Brain Rot

Learn a pointless card trick designed for the modern mindless masses based on the brain-rot concept of 6-7! 🧠

Last month, Dictionary.com announced that “6-7” (pronounced “six-seven”) was its 2025 Word of the Year. Yes, you read that correctly: the word of the year is a number! 

However, this unusual choice won’t be surprising if you’re a teacher or a parent of young children. And it might be something you should take notice of if you’re a magician (more on that later).

67

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[siks-se-vuhn] interjection and noun

Also 6-7 or six-seven

1. Slang (used to indicate swagger or insider status in Internet and youth culture).
2. A nonsensical expression connected to a song and a basketball player.

The other day, while collecting my three daughters from school, my seven-year-old excitedly pointed at the ground and exclaimed, “Dad, you’re standing in Six-Seven Land!” The numbers 6 and 7 were scribbled in colourful chalk all over the playground in the chaotic handwriting of unruly primary school pupils. Even the school building’s walls were covered in sixes and sevens!

My eldest daughter later told me that one child (who turned out to be her) was brave (or foolish) enough to deface the school’s logo (painted on the ground just beyond the main gate) by writing “67” beneath it. Another pupil then crossed out the logo and wrote “67 School” above it. (By the time I picked them up, the rain had already washed away this particularly egregious bit of graffiti by my very own daughter and her co-conspirator!)

A word of advice: You might also see “67” written as 6 7, 6-7, or six-seven, but the most important thing is to never pronounce it as “sixty-seven”, unless you wish to irritate your children deliberately—something I wholeheartedly support! 😉

The whole situation felt like a disturbing scene from a horror movie based on Stephen King’s latest bestseller. (At least the kids weren’t writing “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” on the playground and walls!)

So, why are my daughters and her classmates suddenly scribbling sixes and sevens everywhere and chanting “six-seven” at their teachers? Well, this is just the latest example of what has become known as brain-rot.

What is Brain Rot? 🧠

Brain rot, voted the 2024 Word of the Year by the Oxford English Dictionary, is defined as a perceived loss of intelligence or critical thinking skills caused by consuming too much unchallenging or inane content.

The term now also refers to the content itself, making it both the cause and the effect of this supposed mental decline.

Brain Rot

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[brayn rot] noun

1. A perceived loss of intelligence or critical thinking skills, especially on account of the overconsumption of unchallenging or frivolous content posted online.
2. Mindless digital content; the fixation on it and the harmful mental effects of it.

Back in my university days, when I was studying animation, we’d call this kind of online content “popcorn for the brain”—the type of weird stuff you’d find uploaded to Newgrounds or Rathergood. Just like the popular cinema snack, brain-rot content is simply “empty calories” for the mind. Something easy to consume, enjoyable in the moment, but which provides little to no real nourishment.

Image Credit: Marty’s Bag of Tricks.

I’m not opposed to this kind of online content; in fact, I’m a fan. At its best, it is hilarious, irreverent, and harmless fun. But we all know that too much junk food is bad for you. A zombified teenager endlessly doomscrolling through TikTok or Instagram is often the sad reality of the extremely online (another term that defines the post-social media era we’re living in).

There’s another condition called “popcorn brain”, a term coined by researcher Dr. David Levy of the University of Washington. It describes a mental state where our attention, accustomed to the rapid-fire “pops” of digital information, struggles to focus, with thoughts scattering like kernels in a hot pan. This isn’t just about the content (the “popcorn”), but the effect it has on our focus. It’s what makes it feel impossible to settle down and read a book... or, perhaps, watch a multi-phase magic trick that requires a bit of patience!

We see this as a modern, screen-based issue. However, the brain-rot epidemic echoes a far older complaint.

Way back in 1854, Henry David Thoreau, the American naturalist and author of Walden, predicted our current TikTok habits. While he wasn’t talking about screen-based media, he did reflect on a society that was devaluing complex thought, prioritising what he saw as trivial matters over genuine intellectual effort. And he called this general state of decline “brain-rot”:

“While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?”

In his famous book, Thoreau was referring to the agricultural disease (potato blight), which was a major real-world crisis at the time he was writing. The point he was making is that if society is dedicating so much effort to curing the literal rot destroying a staple food crop (potato-rot), then why is no one attempting to address the metaphorical rot (brain-rot) that he considered a more widespread and deadly decline in critical thinking?

Photograph of Henry Thoreau. Photo Credit: Benjamin D. Maxham (1848 - 1858) via Wikimedia Commons.

This means that the idea that easy, low-effort content is being prioritised over the difficult act of actually thinking is 170 years old! Even so, it’s a perfect fit for the digital age. Between 2023 and 2024, usage of the term “brain rot” increased by a whopping 230%!

The term’s modern meaning is now inextricably tied to the technology driving the attention economy: social media platforms that promise greater human connection but, in reality, promote shallow engagement with low-effort content. It is this type of material, usually video-based, that provides us with a highly addictive dopamine hit, keeping us coming back for more.

Content associated with popular online communities has led to the emergence of a whole lexicon of “brain-rot language”. Other recent examples include the bizarre “Skibidi Toilet” and “Only in Ohio” viral memes (Google these at your own peril!). These memes have evolved into their own, equally ambiguous slang terms: “Skibidi” can mean anything from “nonsensical” to “cool” or “bad,” and “Ohio” usually signifies something strange, weird, or embarrassing. The popularity of these terms reflects a trend where words originating in viral online culture spread offline into the “real world”, often divorced from their original context.

It is interesting that the term “brain rot” has been readily adopted by Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who are mainly responsible for creating and using the digital content the term describes. When it comes to brain rot, we are both the disease, the patient and the doctor! We suffer from the harmful effects of the very brain-rot content that we create or share. Yet we also gleefully self-diagnose this memetic malady, with a good dose of dark humour, as “brain rot”. Perhaps this is how younger generations are recognising the predicament they face. They want to be in on the joke, but they also understand that consuming brain-rot content at volume may well harm their mental health. 

It does make you wonder... if society had heeded Thoreau’s warning and cured the condition back then, would we still have so many “couch potatoes” suffering from “brain rot” today?

Where Did the 6-7 Meme Come From?

If brain rot is the disease and diagnosis, what is “6-7”? Well, perhaps it’s the ultimate symptom of brain-rot culture transmitted through three syllables of pure linguistic nonsense. When I asked my daughters what it meant, they all said they didn’t know. They were also unaware of its obscure origin. 

The phrase is believed to come from the song “Doot Doot (6-7)” by Skrilla, a rapper from Kensington, Philadelphia. He (unofficially) released the track in December 2024, which rapidly spread on TikTok.

Doot Doot (6 7) by Skrilla. Video Credit: Skrilla via YouTube.

The song’s lyrics are deliberately ambiguous, possibly a form of “criminal cant”, a secret language or jargon used by criminals to avoid implicating themselves in the crimes that they may (or may not) have committed. Linguists and fans have speculated that “6-7” could refer to the police radio code for a death (10-67). It could also refer to 67th Street in Philadelphia (or Chicago), or I-676, the Vine Street Expressway, an auxiliary Interstate Highway that acts as a major route through the city centre of Philadelphia.

As for Skrilla, he’s intentionally resisted giving the term a fixed, public definition. “I never put an actual meaning on it, and I still would not want to,” he said in an interview, adding that the ambiguity is precisely “why everybody keeps saying it”. The 26-year-old rapper obviously understands that providing a precise definition may well kill off the meme that is making him so much money! 💵

Image Credit: Marty’s Bag of Tricks.

The song’s rise to infamy began with video edits featuring professional basketball players, particularly LaMelo Ball, who stands at 6 ft 7 in tall. High school basketball player Taylen “TK” Kinney further cemented the phrase’s popularity when he went viral for using it to rate a Starbucks drink. In March 2025, a boy named Maverick Trevillian became known as the “67 Kid” after a viral video showed him shouting the phrase at a basketball match while performing an excited up-and-down hand gesture. This is the clip that solidified its status, especially among primary schoolchildren.

What Does It Mean? 🤔

So, after all that linguistic detective work, what is the grand, hidden meaning of “6-7”? In a word, “nothing”! This is why it is so beloved by schoolchildren. Adults don’t get the joke because there’s nothing to get; it’s a classic anti-joke. It’s also a perfect example of in-group/out-group psychology—a topic that internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores thoroughly in her work (the way she treats memes as folklore appeals to me greatly).

Think of it as a shibboleth or a secret password that has no meaning. If you’re “in the know”, you understand that it’s the phrase’s very meaninglessness that makes it funny. You repeat it, you do the hand gesture, and you’re part of the tribe.

If you’re on the outside (like most parents and teachers), you ask, “But what does it mean?” That very question is what marks you as part of the “out-group”. The slang’s entire function is to create that divide and give those who use it a shared secret and a stronger sense of belonging. This makes “6-7” different from other famous pop-culture numbers. Take the number 42, for example.

If, like me, you’re a fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you know “42” is the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”. It has a defined, shared context. It’s a reference to a specific piece of media. Even Google is in on this joke; type “answer to life, the universe and everything” (no quotes) into the search bar, and its calculator will pop up with the number 42. Max Maven was the first magician to use this Easter egg as a card reveal, to the best of my knowledge. (Speaking of calculators, when I was a schoolboy, 5318008 was the most popular number! 😉)

“42” is a well-known “in-joke” for those who’ve read the book. “6-7” is what linguists call semantic bleaching—a phrase that has lost much of, if not all of, its original meaning usually through a process of rapid, repeated remixing. It now exemplifies the kind of slang known as “brain rot”, which becomes popular precisely because it makes no sense. This linguistic phenomenon is an ironic reflection of the classic English idiom “at sixes and sevens”, capturing the confusion many experience when faced with the song’s lyrics and the resulting viral meme! (Watch the video below from social scientist Taylor Jones for a more detailed breakdown of the meme.)

Is 67 just brain rot? Video Credit: languagejones via YouTube.

Now, here’s a fun question: what does a 500-year-old dice game have to do with brain rot? The origin of the phrase “at sixes and sevens”, which denotes a state of confusion, disagreement, or disorder, is similar to that of “6-7”. It stems from the medieval dice game of hazard, a more intricate precursor to craps. Initially, the expression was likely “to set on cinque and sice” (French for five and six), which referred to the most hazardous throws in the game. A player attempting these throws was considered reckless. Over time, mishearing or misunderstanding led the phrase to morph into “six and seven”, resulting in its current corrupted form. This linguistic evolution mirrors the evolution of the modern “6-7” brain-rot phrase.

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em!

My general philosophy in life is if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So, what does this linguistic chaos and barmy “brain rot” mean for us as magicians?

First, it’s a powerful reminder to be relevant. Our job is to connect with the audience in their world. Yes, sometimes you might choose to bring an audience into your world. However, for the amateur magician who performs casual close-up magic, it is much better to meet your audience on common ground. If your audience is chanting “six-seven”, performing a dusty, irrelevant trick is the fastest way to lose them. This is our chance to show we’re in on the joke. (Plus, it annoys your kids if you use their language. My primary responsibility as a dad is to be as embarrassing as possible!)

Second, it gives us a fantastic character to play. The “brain rot” theme is the perfect justification for a “Perverse Magic” plot when performing for a Gen Z or Gen Alpha audience. Instead of the smug, all-knowing magician, you get to be the victim: the confused performer whose orderly world is crumbling into chaos as the cards seemingly mock you. You’re as confused as their parents and teachers by this ludicrous, linguistic loopiness! (In my opinion, the road less travelled is far more enjoyable than taking the easier, more obvious route. But, hey, your mileage may vary.)

For these reasons, I’ve decided to practice what I preach. I’ve created a pointless card trick for the modern mindless masses called, you guessed it, “Brain Rot”!

Image Credit: Marty’s Bag of Tricks.

It’s an (almost) self-working routine where you and a spectator somehow manage to locate all the Sixes and Sevens in a thoroughly shuffled deck. The real magic, however, comes from the presentation. It’s a chaotic, baffling, and hilarious piece where you end up, quite literally, “at sixes and sevens”. This routine has a very short shelf life (in all honesty, it might already be past its best-before date!). Once the “6-7” meme is dead, this trick dies with it. But in a way, that’s its charm. It’s a “moment-in-time” piece, much like the “6-7” meme itself.

Warning: Preserve the Wonder

You are about to access a tutorial that reveals several secrets of magic. This free resource is intended for aspiring magicians and serious students of legerdemain.

If you do not intend to practise and perform this trick, I strongly recommend that you do not proceed. Once the method is known, it cannot be unknown. Please help me, and yourself, preserve the mystery and enjoyment of magic!

Learn “Brain Rot” Today! 👈

Get out there and perform it before the “6-7” meme—and our brains—rot away completely!