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Roll your eyes all you want, but at this point, you should probably just embrace it and juggle your hands in the air… because Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year is the viral term “6-7” – also spelled “67”, “Six-seven” and usually blurted out as “six SEVEN!”
Unless you’re part of Generation Alpha, a younger member of Gen-Z or just perpetually online, the random shouting out of these two numbers probably doesn’t make any sense to you… And nor should it.
There’s no sense to be found in this trend – as we explained in our breakdown of the TikTok slang. It’s not really even a word, but its use has grown over the summer and it has become a widespead cultural phenomenon on social media.
Even Dictionary.com admitted it is a bit confused by “6-7.”
“Don’t worry, because we’re all still trying to figure out exactly what it means,” the site said. “It’s meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical. In other words, it has all the hallmarks of brainrot. Still, it remains meaningful to the people who use it because of the connection it fosters.”
Put simply, 6-7 is a nonsensical expression that is meaningless by design and depending on which pint-sized ragamuffin you ask about it, “6-7” could be a nod to height (6’7’’), a funny playground password, a term meaning ‘so-so’ or ‘mid’, or just a term used to frustrate adults who are slowly losing the will to live.
But fear not: the more older generations start embracing it, 6-7 will become “cringe” (or “cringebag”, as more erudite teens are calling it) and will fade away into nothingness like previous fleeting trends.
Remember when a lot of things were “demure” last year?
Point made.
Six-seven had strong competition from other words that were shortlisted for word of the year. The shortlist included:
- Agentic: (of AI) capable of acting autonomously and independently to accomplish a goal, decision or task; the blurring boundary between human and machine initiative.
- Aura farming: the intentional cultivation of one’s charisma, presence or vibe, often for attention or social media clout.
- Broligarchy: a blend of bro and oligarchy; the concentration of power among a small and culturally homogenous elite.
- Clanker: a mocking label for artificial intelligence, AI systems, chatbots, and other nonhuman technologies.
- Gen Z stare: a blank, disengaged facial expression associated with Gen Z.
- Kiss Cam: a staple of sports arenas and concert venues, it went viral this year when two executives from data company Astronomer were spotted on the kiss cam at a Coldplay concert.
- Overtourism: too many tourists causing a place to suffer negative environmental and sociocultural impacts.
- Tariff: the system of duties or customs imposed by a government on imports or exports, brought to headlines everywhere because of Trump’s antics.
- Tradwife: a married woman who adheres to traditional female gender roles, often associated with conservative or alt-right political values.