# What does 6 7 mean?

Canonical: https://postmesh.app/glossary/6-7

By PostMesh team. Published 2026-10-31; updated 2026-10-31.

6 7, said "six seven" and also written 67 or 6-7, is a viral joke phrase with no fixed meaning. Kids and teens shout it, often with a palms-up hand gesture, whenever the numbers 6 and 7 come up, or for no reason at all. The point is being in on the joke.

## What 6 7 means

6 7 doesn't mean anything specific, and that is the whole joke. It's a callout, a reflex and a password at once. Someone says a number, a score or a time that contains a six and a seven, and someone else shouts "six seven" back, usually while bouncing both hands up and down with the palms facing up, like a scale that can't settle. Sometimes nobody mentions a number at all and it gets shouted anyway.

It's always said "six seven," never "sixty-seven." When Dictionary.com picked it as its 2025 Word of the Year, its editors said the exact origin was unclear and noted that some people treat it as a shrug, a way of saying it could go either way, which fits the wobbling hand gesture. They also filed it under brainrot: slang that is meant to be nonsense, where the fun is that everyone knows it's nonsense.

So if you're a parent, teacher or manager who just heard it for the tenth time today, you're not missing a hidden meaning. Saying 6 7 signals "I'm part of this joke." The tone is playful, a little chaotic and almost never mean.

## Where 6 7 comes from

The phrase comes from a rap song. Skrilla, a Philadelphia rapper whose legal name is Jemille Edwards, repeats "6 7" in the hook of a track called "Doot Doot (6 7)." The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that he first put the song out unofficially on Instagram in late 2024 as a leftover from his album. Know Your Meme dates the release to December 1, 2024, and Complex reports that it was added as a bonus track to the deluxe edition of his album Zombie Love Kensington Paradise in February 2025.

What the numbers mean to Skrilla himself depends on which interview you read. The Inquirer reports that he told the Washington Post it referred to 67th Street in Philadelphia, a block where many of his friends lived, while noting that there's no 67th Street in his own neighborhood of Kensington. Many fans connect it to 67th Street in Chicago, where he has family. Asked by Complex, he said "for me, it's just 'negative to positive,'" and added that other people have their own meanings. He has said he likes that it stays vague.

### The LaMelo Ball edits

The song became a meme through basketball. LaMelo Ball of the Charlotte Hornets is 6 feet 7 inches tall, and creators started making bait-and-switch highlight edits: a clip of someone saying "six seven," then a sudden cut to Ball footage set to Skrilla's hook. Know Your Meme traces these edits on TikTok and Instagram Reels to January 2025, with an Instagram Reel on January 7, 2025 among the early examples.

### Taylen Kinney and the hand gesture

On January 25, 2025, the Overtime Elite YouTube channel shared a clip of high school player Taylen Kinney, known as TK, squeezing "six, seven" into an interview while seesawing his upturned palms. Know Your Meme says fans copied the gesture in hopes of becoming the intro clip for the next edit, and that the hand sign took off on TikTok in late August 2025. Complex reports that Skrilla credited Kinney with helping the meme grow.

### The 67 Kid

The face most people attach to the meme is a boy now called the 67 Kid. According to Know Your Meme, YouTuber Cam Wilder posted a video of his youth AAU basketball team on March 31, 2025, and a boy on the sidelines can be heard yelling the phrase. A TikTok clip of that moment followed on April 1, 2025, and the excited boy became a reaction image in his own right. Dictionary.com's announcement also mentions the kid who went viral for saying it at a youth basketball game.

- Dec 2024: Skrilla's "Doot Doot (6 7)" surfaces, first shared on Instagram
- Jan 2025: LaMelo Ball edits using the hook spread on TikTok and Instagram Reels
- Jan 25, 2025: Taylen Kinney's interview clip adds the palms-up gesture
- Mar 31, 2025: The 67 Kid shouts it on the sidelines in a Cam Wilder video
- Late Aug 2025: The hand sign takes off on TikTok as school starts
- Oct 29, 2025: Dictionary.com names 67 its 2025 Word of the Year

*Dates from Know Your Meme, the Philadelphia Inquirer and ABC's report on Dictionary.com's announcement.*

## How 6 7 became a word of the year

Dictionary.com announced "67" as its 2025 Word of the Year on October 29, 2025, according to ABC's coverage. The editors said the term showed up in digital media six times more often in October 2025 alone than in all of 2024. Other words on its shortlist included aura farming, Gen Z stare, overtourism, tariff and tradwife. Steve Johnson, director of lexicography at the Dictionary Media Group, described it as a mix of private joke, signal to the group and performance, which is about as close to a definition as anyone has come.

- 6x: more uses in digital media in October 2025 than in all of 2024, per Dictionary.com
- 2025: the year Dictionary.com named 67 its Word of the Year

*As reported by ABC's 6abc on October 29, 2025.*

By then it had already left the internet. Chalkbeat reported in November 2025 that some schools had tried to ban it outright, while other teachers folded it into lessons, from 67-word essays to a schoolwide party on the 67th day of school.

## How people use 6 7 on social media

On TikTok, 6 7 lives in the comments. Any video with a 6 and a 7 in it, whether that's a price of $6.70, a 67-second clip, a basketball score or someone who mentions they're 6 foot 7, will collect a wall of "6 7" replies. Creators bait it on purpose with captions like "guess my height" or "rate this 1 to 10." On Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts it works the same way, plus the gesture on camera. In group chats and DMs it's a one-line reply to anything with those digits in it, including a time like 6:07.

It shows up much less on LinkedIn and Facebook, and when it does it's usually a parent or teacher asking what it means. If you post on TikTok often, captions with numbers in them will draw it whether you want it or not, so it helps to decide ahead of time whether you'll lean in or let it pass. Our guide on [why a TikTok isn't getting views](/blog/why-is-my-tiktok-not-getting-views) covers what actually moves reach, and a comment pile-on like this isn't on the list of things to worry about.

Here's how it tends to look in practice. These are made-up examples:

- A comment under a cooking video: "bake at 367 degrees?? 6 7"
- A reply in a group chat after "meet at 6:07": "6 7"
- A caption on a basketball edit: "how tall is he? (it's 6 7)"
- A student in class when the teacher says "turn to page 67": "SIX SEVEN"
- A comment under a scoreboard photo: "final score 67 to 54, you know what time it is"
- A parent in a Facebook group: "Can someone explain why my son says 6 7 at dinner"

## How to reply to 6 7

There's no wrong answer, because there's no question. Most replies fall into three camps: join in, ignore it, or gently take the wind out of it. Teachers interviewed by Chalkbeat used all three. One Denver teacher turned it into a call and response where she counts "1, 2, 3, 4, 5" and the class answers "6 7," and found that adopting the students' language made the trend fade faster. Another teacher in Indianapolis said "6 or 7 minutes" on purpose, which made the phrase feel less cool once an adult owned it.

**Someone just said 6 7. What do you do?**
- A friend in a chat → Say it back. That's the whole exchange.
- A comment on your post → Like it or reply with the gesture. You don't need to explain anything.
- Your kid or student, again → Make it a one-time call and response, or use it yourself until it stops being fun for them.
- A coworker, half joking → A short laugh is enough. Nobody expects you to know the lore.

## When not to use it

6 7 is a kids' and teens' joke from 2025. That makes it fun in a comment section and risky almost everywhere else. On a brand account, using it to look current tends to land the way Chalkbeat's teachers described: once adults use it, it stops being cool, and the audience you're trying to reach notices. If your audience really is teens and you're already fluent in their humor, a single well-timed 6 7 can work. If you're explaining it to yourself first, skip it.

Keep it out of anything where a number matters. A caption that says "6 7 days left in the sale" will confuse people who read it literally, and a price or date written as 6 7 can look like a typo. In work messages, on LinkedIn, in customer support replies and in anything a stranger will skim quickly, write the number plainly.

**6 7 is fine when**
- [ ] You're replying to friends who already use it
- [ ] You're commenting on a playful TikTok, Reel or Short
- [ ] Your audience is mostly teens and you already speak their language
- [ ] No real number, price or date could be misread

## Spellings and look-alikes

You'll see it written several ways, and they all mean the same joke. What changes is how easily it gets mistaken for an ordinary number.

| Written as | What it usually means | Watch out for |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 6 7 | The meme, said "six seven" | Nothing, this is the clearest spelling |
| 6-7 | The meme | Can read as a score, a range or a record |
| 67 | The meme, or just the number sixty-seven | Context decides; Dictionary.com used this spelling |
| six seven | The meme, spelled out | Rare in comments, common in headlines |
| 6'7" | A height of six feet seven inches | Usually literal, though often a setup for the joke |

6 7 belongs to the same family of Gen Alpha in-jokes as [skibidi](/glossary/skibidi), [aura](/glossary/aura) and calling someone an [NPC](/glossary/npc): phrases that spread through short-form video, travel into classrooms, and get explained in news articles for confused adults. If you're writing captions for a younger audience, the [TikTok caption character counter](/tools/tiktok-caption-character-counter) helps you keep the hook short, and our notes on [the best time to post on TikTok](/blog/best-time-to-post-on-tiktok) cover when that audience is actually scrolling. For the network itself, see [publishing to TikTok](/platform/tiktok).

## Questions

### Is 6 7 a bad word?

No. It isn't rude, sexual or insulting. Schools that banned it did so because it was disruptive, not because it was offensive.

### Who is the 67 Kid?

He's a boy who shouted 6-7 from the sidelines in a YouTube video of a youth basketball team posted on March 31, 2025. Clips of his reaction spread on TikTok and made him the face of the meme.

### What is the 6 7 hand gesture?

Both hands held out with the palms up, moving up and down in turn like a scale weighing two things. It was popularized by a clip of basketball player Taylen Kinney.

### Why do kids say 6 7 all the time?

Because it's an inside joke with no meaning, saying it shows you're in on it. It's also easy to trigger, since sixes and sevens show up in scores, prices, pages and times all day long.

### Is 6 7 about LaMelo Ball?

Partly. The song came first, but the meme took off through highlight edits of LaMelo Ball, who is 6 feet 7 inches tall.

### Is it six seven or sixty-seven?

Always six seven. Saying sixty-seven gives away that you don't know the joke.

## Related terms

- [Skibidi](https://postmesh.app/glossary/skibidi)

- [Aura](https://postmesh.app/glossary/aura)

- [NPC](https://postmesh.app/glossary/npc)

- [Sigma](https://postmesh.app/glossary/sigma)

- [Rizz](https://postmesh.app/glossary/rizz)

- [Gyat](https://postmesh.app/glossary/gyat)

## Sources

- [Know Your Meme: 67 Meme / Six Seven](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/67-meme-six-seven)

- [Know Your Meme: 6-7 Song / Doot Doot by Skrilla](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/6-7-song-doot-doot-by-skrilla)

- [6abc (ABC): Dictionary.com reveals '67' is its 2025 Word of the Year](https://6abc.com/post/dictionary-reveals-67-is-2025-word-year/18086476/)

- [The Philadelphia Inquirer: Where the six-seven meme came from](https://www.inquirer.com/news/nation-world/six-seven-meme-origin-meaning-20251021.html)

- [Complex: Skrilla's 6 7 meme explained](https://www.complex.com/music/a/khal/skrilla-6-7-meme-explained)

- [Chalkbeat: How teachers manage 6-7 classroom disruptions](https://www.chalkbeat.org/2025/11/19/teachers-manage-6-7-classroom-disruptions/)