When Italy first went into a coronavirus lockdown in 2020, 21-year-old Khabane Lame had just lost his job at a factory near the northern city of Turin.

He spent his days holed up at his parents’ home in Chivasso with his three siblings, looking for other jobs. One day, he downloaded TikTok and started tinkering with it in his bedroom, posting videos of himself under the name Khaby Lame. And gradually, a surprising career was born.

At first, like a lot of TikTokers, he created clips of himself dancing, watching video games or doing comedy stunts. Then, in early 2021, he began making fun of the life-hack videos that flood social media platforms — reacting to them with a wordless shrug or a look of exasperation — and he struck a chord.

Now Lame (prounouced Lah-may) is the most popular man on TikTok, with over 114 million followers. The only other person ahead of him is dancer Charli D’Amelio, a California teen who posts playful videos, often with her older sister Dixie.

And Lame does it all without saying a word. On TikTok, his silence speaks volumes.

“I came up with the idea because I was seeing these videos circulating, and I liked the idea of bringing some simplicity to it,” Lame told CNN in a video interview. “The type of gesture came by chance, but the silence didn’t. I thought of a way to reach as many people as possible. And the best way was not to speak.”

Lame is a slender Senegalese man with long limbs and an expressive face. In most of his clips, he lampoons videos of people doing overly complicated hacks by responding with a simplified, more logical way of doing the same task.

In one video, Lame peels a banana with his hands in response to a video of someone gingerly slicing open a banana with a cleaver. In another, he reacts to a video of a woman noisily peeling a cucumber with her teeth by using a vegetable peeler to accomplish the same task.

His reactions personify the term “shaking my head,” or SMH in internet shorthand. After his common-sense approach to a task, Lame extends his arms with his palms facing upward, as if to say duh. Sometimes he throws in an eye roll or a shake of the head.

These silent but expressive reactions have made him one of the most recognizable digital creators on social media.

His stoic facial expressions have also turned him into a meme star — with his face reposted in reaction videos on social media.

Lame is one of the fastest-growing content creators on TikTok. He’s gaining an average of almost 200,000 followers a day and is on pace to eclipse the platform’s most popular star, according to Social Blade, which tracks social media analytics.

But Lame said that’s not why he started posting videos.

“I don’t care if I’m first or second or fourth most popular on TikTok. I started making videos because I wanted to make people laugh in that period of lockdown,” he said. “And I keep making videos with the same ideals. I’m happy about my accomplishments, but those are not my main things.”

His popularity has opened doors to partnerships with international companies, including Netflix, Italian food company Barilla and Indian fantasy sports platform Dream11.

In addition to making TikToks, Lame said he’s a passionate soccer fan — his favorite team is Juventus F.C., a club from Turin, Italy.

(SD-Agencies)