Every year, Dictionary.com selects a “Word of the Year” based on cultural impact, trends, and shifts in language usage, including in 2020, the word was pandemic, 2021: allyship, 2022: woman, 2023: hallucinate, and 2024: demure. This year, that honor went to the Gen Alpha term “6-7,” a term that has united people in laughter across the country. This “brain rotted” term is prevalent throughout social media and has influenced many trends. These two numbers rose to popularity mainly from the song “Doot Doot (6 7)” by Skrilla, a song commonly used in sports clips and edits. The numbers are featured in the lyrics “The way that switch brr, I know he dyin’/ 6-7 I just blipped right on the highway….”
6-7 doesn’t seem to have an exact meaning and is up to interpretation completely. Overall, it functions more like a concept than a concrete idea carrying meaning. Many students I asked thought “6-7” was redundant: Violet Nason ’29 said, “6-7 is pointless.” In contrast, most teachers aren’t even sure what it means entirely, with most just being confused when I brought it up in a conversation. This further shows that this slang is mainly targeted at the youngest generations, being completely widespread throughout CA. For each person in CA, “6-7” means something different, and that's what brings people together. Not shared knowledge, but changing your understanding and opinions, even if that’s not through “6-7”.
Personally, this slang term just makes me laugh, whether in math class when the answer to an equation is 67 or in English when the teacher asks students to go to the sixth and seventh stanzas of a poem. Both of these situations lead to at least a few kids in class laughing a little bit. Even outside of school, I regularly hear chatter followed by laughter when a kid accidentally says 6-7. It almost feels like an inside joke that is shared by the entire country.
Some people find this term immature and overused. I call it a reminder to embrace the whimsical side of life. Especially amidst final exam season, a small laugh over something as simple as “6-7” can feel like a bright spot in the day. The beautiful part about language is that it is constantly changing over time. From the 1670s until today, English has been evolving just as we as people also keep changing. Whether “6-7” fades in a few years or sticks around, it will remain a charming reminder of how words can bring people together.