Khaby Lame: Is Silence the Answer to Success?
How does one become one of the most popular social media figures within a year by not saying a word on their platform? Let’s ask Khaby Lame, the man who took TikTok by storm in a time the world froze whilst experiencing a pandemic.
Khaby Lame is a TikTok sensation who is the second most followed star on the platform with 132.9 million followers. That’s more than double than his home countries population, Italy. His formula to success is simply to use the duet feature on the application to mimic other individuals overcomplicating daily tasks. Yes..that’s literally all there is to it
The idea of people lacking common sense was a popular concept among the public and allowed Khaby to reach the highest of highs on social media with his silent method.
Nevertheless, it was never always like this..
Khaby experienced an unprivileged childhood by living in social housing and working numerous jobs to help support his family. Due to the damage of the economy by the pandemic, In April 2020, the now big name was laid off from his job where he was a factory worker. Being an extremely ordinary person, it would’ve be hard to imagine for Khaby to get where he is today.
This is one of the main reasons why I believe he is successful. Mr. Lame does not fit the blueprint to be a successful social media star and went against the rule book that someone has to look, dress and present themselves in a certain way to become viral. In a day and age where people try the hardest to look their best on social media, Khaby sticks to his roots which allows him to be his normal self.
Despite TikTok being the beginnings for Khaby, he also has 152,000 followers on twitter, the platform that allows for share of opinions. Despite the quiet persona, the Tiktok mogul is not afraid to share his political opinions on twitter.
The above tweets show he is relating to the Israel/Palestine conflict and the political status of the government in Cuba. Despite sharing positive messages such as ‘STOP THE WAR’. With his huge influential power, Is it Khabys place to comment on such issues that are highly technical and thorough with the majority of his followers unlikely to know the full scale of the situation?
His online presence even made it into the world of sport, with his hometown football club Juventus, including him in their annual Christmas video. Such huge organisations are now trying to pursue a marketing strategy with Khaby due to his huge following around the globe. Most recently, his successes has led to collaborating a deal with Hugo Boss on their #BeYourOwnBoss campaign. Likewise, this has now raised his profile into the industry of fashion and modelling.
From losing his job as a factory worker two years ago to presently being the face of one of the biggest fashion brands in the world…Is Khaby Lames feel good story one of the best to come out of social media? I believe so.
