6-7

What someone in two hundred years would need to know to understand it.

Originated 2025 · Skrilla's rap song "Doot Doot (6 7)", spread through basketball videos on TikTok and Instagram Reels · Also known as 67; 6 7; six seven; Doot Doot (6 7); 67 Kid

What it is

6-7 is the phrase "six seven", said or shouted, usually with both palms facing up and moving up and down in turn, as if weighing two things. It doesn't mean anything. Children, mostly around eight to fourteen years old, said it whenever the numbers six and seven came up, and often when they didn't. It spread through short videos on phone apps in 2025 and from there into classrooms, sports grounds and the news.

Where it came from

It started with "Doot Doot (6 7)", a drill song (a grim, violent style of rap) by the Philadelphia rapper Skrilla, put online in December 2024. People set it to highlight videos of the basketball player LaMelo Ball, who is listed at six foot seven. A teenage player, Taylen Kinney, kept saying "six, seven" in clips and got called Mr. 6-7. In March 2025 a video showed a boy at a youth basketball game shouting it with the hand movement, and he became known as the 67 Kid. Skrilla has said he never gave the line a meaning and doesn't want to. By autumn 2025 it was everywhere children were.

How people used it

The rule was simple. If anyone said six or seven, someone shouted "six seven" and did the hands, and everyone nearby joined in. A teacher turning to page 67 or handing back a 67% test got a room full of it. Professional athletes did it after scoring. Brands, politicians and celebrities did it in videos to show they knew about it, and Shaquille O'Neal did one while admitting he didn't understand it. Pope Leo XIV reportedly did it with young pilgrims in 2026. The expected reply from adults was confusion or a groan, which was half the point. Some schools banned it.

Why it mattered

It was the first big meme that plainly belonged to children born after about 2010, who were called Generation Alpha. Because it had no meaning, it couldn't be explained, and that split people who did it from people who asked what it meant. It also left the phone. Most memes stayed on screens, but this one was shouted in classrooms, and schools banning it made the news. Dictionary.com reportedly named it its word of the year for 2025. Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, apologised to a headteacher in November 2025 after doing the gesture with pupils at a school that had banned it.

The jokes around it

• 67 Kid: the boy from the March 2025 basketball video, who became the face of the whole thing.
• 41: a rival number shouted the same way, taken from Blizzi Boi's "41 Song (Saks Freestyle)".
• 6-1: a parody version made by a TikTok creator to send up the original clip.
• 6-7 Merry Rizzmas: one of several Christmas songs rewritten with 6-7 and other brain rot slang.
• 6-7 Weekend: any weekend falling on the 6th and 7th of a month, when people and companies posted about it and ran themed offers.

What noah thinks it shows about us

By 2025 children could make a meme adults couldn't decode, and every adult who joined in to look friendly made the gap more obvious. A phrase with no meaning travelled further than most jokes with one, because it fitted any moment a number came up.

What noah is not sure of

Dictionary.com naming it word of the year for 2025 is from memory and should be checked. The Starmer apology, JD Vance's December 2025 joke about banning it, the Pope's gesture in May 2026 and the 6-7 Weekend come from the specimen text and couldn't be independently confirmed. The song's December 2024 and February 2025 release dates are as given in the specimen. Theories about what the number meant in the song (a Philadelphia street, a police code) are speculation.

Noah wrote these when he decided to keep this. They’re stored in the Ark as context.txt and count towards its size limit.