There’s a child at a basketball sport screaming “six seven” right into a digicam and one way or the other this turns into the meme that breaks lecturers’ brains worldwide.
Dad and mom are on Reddit begging for translations. Faculty workers are implementing bans. And each single grownup demanding a proof is lacking the purpose so spectacularly it’s virtually stunning.
Right here’s what no person desires to confess: Gen Alpha could be the neatest technology but relating to language. Not regardless of the meaningless memes. Due to them.
When that 12-year-old yelled “6 7” and went viral, we weren’t watching the dying of communication. We have been watching children who’ve cracked a code about how language truly works in 2025. And it’s making everybody over 25 deeply uncomfortable.
Nothing Means Every little thing Now
Look, earlier generations had their factor. Millennials perfected the artwork of the curated Instagram aesthetic.
Every little thing needed to imply one thing, ideally one thing deep and genuine. Gen Z got here alongside and demanded radical transparency, “holding it 100,” calling out the faux.
Then Gen Alpha confirmed up, checked out this exhausting sincerity competitors, and stated “nah”.
They’d already seen by means of sigma slang, the place children claimed to be mysterious lone wolves while posting about it continuously on-line.
The irony was already baked in. However “6 7” simply goes additional. It doesn’t even fake to imply something. That’s the whole level.
This isn’t truly new, by the best way. After World Conflict I, the Dada artwork motion did mainly the identical factor.
Artists checked out a world that had simply slaughtered thousands and thousands over nothing and determined logic was overrated.
They made artwork that was intentionally nonsensical as a result of sense had failed them.
Gen Alpha’s doing that besides their trauma is algorithmic. They’ve grown up watching adults lose their minds over which TikTok video to imagine.
They’ve inherited a dying planet and an financial system that may’t promise them something. Meaningless memes may truly be the sanest response accessible.
You’re Both In or You’re Not
@mrcoachwhitehead and that’s what which means! #fyp #foryou #teachersoftiktok #training #highschoolteacher ♬ authentic sound – eazye_editz
Each slang time period carries weight, proper? When Gen Z began saying “delulu” or speaking about rizz, these phrases nonetheless did one thing. You could possibly use them in sentences. They communicated precise concepts, even when your mum didn’t perceive them.
“6 7” doesn’t try this.
It’s pure gatekeeping, and that’s the genius of it. You both know otherwise you don’t. If it’s a must to ask, you’ve failed.
There’s no translation information that can allow you to as a result of the not-knowing is the boundary.
Dr. Lauren Fairhurst instructed CNN this displays our “post-truth society” the place interpretation issues greater than that means. Possibly.
However I feel she’s being too type to the remainder of us. Gen Alpha isn’t confused about fact.
They’ve simply watched adults spend a decade arguing about goal actuality and determined the entire framework is damaged.
Why trouble with readability if you’ve seen politicians twist language into pretzels? When each model’s “genuine voice” is focus-grouped to dying? When being earnest on-line simply makes you a goal?
The figuring out wink is the one sincere communication left.
What Lecturers Get Unsuitable About Disruption
Colleges are banning “6 7” prefer it’s contraband. Lecturers name it disruptive, distracting, proof that youngsters can’t focus anymore.
However wait. When linguist Taylor Jones talked to CNN about this, he made a degree everybody appears to be ignoring.
Each technology creates slang that baffles the earlier one. “Cool” was as soon as rebellious teenager nonsense. So was “groovy.” So was actually each time period that’s now so regular we neglect it was ever bizarre.
The distinction with “6 7” is that it doesn’t need to be understood. It’s not asking for acceptance into correct English. It’s not attempting to speak something besides “you’re not invited to this dialog.”
And really? That takes unbelievable social intelligence.
Take into consideration what children are doing once they use this phrase. They’re studying rooms. Testing boundaries. Constructing alliances. Excluding threats. These are expertise company management programs cost 1000’s to show. Gen Alpha’s studying it in break time.
Lecturers see disruption. What’s truly occurring is kids navigating complicated social hierarchies in actual time, utilizing a linguistic device that adults haven’t any entry to. That’s not stupidity. That’s strategic.
Possibly Brainrot Is Self-Care
Everybody loves throwing round “brainrot” prefer it’s a analysis. As if these children are decomposing from the within as a result of they watch Skibidi Rest room and talk in numbers.
Right here’s one other method to have a look at it.
Gen Alpha has by no means identified a world with out screens. They’ve been tracked by algorithms since earlier than they might spell “algorithm”.
They’ve watched each grownup of their life turn out to be hooked on telephones, doomscrolling, outrage cycles. They’ve inherited local weather disaster and been instructed it’s their job to repair it.
What if meaningless memes are literally wholesome?
When the world is absurd however pretends to make sense, embracing the absurdity with out pretending could be essentially the most sincere factor you are able to do.
Analysis from Cambridge backs this up – humour features as a coping mechanism for stress and nervousness. Gen Alpha didn’t invent that. They only industrialised it.
We’re calling it brainrot. They could be calling it survival.
No one’s Genuine Anymore (So Why Fake?)
Social media constructed an empire on authenticity. Influencers make thousands and thousands wanting “actual”. Manufacturers spend fortunes attempting to appear “relatable”. Everybody’s performing naturalness, which creates essentially the most synthetic setting possible.
Gen Alpha sees it. They watched older children craft good personas and burn out by 19. They’ve seen the despair charges that come from treating your life like content material.
They’ve watched YouTube apology movies and TikTok breakdowns and Instagram vulnerability posts that one way or the other nonetheless really feel staged.
Their response? Make it so apparent that it’s efficiency that no person can accuse you of faking.
“6 7” is efficiency artwork the place everybody’s in on the joke. There’s no pretending it means one thing deep.
No particular person attempting to be the principle character. It’s simply play. Pure, silly, meaningless play in a world that forgot how to do this.
And truthfully, that could be essentially the most radical factor they might do.
Language Is Shifting Sooner Than Dictionaries Can Deal with
The Cambridge Dictionary not too long ago added “skibidi” and “delulu”. Precise dictionary editors checked out these phrases and determined they mattered sufficient to be official. 5 years in the past, neither phrase existed.
That’s the velocity we’re working at now. Lexicographers are mainly simply attempting to not fall too far behind.
However “6 7” most likely gained’t make it into any dictionary. It’ll be useless earlier than the approval course of finishes. And that’s precisely its energy.
It exists on this ephemeral area between sound and textual content, significant solely in its second, gone the second too many adults attempt to pin it down.
Language has all the time advanced. But it surely used to take centuries for a phrase to shift that means or die out. Now it occurs in months. Gen Alpha isn’t destroying English.
They’re simply operating it on the velocity their world truly strikes.
The Actual Genius: Holding One thing for Themselves
Each subculture in historical past has used language to mark boundaries. Cockney rhyming slang existed particularly to confuse outsiders.
Hip-hop vocabulary protected the tradition from appropriation, a minimum of for some time. Even tutorial jargon serves the identical objective – separating those that know from those that don’t.
Gen Alpha realized this sooner than anybody anticipated. They watched millennials moan about Gen Z slang, noticed how rapidly all the things received co-opted and commercialised, and determined to construct one thing extra slippery.
The “Mason 67” stereotype is proof they’re even self-aware about it. That’s a time period for a white child who overuses the phrase. They’re not simply in on the meme.
They’re commenting on being in on the meme while nonetheless being in on it. Most adults by no means obtain that stage of meta-awareness, and these are 12-year-olds doing it casually.
Why Adults Demanding Solutions Reveals Extra About Us
When mother and father and lecturers demand to know what “6 7” means, we’re probably not asking for a definition. We’re demanding management. The facility to decode, categorise, file away into one thing manageable.
Gen Alpha’s refusal isn’t disrespect.
It’s boundary-setting. It’s claiming area in a world the place adults monitor each click on, each put up, each message. It’s carving territory that belongs to them alone. And truthfully, good for them. They want one thing that’s theirs.
The genius isn’t within the phrase. It’s within the refusal. By giving adults nothing strong to seize onto, they’ve created one thing genuinely unknowable in an age the place all the things is tracked and analysed and monetised and changed into content material.
That’s truly fairly stunning if you may get previous being irritated by it.
This Will All Be Over Quickly (And That’s Positive)
“6 7” is already fading. One thing else will substitute it. Then one thing else after that. The cycle continues ceaselessly or till the web collapses, whichever comes first.
Gen Alpha will develop up. They’ll turn out to be the confused adults questioning what Gen Beta is saying. They’ll most likely be simply as baffled and irritated. That’s how this works.
However what they’re establishing now issues. They’re proving language doesn’t need to be transactional. Communication doesn’t need to convey info. Generally speaking is only for connection, for play, for the pure pleasure of constructing sounds along with your mouth that create belonging.
That’s not revolutionary. People have all the time finished this. We simply forgot someplace alongside the best way, received too obsessive about effectivity and readability and ensuring all the things serves a objective.
Gen Alpha remembers what adults forgot. Language began as sounds and gestures lengthy earlier than anybody invented grammar. Play is how people be taught all the things truly price figuring out. The purpose isn’t all the time the purpose.
Lecturers will cease banning it will definitely. Dad and mom will cease googling. And by then, these children could have moved onto one thing new, leaving the remainder of us scrambling to catch up once more.
That’s not a bug. That’s the design. The youngsters are fantastic. Higher than fantastic. They’re sharper than we give them credit score for, and our confusion is proof the technique’s working completely.
Possibly as an alternative of attempting to grasp “6 7”, we must always ask why we have to perceive it so badly. What are we truly afraid of when kids create one thing we are able to’t management?
That query issues greater than any definition ever may.