Opinion ‘Six-seven’ is a rage. Until parents ruin it, of course

The “ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything”, wrote Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is “42”. Or, in other words, the product of six and seven. There’s one minor snag: No one quite knows what the ultimate question is. In much the same way, it appears, no adult quite knows what “six-seven” — the newest cultural mayfly that teens around the world, including in India, are dropping like confetti in classrooms, playgrounds and at the dining table — means. That is the entire point.

Neologisms of such variety have always marked the boundaries of youth — encrypted codes incomprehensible to adults, insouciant to friends, and doomed to obsolescence. The internet has turbocharged this cycle, turning slang into cultural currency traded across reels and clips, on Instagram and Discord servers. Once upon a timeline, things were “on fleek”. Then came “yeet” and “slay”. Before that, everything was “lit” and YOLO, miles above “mid”. “Skibidi” came and went in the space of a meme. “Six-seven” has followed the same pattern of digital migration. It appears to have sprouted from a 2024 rap track, ‘Doot Doot’ (6 7) by Skrilla, before mutating through basketball fandom, mostly of LaMelo Ball, 6ft 7in — but of course — and landing in an episode of South Park. Along the way, it also acquired a visual meme code: Upturned palms, rising and falling in tandem.

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The freedom of such coinages has always been in their ephemerality: A flare of rebellion against the grammar police, a reminder that language, like adolescence, can be play — elastic, irreverent and gloriously incomprehensible to those who pay the WiFi bill — before maturing into something entirely mundane. The other surest way to kill a trend, of course, is to have parents use it. Or worse, wear it. In the United States this Halloween, “six-seven” costumes are reportedly gaining traction among parents, much to the agony of their offspring. Because nothing says the death of cool quite like dad wearing it.