Jeffrey “JQ” Qaiyum is a father who's had to answer a very 2026 question: What does a parent do when their kid becomes a viral meme?
His son, JJ Qaiyum, went viral on social media this month after Jeffrey shared a video
of him rapping, which currently sits at over 73.9 million views and 5.6 million likes on Instagram, with similar stats on TikTok. JJ was dubbed the "Rin Tin Tin Kid" by internet strangers.The video was definitely a hit, but for a parent, that much attention can bring mixed emotions, especially when some of the reactions include praise but others are not so kind. And preparing a kid in that situation for a new school year can be especially tricky.
In the clip, JJ, 12, is onstage at July's Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago,
the city where he lives. JJ's spitting at a fast pace, flowing on the beat, as others bob their heads in the background. Many top comments on the video praise the kid – "Vocabulary better than 99% of today's adults," reads one with over 203,000 likes.
He skillfully rhymes word after word, including the bar that bears his new internet namesake: "I'm a dog like Rin Tin Tin and 'em," referencing the Hollywood silent-film dog, famously rescued from World War I. It stands out because it's such an old reference, juxtaposing the young MC saying it.
@qbrotherscollective @JJQTheOfficial 12 year old rips a freestyle at @Lollapalooza #lollapalooza #kidrapper #qbrothers #bars #hiphopmusic
♬ original sound - Qbrotherscollective
Jeffrey and JJ tell USA TODAY that they wrote the verse together, and when they were coming up with rhymes, they naturally said "Rin Tin Tin" even though neither of them knew where the name came from. "It was like, 'What's Rin Tin Tin?'" Jeffrey says with a laugh, adding, "I'm like, literally no one alive was alive when Rin Tin Tin came out ... [JJ] has a great-grandfather that's alive, and he was not alive when Rin Tin Tin came back from World War I."
Music is a family business for the Qaiyums. Jeffrey, 46, is a principal composer for the FX show "The Bear," and, alongside his brother Gregory "GQ" Qaiyum, he wrote, composed and directed the hip-hop Shakespeare adaptation "Othello: The Remix," a New York Times Critics' Pick in Nov. 2016. The Q Brothers Collective is his current venture, which involves educational, family-friendly rap events.
He's gotten his oldest son, JJ, involved in the group now, but he insists that JJ came to hip-hop naturally out of his own love for the culture. "He studies it hardcore," Jeffrey says. "He loves the rappers … He memorizes their flows, and their bars."
JJ's favorite rappers are A Tribe Called Quest, Biggie Smalls, Missie Elliot, Busta Rhymes and Eminem. "Rapping is just like my favorite thing to do," he says. "If rapping doesn't work, I would say acting is my second choice."
For now, he still needs to go to middle school, where he says he gets compliments on the video from his classmates, as well as the occasional "Rin Tin Tin" yelled at him in the hallway.
"School just started two days ago," Jeffrey says. "So we were kinda waiting to see if it was gonna be too intense." He admitted he was scared for his son when the video first went viral. "There's so much out of your control once you put something online."
The "Rin Tin Tin Kid" meme has truly taken on a life of its own. JJ's face has been plastered across all social media platforms, with the song being remixed and the original video edited. In one, TikToker @tablebythedoor mashes JJ's rapping with the instrumental of Lil Uzi Vert's "Neon Guts" – it's amassed over 1.2 million likes, and over 27,400 people have used the audio; most are seen lip-syncing and dancing to the track.
But as with most of what happens online, not all of the reaction memes are positive. It's not the first time a kid has gone viral for what some deemed a "cringe" performance. In 2022, a young kid's freestyle verse, "Ain't you Nathaniel B?," was met with mockery online. Last year, the so-called "67 Kid" became a symbol of supposedly cringy youth after saying the viral number combination in a YouTube video. Eventually, his parents got involved, and the family launched a crypto meme coin, trying to pivot the online attention.
But JJ and his dad are handling the burst of fame differently, and taking it in stride. The two want to go on tour and rap about dinosaurs at natural history museums in the U.S., following the success of their other viral video from Nov. 2025, in which JJ raps about "a small dino with a big name," the Micropachycephalosaurus.
For now, JJ says, "It can be annoying when you're just getting, like, a 'Rin Tin Tin' every five minutes … But honestly, I'm just really glad so many people saw and appreciated the art that I did on stage. It's just all kind of surreal."
JJ says the "most annoying" part of his newfound fame is all of the adults in his life worrying about him. "Your parents, teachers, grandparents, uncles, aunts, everyone that cares about you, they're always gonna be like, 'Oh, are you okay? Are you okay? Oh, this many people saw this. Are you okay with that?' I mean, like, shut up," he adds, laughing.
"Fair enough," Jeffrey says. "It's because I care, kid. I worry – it's a lot of eyeballs … I'm trying to be chill, but I'm also trying to give him the tools so when he finds himself in a new social situation, a bunch of kids pull out their phones or something, how to get out of that situation and not pour gas on the fire."
Jeffrey says he's been floating "little hypotheticals" by JJ "without freaking him out."
"[I] say, 'If this comes up, here are some tools – here are some things I might say, or how I might handle the situation.' And he's listening to me, and ultimately, I trust him to make good decisions because he has good instincts ... I think that kind of attention could happen to somebody else and have a different effect ... He carries himself with such positivity."
It also helps that JJ does not have a phone or run his social media himself. Jeffrey's been policing the comment sections as well. "Frankly, I'm scrubbing anything I don't wanna see out there because we're here to spread positivity and joy," Jeffrey says.
And if the viral moment becomes too much for JJ, Jeffrey insists that his son always has "a rip cord" he can pull to end his online presence and go back to being a regular kid.
We asked JJ what his rip cord moment would be. When would it be too much?
"Um, I don't know," JJ says.
Jeffrey tells us, "We'll let you know when we get there."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Rin Tin Tin Kid' says 'most annoying' part of viral fame is nervous parents
