What Does 67 Mean? The Six Seven Meme Explained
67 (six seven) is the number everyone under 15 is shouting. Here is what it means, why it means nothing, and how to use it without embarrassing yourself.
· 3 min read · by the 67 team
Six seven! Don't just read it: Play 67 Join the chat
If you have been near a school, a basketball court or a TikTok feed in the last year, you have heard it: "six seven!", usually shouted, usually with two hands moving up and down like a scale. This is 67, the most successful meaningless word of the decade.
The short answer
67 does not mean anything. That is not a cop-out, it is the whole point. It is a sound people make to signal that they are in on the joke. Linguists have a word for this kind of expression: phatic. Phatic language exists to connect people, not to carry information. "Hey", "yo", "what's up" and "lol" all work the same way. 67 is the first number to join the club.
Where it came from
The number comes from a 2024 song by Philadelphia rapper Skrilla called "Doot Doot (6 7)". In the hook he repeats "six seven", a nod to 67th Street in his neighbourhood. In early 2025, TikTok editors paired the sound with clips of NBA guard LaMelo Ball, who happens to be listed at 6 feet 7 inches. The line landed on the height, the edits went viral, and the number was free to mean whatever the next person wanted.
Then came the hand gesture, the kid screaming it at a youth basketball game, the teachers banning it, the dictionaries crowning it, and, eventually, this website.
How people actually use it
- As a reaction. Someone says a number with a 6 or a 7 in it: page 67, 6:07 pm, a 7-6 score. Someone else yells "six seven!". Everyone does the hands.
- As an answer. "How was the test?" Palms up, hands weighing the air: "six… seven…". Translation: so-so, could be worse, who knows.
- As a greeting. Two kids see each other across a hallway. Hands go up. No words needed.
- As pure chaos. A crowd of ten thousand people notices the scoreboard reads 67 and erupts. This has happened at real college games.
Is it 67, 6-7 or six seven?
All three. Written, it is usually 67 or 6-7. Spoken, it is always "six seven", two separate words, never "sixty-seven". Saying "sixty-seven" is how you reveal you are over thirty.
Why kids love it
Because adults do not get it. A meme with no meaning cannot be explained, so it cannot be taken away. Every attempt by a teacher to ban it, or by a news anchor to decode it, only confirms that it works. It is also physically fun: the gesture is easy, the sound is short, and shouting it in a quiet room is a small, harmless rebellion.
Will it die?
Every meme does. But 67 has already outlived most: it survived a Word of the Year award, a South Park episode and a million explainer videos, which usually kill a trend on contact. Our bet is that it settles into the language the way "lol" did: no longer funny, still used every day.
Until then, the correct response to reading this article is to look at the nearest person, raise both hands, and say it. You know the words.
