January 15, 2026 – 12:36 PM
(Image by Charlein Gracia via Unsplash)
How logistics industry experts plan to ‘move forward’ after COVID-19
Reasons why Filipinos love Korean culture and products
Why Batangas is the destination for budget-friendly family holidays
Many adults are breathing a sigh of relief as the
6-7 meme
fades away as one of the biggest kid-led global fads of 2025.
In case you managed to miss it,
6-7 is a slang term
– spoken aloud as “six seven” – accompanied by an arm gesture that mimics someone weighing something in their hands.
Shouts of “6-7” disrupted classrooms
rained down
at sporting events
Think pieces proliferated
For the most part, adults responded with mild annoyance and confusion.
But as media scholars
who study
children’s culture
, we didn’t view the meme with bewilderment or exasperation. Instead, we thought back to our own childhoods on three different continents – and all the secret languages we spoke.
There was Pig Latin
The cool “S”
doodled on countless worksheets and bathroom stalls. Forming an
L-shape
with our thumb and index finger to insult someone. Remixing the words of hand-clapping games from previous generations.
6-7 is only the latest example of
these long-standing practices
– and though the gesture might not mean much to adults, it says a lot about children’s play, their social lives and their desire for power.
The irresistible allure of 6-7
A typical school day involves a tight schedule of adult-directed activities; kids have little time or space for agency.
But during those in-between times when children are able to stealthily evade adult surveillance –
on playgrounds
, on the internet and even
– children’s culture can thrive. In these spaces, they can make the rules. They set the terms. And if it confuses adults, all the better.
As 6-7 went viral,
teachers complained
banning the number 67
from their ticket ordering system.
The meaninglessness of 6-7 made it easy to create a sense of inclusion and exclusion – and to annoy adults,
who strained to decipher hidden meanings
. In the U.S., siblings and friends dressed as the numbers 6-7 for Halloween. And in Australia, it was rumored that houses with 6-7 in their address were going for astronomical prices.
Remixing games and rhymes
historians have documented
back slang
,” which happens when words are phonetically spoken backwards. And nonsense words and phrases have long proliferated in children’s culture: Recent examples include “
booyah
,” “
skibidi
” and “
talk to the hand
6-7 also coincides with a long history of children revising, adapting and remixing games and rhymes.
Mugunghwa kkochi pieotseumnida
” – which roughly translates to “The rose of Sharon has bloomed,” a reference to South Korea’s national flower – is similar to the game “Red Light, Green Light” in English-speaking countries. In the game “Hwang-ma!,” South Korean children in the early aughts shouted the word and playfully struck a peer upon seeing a
rare, gold-colored car
, a game similar to “
Punch Buggy
” and “Slug Bug” in the U.S. and Australia.
Jarek Tuszyński/Wikimedia Commons
CC BY-SA
Historically, children have
reworked rhymes and clapping games
to draw on popular culture of the day. “Georgie Best, Superstar,” sung to the tune of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” was a popular chant on
U.K. playgrounds in the 1970s
that celebrated the legendary soccer player George Best. And a variation of the clapping game “
I went to a Chinese Restaurant
” included the lyrics “My name is, Elvis Presley, girls are sexy, Sitting on the back seat, drinking Pepsi.”
Making space for children’s culture
One reason 6-7 became so popular is the low barrier to entry: Saying “6-7” and doing the accompanying hand movement is easy to pick up and translate into different cultural contexts. The simplicity of the meme allowed young Korean children to repeat the phrase in English. And deaf children have participated by
signing the meme
play games that feature the numbers
With or without access to the internet, children will continue to transform language and games to suit their needs – which, yes, includes getting under the skin of adults.
A great deal of attention is given to the omnipresence of digital technologies in children’s lives, but we think it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate the way children are using these technologies to innovate and connect in ways both creative and mundane.
Rebekah Willett
, Professor in the Information School,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Amanda Levido
, Lecturer,
Southern Cross University
, and
Hyeon-Seon Jeong
, Professor of Digital Media Education,
Gyeongin National University of Education.
The Conversation
under a Creative Commons license. Read the
original article
TAGS
6-7 meme
children
six seven