What is the 'six, seven' viral sensation that is driving parents mad?

TikTok’s latest viral sensation has flooded feeds and made its way into classrooms around the world.

The app is filled with videos of youngsters shouting the numbers “six, seven”, much to the confusion of most adults.

With more than two million posts using the hashtag #67 in September and October, TikTok has been flooded with children engaging with the meme, parents voicing frustrations over it, and teachers using the numbers as a tactic to engage their students.

When saying the phrase “six, seven,” kids say it slower and move their hands as if they’re weighing something up.

Despite its prevalence on TikTok, most people don’t know what it means, with one parent saying it’s being used to “drive us mad”.

One TikTok user said the phrase has so little meaning that it can be used in any situation and make sense to the viewer.

Gemma Clarke, a primary school teacher in Inverclyde, noticed the trend a few months ago when she was running a book club for kids in P6 and P7.

“I run book club and they were all asking, ‘Miss what age is the book club for’ and I answered P6 and P7 and they all reponsed with ‘six, seven’, which just left me so curious,” she told STV News.

As for the meaning of the trend, the P5 teacher said the kids tell her it doesn’t mean anything.

“I’ve asked some of the older students and the general consensus is it’s linked to a basketball player, but I’ve heard seven-eight-nine theories and all sorts. But really it’s just kids being kids.”

While some teachers have voiced frustrations over the trend interrupting learning, Ms Clarke has used it to get kids engaged.

“You know I told the kids we were going to do the times tables, and they all groaned, but then I told them it was the six and seven times table, and they were really engaged,” she said.

She took the viral trend one step further by going as “six, seven” to the school’s Halloween disco.

“I spent the whole day telling the kids I had a really scary costume, but I just had six and seven on my face and T-shirt, it was brilliant,” she said.

Ms Clarke expected her costume to make the kids think the trend was “uncool”, but that seems to have backfired.

“I really thought it would make them not be into the trend anymore, but now I’ve got kids, I don’t even know coming up to me calling me Miss Six Seven.”

Where does the phrase ‘six, seven’ come from?

The phrase itself comes from a 2024 song by the rapper Skrilla in his song “Doot Doot”, during which he raps: “6-7, I just bipped right on the highway”.

The rapper himself spoke to the Wall Street Journal about the phrase, saying it’s meaningless.

“I never put an actual meaning on it, and I still would not want to,” he told the paper.

He added that he believes the absence of meaning is “why everybody keeps saying it”.

A creator on the app, Mr Lindsay, first explained the phrase in February, saying that it’s just a line from the song that got put over an edit of basketball player LaMelo Ball, who is six feet seven in height.

In August, the self-proclaimed “OG Student Translator” added that the music has been used in many basketball edits, with some NBA players referencing it in their press conferences.

Mr Lindsay posted another video about the viral meme on Tuesday, about how it’s “going nowhere” before showing viewers his whiteboard covered in the number, which he claimed was done by a student.