● Trending · Dictionary.com’s 2025 Word of the Year
What does "6 7" actually mean?
The viral Gen Alpha phrase everyone’s kid is shouting, explained in plain English — where it came from, the hand gesture, and why it isn’t supposed to mean anything.
67
🤝 pairs with a hand gesture
Pronounced
"Six, seven" — not sixty-seven
Origin
Skrilla, "Doot Doot (6 7)"
Popularized by
LaMelo Ball edits + the “67 Kid”
Who uses it
Mostly Gen Alpha, spreading wider
TL;DR
“6 7” (also written 67 or six-seven) is a viral Gen Alpha slang term and hand gesture from 2025. It comes from Skrilla’s song “Doot Doot (6 7)” and viral LaMelo Ball edits. The phrase has no fixed meaning — that’s the joke — and it was named Dictionary.com’s 2025 Word of the Year.
01 — Backstory
Where "6 7" came from
Unlike most internet slang, this one has a datable, specific origin.
- The song: rapper Skrilla released “Doot Doot (6 7)” in December 2024. The hook repeats “6-7, I just bipped right on the highway” as the beat drops.
- The basketball connection: around October 2024, editors began pairing the song with clips of NBA player LaMelo Ball, who’s officially listed at 6'7" tall.
- The “67 Kid”: a clip of young fan Maverick Trevillian shouting “67” at a youth basketball game went viral separately and became a defining image of the trend.
- A second amplifier: Taylen “TK” Kinney, a player in the Overtime Elite league, became known for answering nearly any interview question with “six-seven” — and later launched a canned water brand named “6 7.”
02 — Definition
What "6 7" actually means
Short answer: nothing fixed — and that’s the point.
- Literal meaning — None, intentionally nonsensical
- Loose meaning — “So-so” / “maybe this, maybe that”
- Social function — Signals you’re in on the joke
- Common use — Stock answer to almost any question
Dictionaries that cover it — Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster’s slang dictionary — describe it as a nonsensical expression whose lack of meaning is the entire appeal. Because it resists a fixed definition, it’s often grouped with other “brainrot” slang: terms that spread through repetition and absurdity rather than clear meaning.
03 — The visual
The hand gesture, explained
The gesture
Both palms face upward, roughly at chest height, moving alternately up and down — like weighing two invisible objects. It reinforces the “could go either way” reading some people attach to the phrase, and is often performed without saying the words at all.
04 — How it spread
From song lyric to Word of the Year
- DEC 2024 — Skrilla releases “Doot Doot (6 7).”
- OCT 2024–EARLY 2025 — First viral edits pair the song with LaMelo Ball clips.
- EARLY–MID 2025 — The “67 Kid” video and Taylen Kinney interviews accelerate spread among young sports fans.
- MID–LATE 2025 — Widespread among Gen Alpha in schools; teachers report it as a classroom disruption.
- AUG–SEP 2025 — Reaches sports broadcasting and NFL touchdown celebrations.
- OCT 2025 — South Park references the meme in its Season 28 premiere.
- OCT 28, 2025 — Dictionary.com names “67” its 2025 Word of the Year.
- LATE 2025 — Reports of businesses like In-N-Out adjusting order call-outs to avoid crowd reactions.
05 — In the wild
How people actually use it
The joke usually relies on giving “six seven” as an answer to a question where it clearly isn’t the expected response:
“How old are you?” — “Six seven.”
“What’s 40 plus 27?” — “Six seven.” (and 40+27 does equal 67 — the joke is a correct answer, delivered deadpan)
Shouted with no prompt at all, often triggering a chorus of others repeating it back.
Some users blend it with other slang — combining “6-7” with “sendy” into “six-sendy,” carrying about as much literal meaning as the original.
06 — Disputed origins
Competing theories about the number
None of these is confirmed as the definitive meaning — treat this as “here’s what people say,” not settled fact.
- LaMelo Ball's height (6'7")
- Philadelphia's 67th Street
- Chicago's 67th Street
- UK drill scene
- No origin at all
07 — Not the same thing
US meme vs. UK drill slang
These are two separate usages that happen to share a number. The U.S. viral meme covered on this page comes from Skrilla’s song and the LaMelo Ball edits, and is essentially meaningless by design. “67” in UK drill culture instead refers to a South London collective associated with the genre, and predates the 2025 U.S. viral trend. If you see “67” in a UK music context, it likely refers to this separate meaning.
08 — Right now
Is "6 7" still popular?
Slang trends like this typically follow a predictable arc: rapid spread, saturation, adult/media adoption — which often signals kids are already moving on — then gradual fade. As of its Word of the Year win in late 2025, usage was still widespread, though some of the figures associated with it have publicly signaled moving on to other responses. Expect it to persist in meme callbacks even as everyday use among its original audience cools.
Page last updated: [insert date] — revisit monthly to keep this section current.
09 — Questions
Frequently asked questions
No. It’s said as two separate numbers — “six, seven” — not “sixty-seven.”
No single fixed meaning. It functions as a nonsensical, all-purpose response and social signal, though some use it loosely to mean “so-so.”
Rapper Skrilla’s December 2024 song “Doot Doot (6 7),” combined with viral edits referencing NBA player LaMelo Ball’s 6’7” height.
Maverick Trevillian, a young basketball fan whose viral video shouting “67” at a youth game became one of the defining clips of the trend.
Not necessarily — in UK drill culture, “67” separately refers to a South London collective, unrelated to the 2025 U.S. viral meme.
Yes — Dictionary.com named “67” its 2025 Word of the Year.
Yes — it’s a nonsense phrase and gesture with no violent, sexual, or otherwise harmful meaning attached. Its main real-world impact reported has been as a classroom distraction.
Keep decoding the timeline
More Gen Alpha and internet slang, broken down the same way.
Slangly — plain-English breakdowns of the internet’s fastest-moving words.