"What are the dates this weekend?" the teacher announced innocently.

Within seconds, the classroom exploded with shrieking out of control pupils, all shouting "six-seveeeen", while performing an up-and-down hand gesture. The frantic teacher was expecting a calendar answer; instead, she triggered a full-blown meme awakening.

This weekend happens to fall on the most unintentionally iconic date of the year: 6-7. Now, if you're out of your tween and teenage years, or simply blissfully unaware, you're probably blinking in confusion. But ask any child or adolescent and they will practically levitate with excitement, chanting "six-seveeeen"complete with that enthusiastic hand gesture. Who knew numbers could carry this much hype? The more grown-ups desperately try to decode it, only to discover that there is nothing to decode, which, of course, only increases its appeal to the young. It perplexes teachers and parents. If you ask most children what it means, they probably can't tell you, and that's exactly the point.

Believe it or not, these nonsensical has been crowned Word of the Year by Dictionary.com. Absurd? Completely. Meaningless? To some respects. This reminds me of another viral phrase, the "Chicken Jockey" meme earlier this year, but add an extra dose of ambivalence to it. Apparently, the phrase 6-7 seems to come from Philadelphia rapper Skrilla's 2024 track Doot Doot (6 7), where it might refer to a police code, 67th Street, or possibly nothing at all. It's entirely possible Skrilla just liked how the numbers sounded together and called it a day.

So, what makes 6-7 so compelling? Its viral-ability comes from its lack of meaning. It functions as a punchline, a filler, a vibe. Kids know exactly what to do with it, use it everywhere, use it for everything, and above all, use it loudly. It's often dismissed as a symptom of a brainrotting, endlessly scrolling generation with declining critical thinking. But I tend to differ. It is more a reflection of a "post-truth" society, where communication matters more than meaning. And maybe that's exactly what makes 6-7 so brilliant. In a world drowning in information, real, fake, or AI-generated, Gen Alpha has planted its linguistic flag: a word that stands for absolutely nothing.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but there's something profoundly postmodern about the whole thing. The idea that it is meaningless is what gives itself meaning. 6-7 celebrates absurdity. It objects the idea that language must explain something. Instead, it embodies communication without content, and connection without explanation. Its popularity highlights a fascinating generational shift: the younger generation transform nonsense into a deliberate communication tool, a way of signalling that they're "in the know." They're part of the tribe, chirping and tweeting to each other like birds exchanging cryptic messages that only they understand.

This also reveals neatly something we adults get wrong again and again: children and young people are not passive. They are just finding their feet in the chaotic online world they were immersed in since infancy. They are often harshly caricatured as too soft, too passive and too uninterested. We criticise this generation for their screen time while handing them laptops in schools. We label them "unfocused" while raising them in a world designed to be overstimulating. They are very much targeted for "għandhom kollox u ma japprezzaw xejn!", a very unfair statement indeed just because they didn't live through WWII. It's almost comical how easily they are looked down for everything, including for shouting the trendy 6-7.

So, this weekend, when the date rolls around and the playgrounds erupt with "six-seveeeeen," maybe pause before rolling your eyes. That silly syllable isn't just nonsense, it's living evidence that young people are attempting to communicate between them. Meaning or no meaning, they've managed to unite millions in a moment of collective ridiculousness. A generational pun, or call it a craze, that is theirs.

 Us, the outsiders, can just watch baffled because we belong to the generation where the only childhood 6-7 pun we remember is "why was six scared of seven? Because seven eight (ate) nine."

Now six-seveeeeen to that kiddo!