Khabane Lame, is 21 years old and was working in construction in Italy before the damn pandemic came and took his job away. With unemployment, he was forced to reinvent himself and today he has the most popular Tik Tok account in the world, with 115.4 million followers. This is almost twice as many as the Italian population.

The genuine idea has been his only source of income. What an income! The 21-year-old, born in Senegal, Africa, currently has the second most followers on the Tik Tok platform.

"The idea came to me because I was watching videos on the Internet and I liked the idea of simplicity," he said as quoted by CNN.

His videos are very short and simple, showing the Senegalese reacting to other people's videos, always with his characteristic trademark: he does not say a word and ends with an expressive hand gesture in which he seems to indicate "voilà".

The young man says that the type of gesture came about by accident, but the silence did not. "I thought of a way to reach as many people as possible. The best way was not to speak."

Its popularity has opened the door to lucrative partnerships with national and international brands and companies, including Netflix, Barilla or Dream11, among others. 

Lame prefers not to talk about the amounts he earns from the partnerships, although it is known that the biggest stars of the content sharing platforms can earn millions a year.

Even though he can now, when it comes to spending, the young man is cautious. An iPhone 12 was his biggest purchase since he became famous. And it was to make better videos, for what is now his job. "I'm not buying anything crazy," he said, admitting, however, that his life is not the same as it was just 18 months ago, when he had no job and no prospects.