Requiem for 6-7
A meme takes over the world. Then it disappears.
Two days into 2026, I am already reminded how culturally clueless I am. Lake Superior State University just released its 50th annual “Banished Words” list, a public service delivered from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, which is just across the St. Mary’s River from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The list endeavors to free us from overused and banal terms. The No. 1 banished word for the new year isn’t a word at all. It’s an Internet meme and pop-culture expression known as 6-7. (It is also written as 67 or 6 7. All three varieties are pronounced, cleverly, as “six seven.”)
Here is what I know about 67. It adds up to 13. If you reverse the digits, it still adds up to 13. It’s how tall Aaron Judge and Luka Doncic are, and how tall one of my childhood heroes, Julius Erving, is. Apparently 6-7 has so saturated public discourse that it needs to be tossed out of the language immediately. It’s quite humbling that I was unaware of it until I heard the broadcasters on one of the College Football Playoff games making inside 6-7 jokes.
The phrase derives from a song by the rapper Skrilla (nee Jemille Edwards) called “Doot Doot 6 7.” I know this because Wikipedia told me. “I know he dyin’ (oh my, oh my God) 6-7, I just bipped right on the highway (Bip, bip)”, Skrilla sings. LaMelo Ball, a professional basketball player with the Charlotte Hornets, who happens to be 6-7, popularized the term by appearing in various video edits of it, and then an Overtime Elite basketball player ,Taylen “TK” Kinney, made it his mantra or sorts, further spreading the gospel. By the time a youngster named Maverick Trevillian featured in a viral video showing him yelling “6-7” at a basketball game while making extremely animated hand gestures, the meme was all over TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts. Maverick became known as the “67 kid.”
What does 6-7 actually mean? That is an excellent question. Some have theorized it is a reference to 67th Street in Philadelphia, where Skrilla grew up. Taylor Jones, a linguistic expert who is an authority on African-American English, offered that it might be a reference to “10-67,” the code used by Philadelphia police to report a death. Skrilla, for his part, said, “I never put an actual meaning on it, and I still would not want to.”
So nobody really knows what 6-7 means, or can explain why it so inundated pop culture that it earned the top spot of Lake Superior State’s banished list. You were either in on it, or you weren’t. I was in the latter camp. It will remain one of those Internet enigmas, until the next one comes along. When it does, I will be the last to know.
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HA!! Impressive research! Who knew? Not me.
As someone who spends 8ish hours a day with middle school students, I knew where this was going. Not a single student can say what it is or what it means, but it meant that I lost control of a bunch of 12 year olds when I told them to open to page 67 earlier in the school year. I’m legitimately so thankful there are people like you, Wayne, who remain blissfully unaware of the idiotic musings that the internet spews out.