Khaby Lame Is TikTok's Fastest-Growing Content Creator despite Controversial Body-Shaming Video

TikTok star Khaby Lame may be the platform’s fastest-growing content creator. However, he has not managed to avoid controversy as he has been accused of body-shaming.

Before March 2020, Khabane (Khaby) Lame was pretty much unknown on social media. The 21-year-old internet sensation was born in Senegal and moved to Northern Italy with his parents when he was just one year old.

After growing up in public housing, he worked as a waiter, bricklayer, window cleaner, and pretty much any other activity that paid some money. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, his life changed after losing his job at a factory in Chivasso, Italy.

Instead of listening to his Senegalese dad and apply for another job, Lame began posting clips on TikTok doing the absurdly complicated things shown in life hack videos more straightforwardly.

His deadpan expressions, extended arms, and shake of the head are now his trademark. He once admitted those three aspects were what precisely made him go viral.

Currently, Lame has over 106 million TikTok followers and is the second most-followed personality on the platform, only behind 17-year-old social media star Charli D’Amelio.

Unfortunately, Khaby has been criticized for crossing the line.

Another aspect of Khaby’s videos that helped him become famous was that they were not over-produced when he started. He just recorded himself from home and used TikTok’s duet and stitch features. About him, economy expert Samir Chaudry said:

“He almost represents this authenticity over production. I think that’s very appealing at scale to people, this feeling of someone not trying too hard […] feels authentic.”

Given Khaby’s popularity, he has been contacted by other content creators for collaborations. Nowadays, he mainly makes money through TikTok’s Creator Fund and by working with brands.

Unfortunately, Khaby has been criticized for crossing the line. Earlier this year, he stitched a video of a woman walking at the mall with a clip of himself smirking and nodding.

When the woman passed the camera, and he saw her from the front, he frowned in rejection. Some of his followers pointed out that it was “body shaming at its peak,” and the video was made private.

Another TikTok user recently went viral after finding a figure under a New York bridge so creepy that they wondered if it was Pennywise from Stephen King’s “It.”