How a simple Senegalese guy became the number one guy on TikTok

Of course, few people know this guy by name, but almost everyone must have seen a video of him on the internet while scrolling through the social media feed. Khaby Lame is the name of the guy who posts his reactions to ridiculous everyday tips videos and, without saying a word, destroys them. His rise on social media was meteoric.

we, from awesome.club, we decided to find out how such a simple guy was able to conquer TikTok and make millions of people fall in love with him. Check out!

Khaby Lame was born on the 9th of March 2000 in Senegal. And when he was one year old, his family moved to Italy, to the town of Chivasso, where they were provided with social housing. At school, Khaby was fond of football and basketball. After completing his studies, he went to work as a CNC machine operator for a digital equipment company. In general, he lived a very ordinary life. He was even fired in March 2020.

Instead of looking for another job, as his father demanded, he returned to his parents’ apartment and decided to start recording videos for TikTok. At first, his content was little different from that of most bloggers on the Chinese social network. Furthermore, his videos were in Italian with Italian subtitles. At first, Khaby recorded videos in a bedroom, which he still shares with his older brother. The tiktoker’s room is decorated with a Senegalese flag and the scarf of his favorite football club, Juventus.

His TikTok channel was slowly growing and he already had just over two million followers. That all changed drastically in early April 2021, when Khaby began filming his reactions to silly, useless tips.

Netizens began massively sharing his funny reactions and subscribing to his TikTok page. At the end of the month, Khaby’s number of subscribers surpassed that of the famous dancing millionaire, the Italian Gianluca Vacchi, who by the way was the most followed person in Italy with 18.4 million followers.

Recall that in early April, tiktoker only had two million followers. Today, Khaby Lame is incredibly popular on TikTok. And his number of followers is growing at an incredible speed. At the time of writing (June 30, 2021) it has 79.6 million subscribers. That’s more than Kylie Jenner (32.9 million), Dwayne Johnson (36.9 million) and Will Smith (56.3 million). on TikTok, although a few days earlier it was still in fourth place. And it seems that very soon he will be in second place, beating American dancer Addison Rae (she has 81.4 million followers). And then it certainly won’t be far from reaching the top spot, which is now occupied by blogger and dancer Charli D’Amelio (118.3 million). By the way, the New York Times called her “the queen of TikTok”. It is also worth noting the impressive number of Khaby followers on Instagram — 28.7 million. Khaby became popular by being simple, not saying a word and using only an old cell phone and improvised things. The emphasis on facial expressions became the key to success. People simply sympathized with him as they watched him “bring to the ground” the tips that offered complex and unthinkable solutions to simple everyday problems, with the characteristic ending where he simply rolled his eyes and opened his arms as if asking the authors of the tricks: “What’s the problem with doing this?”

Several celebrities and influential people have already noticed Khaby Lame. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave one of his Instagram posts a like. And on May 19, Khaby met with Alessandro Del Piero, the legendary Juventus footballer. In addition, the young man has become much sought after by companies as well. In addition to advertising contracts, such as with the Italian pasta maker Barilla, Khaby receives other proposals for collaborations. It’s funny that the boy is known worldwide as an Italian tiktoker, although he is not officially Italian: Khaby does not have Italian citizenship. He claims that the lack of an Italian passport never got him into trouble. However, after becoming popular, he found that the Senegalese passport made it difficult to obtain a visa to enter the United States. He is still taking care of the paperwork to obtain citizenship. And then he plans to go to the United States, where great opportunities await him. Like many other personalities, Khaby doesn’t like to share details of his personal life. However, one thing is certain: his heart is already taken care of, he is dating a girl named Zaira Nucci. Khaby even posted a story on his Instagram profile dedicated to his beloved.

Khaby Lame has been earning a lot of money, but he still hasn’t been able to fulfill his dream of buying his mother a house. “Maybe in the future,” said the tiktoker.

That’s how a simple guy, without any expensive equipment, complex effects and music, became one of the most popular people in the internet world.

Do you follow Khaby Lame and his funny videos? What do you think of your content? Tell us in the comments section.