Lame was born in Senegal on 9 March 2000.[4] His family moved to Italy when he was one year old and lived in a public housing complex in Chivasso, near Turin.[5] He has three siblings. He studied in Italian schools until he was 14, when his parents decided to temporarily send him to study at a Quranic school near Dakar.[6] Lame worked as a CNC machine operator at a factory near Turin, before getting laid off in March 2020.[7][8][9]
Career
Lame performing his signature hand gesture while dressed as a mail carrier
After he was laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lame began posting on TikTok.[7] His early videos showed him dancing and watching video games.[9] He rose to popularity with his video responses in the form of TikTok's "duet" and "stitch" features to videos depicting complicated "life hacks", in which he performs the same task in a simple way, without saying anything, followed by a signature hand gesture.[8] In April 2021, he surpassed Gianluca Vacchi as the most-followed Italian on TikTok, and he subsequently surpassed Addison Rae, to become the second most-followed personality on the platform overall.[10][11] In August 2021, Lame appeared as a co-star for Juventus FC's announcement of Manuel Locatelli.[12][13] In September 2021, he attended the Venice Film Festival as a special guest for the first screening of the French film Lost Illusions, by Xavier Giannoli.[14] In January 2022, Lame signed a multi-year partnership with Hugo Boss and was featured in the #BeYourOwnBoss campaign.[15][16]
In March of that year, he was awarded the Premio la Moda Veste la Pace, a recognition that the African Fashion Gate organization awards every year at the European Parliament.[19]
On 22 June 2022, Lame became TikTok's most-followed creator, surpassing Charli D'Amelio, with 142.1 million followers.[20][21]
According to Alessandro Riggio, the social media manager who signed Lame when he had only 1,000 Instagram followers, the TikToker was earning up to $750,000 per post and was on track to make $10 million by the end of 2022.[22][23][24]
Taylor Lorenz and Jason Horowitz of The New York Times have attributed Lame's success to his "universal exasperated everyman quality" and described his rise to fame as different from most TikTok stars in being "entirely organic". Samir Chaudry, founder of The Publish Press, a newsletter focused on the creator economy, stated that Lame's appeal derived from his emphasizing "authenticity over production" and "not trying too hard".[8] Christina Ferraz, founder of American marketing agency Thirty6Five, stated, "His exasperation is relatable, and feelings are universal." Lame has credited his popularity to his humorous facial expressions and his silence, which he has described as "a way to reach as many people as possible".[29] As of January 2024, six of the 25 most-liked videos on TikTok are his.[30]
In November 2023, it was publicly announced that Lame had married Wendy Thembelihle Juel.[33] By May 2024, his marriage with Juel had ended.[34]
Lame has lived in Italy since he was a year old, and he is fluent in Italian. He was solely a Senegalese citizen living in Milan with his manager until August 2022, when he became an Italian citizen in Chivasso, after the Italian Undersecretary of the Ministry of the InteriorCarlo Sibilia announced that he would be granted citizenship.[9][35][36] Lame said he "always felt Italian"[37] and has previously stated that he "did not need a piece of paper" to define himself as such.[8]
Il diario di Khaby. C'è sempre il modo di non complicare le cose [Khaby's Diary: There's Always a Way Not to Complicate Things] (in Italian). Segrate: Mondadori. 2022. ISBN978-88-0475-024-6.
.jpg)
