok star in the world.
Khaby Lame, 22, who posts under the name @khaby.lame, passed American Charli D’Amelio, 18, who until today had held the top spot since 2020.
Reaching 142.5 million followers overnight, Lame crept past D’Amelio’s 142.2 million after a months-long tight follower battle.
Lame – who came from poor beginnings – joined the platform in 2020 after being laid off from his factory job.
Since then he has met celebrities, been invited to glitzy events and galas, and landed sponsorship deals with the likes of Hugo Boss.
Lame – whose videos largely consist of him silently mocking other Tik Tokers – was born in Senegal, and moved to Chivasso, Italy, at the age of one.
Though he was raised poor – he grew up living in public housing units with his parents – Lame says he owes everything he has become to those humble beginnings.
‘Public housing is a place to which I owe everything,’ Lame told Olhar Digital last year, ‘They taught me education and allowed me to cultivate many bonds.’
In 2020, Lame was working as a machine operator at a factory in Turin.
As Italy was consumed by the pandemic in its earliest days, Lame was laid off from his job and left unemployed.
The short-form comedy video virtuoso now has 142.8 million followers on TikTok, which puts him above previous top TikTok creator Charli D’Amelio (who currently has 142.3 million).
Lame was born in Senegal and his family moved when he was a 1-year-old to Chivasso, Italy. He launched his TikTok channel and shared his first comic video in March 2020, after he was laid off from a factory job in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 22-year-old’s comedy bits have gained a massive following, and he’s become one of the most-recognized and loved TikTok creators globally. Lame’s iconic facial expressions and body language (his videos typically do not include dialog) have allowed his content to have worldwide appeal, and he’s developed a specialty for reaction videos and spoofing absurd lifehacks.
“I am passionate about entertaining and making people laugh since childhood, and I am thankful to TikTok for offering me a global stage to share my passion with the rest of the world,” Lame said in a statement in August 2021, when he surpassed 100 million followers. “I will continue to work towards my dreams, knowing I can count on a beautiful community ready to cheer me on. Thank you and I love you all!”
According to Lame, the inspirations for his videos have included “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and Will Smith, Eddie Murphy, French actor Omar Sy — and cartoons. Asked which video he’s most proud of creating, in a Q&A with TikTok last summer, Lame replied, “I don’t have one in particular. I love all of my videos and all of them have made me proud.”
Lame posted his first video to go viral in November 2020. In the clip, which has been viewed more than 17 million times, he reacts to a video of a girl who is immobilized after some punk locks the backpack she’s wearing to a post… and he wordlessly demonstrates that she could extricate herself simply by removing the backpack.
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