A 21-year-old who lost his job to the Covid-19 pandemic in March last year has been propelled into millionaire status after his enormous success in social media platform TikTok.

Khabane ‘Khaby’ Lame was a nobody 18 months ago but now he is a household name in the Generation Z world, boasting 100 million TikTok followers.

That makes him the second most followed account in the world

It‘s estimated that Mr Lame has a net worth of between $1.3 million and $2.7 million.

The TikTok sensation was originally from the West African country of Senegal and had moved to the northern Italian industrial town of Chivasso, where he lost his job as a factory worker in March 2020.

Mr Lame’s dad reportedly begged him to apply for another job but the young social media user decided to spend his time on TikTok instead.

Mr Lame started making videos where he reacts to some of the internet’s weirdest life hacks.

He never speaks a word, instead making unimpressed expressions and shrugging to the camera.

His content soon went viral.

He’s had 1.5 billion likes on TikTok and his most watched video has been viewed 158 million times.

Mr Lame believes his success is all to do with his facial expressions.

“It‘s my face and my expressions which make people laugh,” he told the New York Times in June.

He hailed his muted reactions as a “global language”.

The young man’s staggering net worth has been calculated by Celebs Life Reel.

That estimate was based off the number of likes and followers he had across all his different social media accounts.

They factored in that he would be paid through the platforms as a content creator, as well as landing sponsorship deals.

Lame has 33 million followers on Instagram and 70,000 on his Twitter account.

He also recently launched his own YouTube channel, which doesn’t have any videos yet.

His net worth was calculated back when he had only 22.5 million followers on TikTok – so his income is expected to be a lot higher now.

TikTok is yet to pay content creators in Australia.

Mr Lame’s impressive follow account is just behind 17-year-old Charli D’Amelio, who has 120 million followers and is the most successful TikToker ever.

However, it’s believed the Italian will soon overtake his rival to become the most popular person in the world.

Social Tracker data shows he’s gaining millions of new followers every week.

Just last month, he jumped from third to second spot.