Copyright The Oregonian
First there was “6 7.” Then there was “41.” And now there’s a new number meme that might be taking hold on social media and creeping into the mouths of youth everywhere: “6 1.” What are these memes, where did they come from and why are tweens and teens everywhere saying these numbers? Let’s start with 6 7 (pronounced six SEV-en), since the other two are largely derivatives of that long-running viral meme. The 6 7 craze began with rapper Skrilla’s late 2024 song “Doot Doot (6 7),” which includes the words “6 7” in the lyrics. Content creators started using the song as the background track for short online videos, especially sports videos. And these sports videos often featured Charlotte Hornets star LaMelo Ball, who stands 6-foot-7. High school basketball star Taylen Kinney fueled the meme with a hand motion that looks like someone is weighing two different ideas back and forth. And 6 7 only intensified after video of Maverick Trevillian went viral in March. The “6 7 kid,” as he is now known, was in the stands at a basketball game when a camera panned to him and he shouted “6 7!” while doing the hand motion. The phrase 6 7 seems to have little or no meaning, but kids love to say it to reference the meme or to highlight it in real-life situations and conversations. “What time do you want to eat tonight?” a parent might ask. “6 7!” comes the reply. “There is no real meaning to it,” middle school teacher and social media star Philip Lindsay explained in a video in August. “It is a number that is fun to say, popularized by a meme, with the hand motions, and it just doesn’t mean anything.” The 6 7 meme might wind up one of the stickiest of 2025. It surfaced way back in the winter, but months later it is still going strong. The meme 41 (pronounced forty-one) started with a 2021 song by another rapper, Blizzi Boi, who rapped about being 41 and having 41 of various things. In August, TikTokers such as Hoopify helped the 41 meme gain popularity. The gesture associated with 41 is palms down and hands moving side to side, billed as the opposite of 6 7. TikToker Spartan Swot introduced 6 1 (pronounced six one) last week, posting a video of himself doing a version of the hand gesture from the 6 7 meme while saying “6 1” over and over. It might be tough for 6 1 to gain the kind of traction that 6 7 and 41 did before it, but by Tuesday afternoon the 6 1 video had been viewed 9.3 million times and had more than 700,000 likes. Clearly, the number memes are doing numbers in 2025.
