The actor shares music under the sobriquet DJO.
Joe Keery is no stranger to the spotlight but he's currently in the middle of discovering what it's like to go viral for his music.
The 31-year-old Stranger Things actor -- who shares music under the moniker DJO -- has recently found himself the subject of a mega-viral song, "End of Beginning," on TikTok. The single has been shared by hundreds of thousands of users and at one point became a trend where people show off their favorite city or where they consider home.
In a recent TikTok video, Keery reacted to the sudden skyrocketing of the song's popularity on not only TikTok, but other streaming platforms and apps.
"I've been tokked," he wrote over the video of him staring at the screen.
He also hilariously poked fun at the millions of fans who are just now discovering DJO and realizing that it is Steve Harrington -- the character he plays on Stranger Things -- singing the now-infamous lyrics.
"Wait I'm DJO?" Keery wrote over the clip.
Keery, who appeared to film the video on a subway train, also added several hashtags including "#firsttinktok," "#musiclover" and "subway" on the screen.
On Spotify, "End of Beginning" has received more than 200 million plays and on YouTube, videos posted from the DJO account have more than 12 million combined views. The song recently broke into the Billboard Hot 100 chart and is currently sitting at No. 21 on the list.
For the Fargo actor, who has been releasing music as DJO since 2019, the 2023-released song is incredibly personal to him and about his experience saying goodbye to Chicago.
"And when I'm back in Chicago, I feel it/ Another version of me, I was in it/ I wave goodbye to the end of beginning," he sings in the mega-viral song.
Keery is an alum of DePaul University and got his start in the music scene in Chicago before moving to Los Angeles after Stranger Things took off.
Keery recently sat down with Variety to talk about the song's delayed success and his experience heading back to the Stranger Things set for the final season.
"It’s about what it means to grow up and look back at a section of your life and kind of yearn for that, but then also to have a deep appreciation for what happened," he said.
On the end of his hit Netflix series, the Free Guy star said, "It’s kind of a similar thing I was going through when I was looking back at my time in Chicago. It’s like the end of a period of my life."
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