“6-7”: The nonsense phrase that defines a generation
It’s official: the most talked-about “word” of 2025 isn’t even a word. Dictionary.com has named “6-7” – yes, the two random numbers – its Word of the Year.
If you’ve been anywhere near a middle school hallway, a TikTok scroll hole, or a preteen with a smartphone, you’ve probably heard it: “Six-seven!” Sometimes shouted. Sometimes whispered. Sometimes delivered with the kind of self-seriousness that suggests you, the adult, are the joke for not getting it.
But what does it mean?
That’s the point – it doesn’t.
A meme without meaning
The origins of “6-7” trace back to a 2024 Skrilla song called “Doot Doot,” where the rapper throws out the line, “6-7, I just bipped right on the highway.” Like so many things on the internet, the phrase was clipped, repurposed, and reborn – first as background audio on TikTok videos, then as a kind of coded chant for Gen Alpha.
One viral clip compared NBA player LaMelo Ball’s height – 6 feet 7 inches – to his playing style, claiming he played “like he’s 6-2.” Suddenly, 6-7 was everywhere: in memes, comments, classroom banter, and even family group chats.
“It’s part inside joke, part social signal, and part performance,” says Steve Johnson, director of lexicography for Dictionary Media Group at IXL Learning. “When people say it, they’re not repeating a meme – they’re expressing a vibe. It’s one of the first Words of the Year that works more like an interjection than a word – a burst of energy that spreads faster than its meaning.”
The word that means nothing and everything
To adults, “6-7” is baffling. To kids, it’s a badge of belonging.
Rutgers linguistics professor Kristen Syrett explains that such phrases function as discourse markers, ways of signaling identity rather than meaning. “It’s not about what you’re saying,” she says, “but about who you’re saying it with. The gesture that often accompanies ‘6-7’ – open hands bobbing up and down – makes it performative. It’s a wink to your peers that you’re in on the joke.”
The joke, of course, is that there is no joke.
That’s part of what makes “6-7” so irresistible to the chronically online youth. It’s absurd, meaningless, and endlessly adaptable – a linguistic shrug for a generation that’s both self-aware and permanently plugged in.
Brainrot, but make it language
Dictionary.com’s press release put it bluntly: “Perhaps the most defining feature of 6-7 is that it’s impossible to define. It’s meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical. In other words, it has all the hallmarks of brainrot – the logical endpoint of being perpetually online.”
Call it irony, call it satire, call it postmodern chaos – but 6-7 captures something essential about the digital age. When the internet feeds us endless microtrends, catchphrases, and content loops, coherence becomes optional. What matters is participation.
To say “6-7” is to say: I exist online. I get it. I’m one of you.
Adults vs the numbers
For parents, it’s a different story. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard ‘6-7’ in my house,” says one father of an 11-year-old. “It’s like a glitch in the Matrix. My son says it when he wakes up, when he’s eating breakfast, when I ask about homework.”
Teachers have even started banning the phrase in classrooms, which, predictably, only fuels the obsession.
Linguist Syrett laughs. “Nothing makes a trend more powerful than adults trying to suppress it. That’s been true since ‘groovy.’”
More than just a meme
It’s easy to dismiss “6-7” as a symptom of cultural decline – proof that today’s youth are addicted to nonsense. But maybe, like all viral language, it’s simply a reflection of the times.
Every generation has its linguistic rebellion: the Valley Girls had “like,” Gen X had “whatever,” millennials had “LOL,” and Gen Z gave us “slay” and “based.” Now, Gen Alpha’s contribution is a pair of digits that mean nothing – and somehow, that feels perfect for an era defined by algorithmic absurdity.
In a world that often makes no sense, maybe the truest expression of modern existence is simply: “6-7.”