“Sixty-Seven? Never!” — How “67” Went From Kid Joke to Dictionary.com’s 2025 Word of the Year!

-

If you heard a roomful of teenagers shout “67!” at precisely the same second and didn’t know why, congratulations — you just experienced the sociolinguistic miracle of 2025. 

Dictionary.com recently announced that “67” is its 2025 Word of the Year, declaring the choice a kind of “linguistic time capsule” that captures the cultural currents of the year. 

Translation for adults: a number became a feeling, and now it has a plaque!

What Even Is “67”?

Short answer: nobody quite agrees — and that’s the point. 

The term, always pronounced “six-seven” (never “sixty-seven,” per the dictionary), functions as an interjection that can mean “so-so,” “maybe this,” “maybe that,” or simply “I’m in on the joke.” 

Dictionary.com ties it to 'brainrot slang' — intentionally nonsensical, delightfully absurd, and designed to create in-groups. 

As Steve Johnson, Ph.D., director of lexicography for the Dictionary Media Group at IXL Learning, put it: “It's part inside joke, part social signal and part performance,” and “When people say it, they're not just repeating a meme; they're shouting a feeling.” 

Johnson adds that it’s rare for a Word of the Year to work as an interjection: a “burst of energy” that connects people before it has a settled meaning.

Pop-culture Origins (or at least rumors)

The provenance reads like a choose-your-own-origin playlist: some trace “67” back to Skrilla’s 2024 song “Doot Doot (6 7)”; others link it to NBA guard LaMelo Ball, who happens to be 6 feet, 7 inches tall (convenient coincidence or deliberate tribute?). 

Then there’s the phenomenon known as “The 67 Kid,” a boy who went viral after yelling the number at a youth basketball game and bequeathing the phrase to the internet. 

If you’re keeping score: one pop song + one athlete + one viral child = a multi-modal meme recipe that linguists will parse for years.

South Park Sealed The Deal

If adulthood is denial, broadcast satire is recognition. 

The meme earned an extra push when Season 28 of South Park used the trend in its premiere episode, portraying kids and teens gleefully driving flummoxed adults to the brink of existential sock-drawer reorganization. 

The cartoon’s skewering confirmed the phrase’s cultural saturation: once South Park notices, you’ve officially crossed the internet’s event horizon from ephemeral to undeniable!

How Big Did “67” Get?

Dictionary.com’s analysis found that usage of “67” spiked sharply — appearing in digital media six times more frequently in October 2025 alone than throughout all of 2024. 

That’s the linguistic equivalent of a weird TikTok dance going from “niche” to “national anthem” in a single harvest moon. 

The word’s trajectory shows how quickly Gen Z–driven micro-trends can leap into mainstream discourse and then be embalmed in a dictionary for future archaeologists.

Why This Matters (beyond the giggles)

“67” demonstrates three things about modern language:

  1. Speed: A phrase needs only a few viral nodes — a song, an athlete, a viral kid, and a satire show — to become global.

  2. Function over form: The meaning is elastic; what unites users is not denotation but performance and belonging.

  3. Cultural transmission: Words now spread by memetic contagion rather than gradual lexical adoption.

Other Finalists And The Company It Kept

“67” beat out a shortlist that included words reflecting broader cultural anxieties and trends: agentic, aura farming, Gen Z stare, overtourism, tariff, and tradwife. 

In other words, lexicographers considered both the absurd (67) and the earnest (tariff) before picking the winner that most purely captured the year’s youthful, performative energy.

So How Do You Use “67”?

You don’t — at least not with the dignity of someone preparing for a dictionary citation. 

If you do...you say it as a quick, context-malleable exclamation: in line for coffee, on a group chat poll, or shouted during a baffling family holiday argument. 

If you feel silly, you’re doing it right. 

If you don’t know what it means, ask a teenager. Good luck getting a straight answer!

If you do know exactly what it means, say it out loud and enjoy the small, quiet contagion that comes from being inexplicably in on something.

Language has always had its secret handshakes. 

In 2025, that handshake is a number that refuses to be merely a number. 

“Six-seven” might mean nothing — and that might be its whole point...


South Park Delays Episode 3 — and Paramount Throws a Polite Sit-In

“No paywall. No puppets. Just local truth. Chip in $3 today” at https://buymeacoffee.com/doublejeopardynews

“Enjoy this content without corporate censorship? Help keep it that way.”

“Ad-Free. Algorithm-Free. 100% Independent. Support now.”

#67WordOfTheYear #SixSeven #DictionaryDotCom #SteveJohnson #BrainrotSlang #DootDoot #Skrilla #LaMeloBall #The67Kid #SouthParkSeason28 #GenZLanguage #LinguisticTimeCapsule #ViralMeme #MemeToDictionary #WordsThatBind


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Please Help Find These Forgotten Girls Held at Male Juvenile Prison for Over a Year!

-
Image
  MY MOST IMPORTANT STORY  Dozens of Forgotten Little Girls Held at Male Juvenile Prison for Over a Year! Welcome to the Sunshine State, where the palm trees sway, the alligators lurk, and the legislative process makes Kafka look like a life coach!  Florida House Bill HB21 . Not just a compensation bill but possibly a 20 million dollar "Stay out of Jail Free" card for some folks. This is a bill that does some good—but also trips over its own shoelaces, falls down a staircase, and lands on a historical oversight so big, it might as well have its own zip code! An oversight that overlooks what I consider to be its most vulnerable victims! The Setup: Justice with a Catch HB21 was enacted on July 1, 2024 to compensate victims of abuse from two male juvenile detention facilities located in Florida, Dozier and Okeechobee.  It says, “Hey, survivors of abuse between 1940 and 1975, here’s some compensation for the horrific things you endured!” Sounds good, right? Like a...
Read more

Here's A New HOA Rule Dictating What You Can Do Inside Your Home

-
Image
HOA Overreach: When Your Own Home Isn’t Really Your Own The joys of homeownership—the American dream!  That magical place where you can paint the walls any color you like, blast your music (within reason), and enjoy the simple pleasure of—wait, never mind..... Turns out, your HOA might have something to say about what you do inside your own four walls. Case in point: A longtime homeowner, who has peacefully lived in his residence for 25 years, was blindsided when his HOA suddenly banned smoking inside individual homes.  That’s right—after a quarter-century of no issues, he was informed that lighting up indoors was no longer an option.  The new rule, passed at the HOA’s annual meeting by a majority vote, now restricts smoking to a designated outdoor area. Now, while some might see this as a health-conscious decision, the homeowner—whose wife is a smoker—sees it as an unfair overreach.  In a letter to a local publication, he expressed frustration, writing, “I’ve live...
Read more

Postal Police Stuck Behind ‘Keep Out’ Signs While Mailmen Face Muggers: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up!!

-
Image
As crime against letter carriers surges, one would think that America’s armed, uniformed Postal Police might be hitting the streets to protect our mail.  Instead, they’re still glued to their post office entrances like sentries guarding Fort Frownmore.  Why?  Because since 2020, the Postmaster General decreed they must “protect postal property” only—meaning, they currently serve as glorified lobby bouncers rather than actual roaming guardians of the mailstream. “ They’re robbing letter carriers, they’re sticking a gun in a letter carrier’s face and they’re demanding arrow keys, ” laments Frank Albergo , president of the National Postal Police Union and a Postal Police Officer himself.  An "arrow key" in the context of the Post Office is a specialized, universal key that postal workers use to access various locked mail receptacles, including collection boxes, apartment mailboxes, and cluster boxes. Albergo isn’t exaggerating—research shows over 100 physical assaul...
Read more