Apparently today’s youngsters are descending into hysterics after shouting out the numbers 6 and 7.
I did not feel fully explained to after reading the Forbes explainer.
“Six, seven” comes from a 2024 song by the rapper Skrilla, “Doot Doot,” in which he raps: “6-7, I just bipped right on the highway.”
Yes, it makes me feel old and out of touch. Which I suspect the Forbes writer also did given:
Some have characterized the “six, seven” meme as an example of internet “brain rot”—a term for low-quality, meaningless online memes and the negative impact this content may have on consumers, which was named the word of the year by Oxford University Press in 2024.
The WSJ also has a surprisingly long article about it.
Apparently it’s devastating the lives of teachers who have to spend all day avoiding anything to do with the number.
Math teacher Cara Bearden braces herself for any equation that yields the two numbers, knowing her students will immediately scream them right back at her. “SIX Sevennnnnn,” they squeal with a palms-up, seesaw hand gesture that looks somewhere between juggling and melon handling.
…
“If you’re like, ‘Hey, you need to do questions six, seven,’ they just immediately start yelling, ‘Six Seven!’” says Bearden, who teaches sixth- and eighth-graders at Austin Peace Academy in Austin, Texas. “It’s like throwing catnip at cats.”
Now teachers avoid breaking kids into groups of six or seven, or asking them to turn to page 67, or instructing them to take six or seven minutes for a task.
The WSJ is also judgementally categorising the meme as brainrot.
The meme is a prime example of brain rot, the internet junk food consumed by people of all ages to suck away time, productivity and the living of life.
“suck away time, productivity and the living of life”…strong and harrowing words indeed. It’s easy to see why brainrot literally was 2024’s the word of the year.
In some cases the trend would appear to be infecting the teachers themselves. This next sentence feels so very 2025 in so many ways.
On social media, math faculty describe asking ChatGPT to devise tests where every answer is six, seven, 67 and so on.
Numerologists weigh in, again without managing to actually explain anything:
Astronumerologist Jesse Kalsi, author of “The Power of Home Numbers,” calls six and seven “a very unconventional energy” that is somewhat unknowable. “It has a meaning,” he says, “but it is very hidden.”
Here’s one of the truly foundational videos of the 6-7 movement if you want to see what it’s all about.
And Skrilla’s song that somehow started it all (6 7 is about 30 seconds in):