Written By Acacia Bernier, Staff Writer
What is the 6-7 meme from the perspective of high schoolers, university students, and teachers?
“Six Seven”. This phrase has undoubtedly rang loud and proud all around the school hallways, Instagram reels, and your little brother’s mouth. But what in the world does it mean? Besides being the height of professional basketball player, LaMelo Ball, where the meme’s virality originated from means absolutely nothing. 6-7 is one of the most nonsensical memes that has progressed through this generation, right alongside skibidi toilet. However there is a certain quality to the meme that has made it endure and stand the test of time, surviving over around six or seven months of usage. What, you might ask, is this quality? Connection is this quality.
Throughout the last year, many memes have surfaced, and new lingo has sprouted from the soil of “brain rot.” This term has been defined by Gen Z to indicate the low effort speech that has the effect of “rotting your brain.” However, many of these memes last for at most a few weeks, but this has not been the case for 6-7. To find out the reason for its prevalence, I had to go to the root of all Gen Z and ask my fellow peers at school how they felt about the meme. When asked for their opinion on the meme, I got a pretty consistent response:
Natally Gamboa (10) described her first thoughts of it as “stupid,” yet how there is a degree of “fun” in simply saying the phrase. Damian Villegas (12) recalled how he thought of it as just “two random numbers” at first, but as the meme became more viral, he saw the humor in how “dumb” it was. It was exactly this dumbness that, as Maddox Long (12) put it, “brought people together,” because laughter in general has that effect. While the impression that high schoolers have of the lighthearted meme is not surprising, its effect of bringing classmates and students together reveals the binding power it has. However, college students’ interpretation of 6-7 contrasted greatly with the people mentioned above.
While the meme is very popular among high school students, the same cannot be said about college students. In fact, it was evident that they were very much indifferent to the meme. I had the chance to interview a few students from University of California Riverside, one of them being Rebecca Young, a 3rd year at the school. Her opinion was that while the meme evidently “doesn’t make sense,” she has “seen better” growing up in the 2010’s. Zoe Shum, another 3rd year at UCR, explains that although she does not have a “deep impression and understanding on it”, it has changed the way she looks “at numbers.” It became apparent that college students simply did not have the same understanding and appreciation for it that high school students did. Therefore while high school students took the side that the meme connects people together the same does not seem to apply to college students. This is further supported by Young as she comments that the 6-7 meme, instead of connecting people together, “makes the generation gap more obvious” as she had to Google the meme in order to understand it. While it may “unite the younger kids” she continues, for college students it simply is just “harder to understand” what young people are saying. This showcases not all humor breaks the generational divide, even in the face of the great 6-7 joke. But what do teachers who work so closely with students have to say about it?
High school students love it; college students prove to be indifferent, and teachers seem to take the approach of “been there, heard that.” For example, Poly math teacher Mr. Chavez indicates that he thinks the joke is “kind of funny” but its general impact is very “neutral”. However, in the case of bringing students together, he says that at the end of the day it “creates a more positive environment” where students can laugh together. Physics teacher Mr. Van, with a seasoned attitude, explained that teachers have “been doing this for years.” He referenced the Poly original meme of “back at it with the white vans” and the whole “Damn Daniel” sensation in 2016 to support his assertion. Therefore, it’s apparent that teachers have been going through the motions, experiencing another fad of comical passion by the students; it does connect with them for a time, but it always fizzles out at some point.
Overall, while the older generations may see 6-7 as one of the many weird quirks of Gen Z, it is clear that the senseless joke has truly brought classes of students together in a very positive way. No vulgarity, no harm, just two numbers that can make a whole class burst out laughing (if done appropriately). Overall it is pretty much a consensus that it is hilariously dumb, but 6-7 is more than just numbers for young ones; the joke is a bond that will stand the test of time-or a few more months.