At the age of 64, Randy Fearing does not understand all the fuss about this “6-7” company.
It does not matter that his grandson, Taylen Kinney, is the core of the meme who is fascinating social media and has taken his own life with Gen Alpha and Gen Z, who launches Kinney to internet immortality. Kinney, or “TK” for those who know him, collected more than 1 million followers between Tiktok and Instagram, all because of a song Lyric.
Take those statistics, add the frenzy that Kinney follows in every basketball gymnastics that he comes in, and the launch of Kinney’s “6-7” canned watermark, and you start to understand why Google identifies the 17-year-old as an “internet personality”.
It is not that Kinney, the number 17 general player in the 2026 class according to the 247Sports Composite, Mind is known online. But lost in all the fuss about his ‘6-7’ fame is that Kinney really cares for basketball. You will not receive a stock market offers from dozens of large major programs – Kentucky, Louisville, Indiana, Oregon, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas and Miami are his finalists – and enjoy midnight at home visits on the first day of Coaches such as Kentucky’s Pat Kelsey.
But he is undoubtedly a social media star. A short initiation: In December 2024, rapper Skrilla dropped a new song, “Doot Doot (6 7)” with the text,
“The way it switches Brrt, I know he dyin ‘
6-7, I just got on the highway “
(There were no teenagers available for the interpretation of this text.)
Two weeks later, Kinney was asked to rank his Starbucks drink. He ruined his forehead in contemplation before he answered, “Six, Seven” who with his hands up and down boat, as if he weighed two options. His teammates sniffed their approval.
The Social Media team of Overtime Elite, the Basketball Competition based in Atlanta in which he plays, recorded the clip and pushed it on his channels. In the following month, when he was given camera time, Kinney worked “6-7” in the video. Ote remained the hyping. An internet sensation was born within a month.
When talking to countless members of the youngest generations, Athletics Has suspected that “6-7” … nothing means. For some it is a way to convey indifference, or what makes sense to the user. In essence, it is a song Lyric that social media turned into a meme. And just as everything that is involved, it quickly evolves. Insight into the cultural spirit of the times is secondary to be part of it: fifteen times NBA All-Star Shaquille O’Neal, the father of a 22-year-old, acknowledged that he did not get it either. But certainly, he would be in a video that is simulating.
@overwerk We really did Shaq 67 before GTA 6 😭 @Shaqdieseloneal @tk #67 #TK #Brainrot #shaq #nba
♬ Original sound – Overtime
It is likely that you know a teenager who uses “6-7” as jargon. It is likely that they cannot tell you what it means. Even Kinney himself is unclear why it, and he, has become such a hit.
“They are just two digits, it is not much to say,” said Kinney. “It doesn’t really mean nothing.”
And yet he can’t escape it.
Said his grandfather, who only recently learned how to text: “You know that I am not all rapid, when it started for the first time, they told me,” You won’t understand, so don’t worry. ” And I don’t understand it as Gangbusters!
“We had no idea what was going to happen when it went viral,” added Mom, Mikelle.
The release laughed on the other line. “Although I don’t understand half of it, we have to get on this train!”
Others certainly have that. The “6-7” transition has spread to NBA height points, WNBA news conferences, NFL-TouchDown parties and even one especially hip seniors: none other than the 66-year-old Jim Nantz made a “6-7” reference While calling the Packers-Lions game last week. (Confused? Tony Romo was too.)
But to comply, his grandson is much more than “Mr. 6-7”, such as Skrilla himself baptized Kinney.
In the thoughts of Freashing, Kinney is still the little boy who likes to rap tables in the family restaurant, River Front Pizza in Covington, Ky., Who would charm customers with flexible dance movements and flirty looks. He filled a piggy bank full of tips, and often collected more cash than some of the most experienced servers. He would do anything to earn the smile from a stranger: Ham It Up during restaurant spits, to joke, to swing a pass to a wide open teammate and encourage him to drain the shot. Last December he used part of his adidas name, image and parability to hand out $ 250 gift vouchers to disadvantaged children in his hometown.
“He is extrovert,” said founding, “but he has never been big.”
Taylen Kinney and his grandfather, Randy Gastarding, embrace where the “6-7” trend brings them. (Thanks to the Kinney family)
Kinney fell hard in the fourth grade. He wore a new Jordan 11s and hung 54 points to a team full of sixth-class players “Tay’s always played”, his grandfather boasted the game winner and enjoys the crowd of teammates who screamed and celebrated around him.
Growing up in Newport, Ky., About 100 miles northeast of Louisville, Kinney tried other sports. Football did not stay because “I didn’t really like the contact” and baseball “was way too boring.”
That visual from a small child that is crisscross-apple-smosing in the outfield picking dandelions? That was Kinney, who balanced his glove on his head to laugh.
So he devoted himself to hoops and asked early to make shots with his stepfather before the lessons started. He would go to school, practice and then stay late to shoot more. He started as a Point Guard for the Varsity team as an eighth class and said to his family: “I never want to lose this place. Basketball is what I want to do.”
After playing his first two years from high school in Newport, Kinney moved to Atlanta to become a member of Ote, the Prep School Basketball Factory with more than 100 of the best prospects of the country. In recent years, Ote has produced Loterijpluks such as Amen and Ausar Thompson, Frenchman Alex Sarr and former Kentucky striking Rob Dillingham. Kinney thought that Ote would push me “to the next level.” But his first two weeks he wondered what he had received. His parents assured him that he could come home.
“I played in a shell, then I just started playing like me,” said Kinney. “Shoot, the rest is history. When I found out who was in my team, I really felt at ease with those guys, I started setting up, became myself again.”
In 20 OTE matches in the regular season last year, Kinney had an average of 20.1 points, 5.0 assists, 4.0 rebounds and 2.3 steals. On Thursday he was one of the most important attractions when more than 100 college coaches and NBA Scouts visited Ote for his annual mowing porter, with whom Kinney and his teammates would go through exercises, play three-on-three and five-on-five.
Kinney has grown 2 inches and added 3 (meaningful) pounds in the summer, check in 6 feet 3, 188 pounds, according to coach Corey Frazier. It is a minimal boost that Frazier said it could have a major impact for a player who “is the last in a breed of facilitating the first point guards.”
“I have never known TK as a selfish player,” Frazier said. “Now there is that sprint where he can get the ball at the end of the game and take it over, can make 10 shots in a row, if that is what you need. But it is because he spent the first three quarters with the other nine players on the field and the extra play for his teammates.”
Kinney estimates that he spends at least five hours a day in the gym. He spends perhaps 15 minutes on his tap and Instagram pages, so that OTE’s social media can treat most of the content creation and post.
He does not respond to every message, but sees the children tell him that they have discovered him because of the “6-7” trend and hoops have recorded “because they want to be the way I.” Internet fame can be tiring, but “the real heart -warming messages such as that, they come to me.”
Grenstring is often striked when new customers pop up at River Front Pizza and explain: “We came here because we love TK and want to maintain his family!”
Kinney and his business team know that money can be made through his online presence. He uses his influence and uses potential marketing possibilities of ‘6-7’: that is why he started the brand-canned water-launched on 7 June. ((The forces were not verified, but at least one youth heap claims that after drinking “6 7” water he scored eight points in 30 seconds and hit the game winner) No wonder it already has a waiting list and 101,000 Instagram followers.
“Mr. 6-7” is almost like an online alter ego Kinney can embrace when he feels entrepreneurial. But every day his life is about “keeping the most important, the most important thing.”
Kinney will be happy to finish the recruitment process and will probably make a decision at the end of September. In the past month he made official visits to KU, Indiana and Oregon.
His ideal situation: “I want to play pretty quickly, with bullet screens, having the guards rock.”
His mother would like him to be closer to home in Newport. But she has made peace with the idea that she might travel long distance to see him play. She is used to that.
“I drive to Atlanta almost every weekend, to open,” she said. “It’s about six or seven hours.”
She was silent for a moment and realized her choice of words.
“I didn’t want to do that!” she cried while grandpa caught on the other line. “Don’t mean pun!”
(Photo thanks to Mike Lawrence / Overwerk)
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