Why are children shouting “six seven!” at me for no good reason?
It’s a new self-referential and participatory meme that the youngsters are really into.
What’s a meme?
Oh God, I forgot this was The Irish Times, an old-fashioned newspaper read by people who own property and have pensions and remember landlines and rationing. A meme is a snippet of viral culture – a clip, image, dance, text or piece of slang - that is repeated over and over again with minor variations on and off the internet.
How does this particular meme manifest?
A child yells “six seven!” possibly with up and down hand movements (akin to balancing a weighing scales) and all the youngsters in the immediate vicinity then repeat this behaviour to indicate their shared knowledge of the meme. If their uncle is completely baffled by what’s happening they will keep doing it even though he begs them to stop.
Why do they do this?
It’s a bonding activity like when apes groom one another or men ask each other have they seen the match. Repeating the meme indicates that you have a shared knowledge of youth culture and if a nearby adult is befuddled by the whole thing this is all the better.
RM Block
Where does this “meme” come from?
It originally seems to come from Doot Doot (6 7) a 2024 song by the rapper Skrilla which features the line “6 7 I just bipped along the highway”. The meaning isn’t entirely clear but the YouTube linguist Dr Taylor Jones aka Language Jones, reckons it’s a reference to the US police radio call 10-67 indicating a dead body. Bip over to his channel if you want more details.
Then someone edited clips of basketball players, including the 6 foot 7 inch tall Lamelo Ball to the song. In March of this year a video circulated featured a child at a basketball game, known henceforth as “the 6 7 kid” (he will have to cure cancer or commit a murder to ever shake that off), chanting “six seven” with the idiosyncratic hand gestures now mimicked by children everywhere. And before you know it there are short videos on all platforms of people yelling “six seven!”, whole classrooms are seemingly disrupted by yells of the same and countless uncles are more confused than usual (and they’re usually pretty confused).
[ Up to 90: The best Irish words and phrasesOpens in new window ]
What does it mean now?
It means absolutely nothing except that the person saying it is in on the joke and is thus part of an ‘in’ group. I mean it possibly indicates that 10-year-olds are philosophically aware of the inherent meaninglessness of existence but when I put that to them they just shout “six seven!” at me until I weep. Being in an ‘in’ group means nothing if there isn’t an out group (basically me and those of you who need to read this explainer).
What can we do about this?
The best we can do is join in. As you know, children love it when old people are hip to the new cool thing they love. Having me shouting “six seven!” along with my nephews surely causes them great joy and doesn’t take the fun out of it at all.
In conclusion?
I have seen the best minds of a generation destroyed by children crying “six seven!” at regular intervals. But sure look, there are worse things.
