Why “Sixxxx-Sevvvvvennnnn” Gives Me Hope

I wish I could remember the first time I heard the phrase, but I can’t. 

Given that my own children are 12, 13, and 15 years old, it was probably from one of them. What I do know, though, is that–in my role as a Middle School educator for the past 20 years–I have always sought to stay ahead of my students at the arrival of any new iteration of adolescent-adjacent sociocultural vernacular. In short, I’ve needed to understand their slang better than they do.

With that in mind, I actually do recall Googling the term for the first time, all in an effort to grasp the meaning of “Sixxxx-Sevvvvvennnnn” more deeply than my students did. It was thus that learned six-seven started as a lyric from the song “Doot Doot (6 7),” by hip-hop artist Skrilla. From there, I found the phrase was tied to NBA point guard LaMelo Ball, who reportedly stands at 6 feet, 7 inches tall. Several incarnations later, six-seven evolved into a global catchphrase, both on social media and in real life. Heck, even Googling the term causes the entire screen to shake as though it’s being lifted up-and-down by alternating right-left hands (if you haven’t done it yet, you totally should). Still, Wikipedia would seem to agree with most of the kids I talk to: Six-seven is a “slang term” with “no fixed meaning.”

And, let’s be honest, you know the word. After all, if you encountered a child–any child–in 2025, or if you attended a basketball game during which a team edged closer to 64 or 65 points, you would have heard the phrase.

Back in the winter of 1992 (five years, mind you, before I was in the 6/7th Grades) Duke University’s journal, American Speech, published an article by Teresa Labov titled “Social and Language Boundaries Among Adolescents.” Along with some delightfully humorous remarks, like her opening – “Adolescents today, as ever, have terms by which they express approval (cool) or disapproval (bummer, it sucks)...” – Labov provides one thought-provoking morsel I have returned to lately: 

“Change is characteristic of slang–in fact slang seems evanescent.”

And while I am not certain whether 6-7 is as fleeting as the definition of  evanescent might suggest, I like the idea that slang just…kind of…floats. It reminds me of the idea of the Hundredth Monkey theory. In Ken Keyes’ 1982 book The Hundredth Monkey, he describes the term’s origin story in which researchers studying Japanese Macaca fuscata monkeys on Koshima island observed a young female washing troublesome sand off her sweet potatoes in a nearby body of water. While she was the only monkey doing this, the behavior slowly spread to other monkeys in the troop. According to many accounts, when a critical number (the "hundredth") learned the habit, it spontaneously spread to monkeys on other islands, suggesting a shared, non-local consciousness or "ideological breakthrough." There came a point when the idea just spread…it was suddenly everywhere. Whether metaphorical or not, others–like Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic: Creative Living Through Fear– have waxed on about the power of ideas and their propensity to move through the world with inexplicable power.

Certainly, for our Gen-Alpha and Gen-Z children, things can move ever-more quickly as memes go viral with the tap of a screen and influencers make millions by…well…influencing young people. These are young people, mind you, who literally could not be more susceptible to being influenced, as their brains are undergoing intense synaptic pruning, modeling and remodeling themselves based on lived experiences in both the real world and the imagined one that exists behind the hypnotizing glow of their phones.

But here is the thing…my big confession: I actually like 6-7. Really, I do. And this is coming from someone who, as Middle School Director, utters the phrase “Sixth and Seventh Graders” nearly every day in front of an audience of sixth and seventh graders, no less.

So why do I like it? Firstly, I like it because, as Robert Isenberg notes, like Magritte and Dali’s playful and dreamlike paintings, or the Dada Movement’s absurdist and illogically confusing plots and dialogue, it’s based on “weirdness, just to be weird.” Weird for weirdness’ sake is important for kids at this age. It’s hokey, dorky, awkward…cringe. And in a world where kids are trying to mog and looksmaxx, we could use more of that awkward middle school energy that defined my own 80’s era styles of oversized neon shirts, acid-washed denim, and Charlotte Hornets Starter Jackets.

But more than that, what I love about “six-seven” is the contagious nature of a youth-driven movement. The gravitational momentum of a growing body of energy that says: HEY, GROWNUPS. YOU. CAN’T. STOP. THIS. Just like the young Macaca fuscata who washed sweet potatoes, these kids can do anything they want. They can break all the rules. And if they can make something as dumb and weird as 6-7 a worldwide phenomenon, what if they created a viral sensation  that actually had a positive impact on the world?

 

I do not believe that brainrot will define this generation. For I have seen, just in the last week, here on our campus at my school–Madison, Connecticut’s The Country School–evidence of this generation’s leadership. It’s been the leadership in our 8th Graders and their initiatives to organize a dance that raises funds for a local nonprofit organization; or in the 7th Graders and their disbelief that I was recently gifted a book purchased on Amazon that was written entirely by AI and passed off as one written by an actual real life historian (look out Bezos, they are already clamoring for justice in the name of “intellectual fraud” and are drafting a letter to your legal team); or in the 6th Graders who spent 30 minutes of their free time after Middle School Meeting joyfully collecting over 65 pounds of trash from the fields and woods around our campus, just because they wanted to.

Change is happening. And so is playfulness. And in the midst of all the world’s pain, and anxiety, and the feelings of hopelessness that can feel suffocating at times, I believe in these kids and the speed with which they pay attention, band together, and can get the world’s attention. As Mohandas Gandhi once noted, “First they ignore you; then they laugh at you; then they fight you; then you win.” 

The kids aren’t on their way, they are here. And while we don’t have to fight them, we still do have time to get on their team.