About

The Khaby Lame Mechanism, also known as the Khaby Lame Robot or Khaby Lame Machine, refers to a machine that has the head of TikToker Khaby Lame and a chain drive mechanism that rotates arm attachments clockwise to make the hands flop down on the supporting surface, meant to resemble Lame's iconic palms up pose. Created by YouTuber ATMUMAN in August 2021, the Khaby Lame Mechanism was used as an exploitable video element in video edit memes heading into the 2020s. References to the Khaby Lame Mechanism notably peaked in October 2025, following a series of viral TikTok memes that joked about being cursed and getting transported into the Khaby Lame Mechanism.

Origin

On August 27th, 2021, YouTuber^[1] ATMUMAN shared a video called "Making Khaby Lame Robot." The roughly nine-minute-long video showed the YouTuber assembling a hand-crafted robot using the likeness of TikToker Khaby Lame. The main mechanism in the machine was a chain drive that rotated two arm attachments clockwise to make them flop down on the table. Over four years, the video received over 7.4 million views and 236,000 likes.

The robot's hand gesture was based on a pose that Lame is often photographed making, in which he puts his hands out, with his palms up, close to his chest, as he shrugs his shoulders and gives a pursed lips facial expression.^[2]

Spread

On September 3rd, 2021, Redditor mohiemen shared the clip at the end of ATMUMAN's video to the /r/shittyrobots^[3] subreddit, gaining over 10,000 upvotes in four years.

Also on September 3rd, the clip was shared to 9GAG, ^[4] gaining over 5,200 upvotes in four years.

On January 9th, 2022, Redditor DrainMiner reposted the clip to the /r/shitposting^[5] subreddit, gaining over 23,000 upvotes in three years.

On January 7th, 2024, TikToker^[6] @choepotato shared a low-quality upload of the clip set to the Tyler, The Creator song "Yonkers."^[11] The video received over 15,500 likes in a year.

On April 9th, Twitter / X ^[7] user @chronakey tweeted a spoof informational video about the Khaby Lame Mechanism. The top caption read, "THIS MACHINE FEELS HUMAN EMOTION." It received over 11,000 likes in a year.

pic.twitter.com/eVNCurbWDe

— gabe (@chronakey) April 9, 2024

On May 23rd, 2025, TikToker^[8] @__zombiie__ shared the "Yonkers" version of the Khaby Lame Mechanism video, adding a text overlay caption that read, "Archaeologist in 3415 trying to figure out WTF this is," gaining over 441,600 likes in five months.

On September 8th, TikToker^[9] @boingusclickin posted a video that showed a frog jumping out of a pair of pants and a man screaming, paired with the caption, "When you see the frog that turns you into the Khaby Lame Mechanism." The video ended with the original Khaby Lame Mechanism clip. Over one month, it received roughly 18,400 likes.

On September 20th, 2025, TikToker^[10] @dotraichu furthered the concept of becoming the machine in a video that had a text overlay caption reading, "When you finally get to use the Labubu flesh-light but it turns out it was cursed and your soul gets forever bounded to the Khaby Lame Mechanism." Over one month, it received roughly 124,300 likes.

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References