Before 6-7, There Was "Sloosh"

Parents and educators can't figure out why kids keep saying 6-7. That's what they said about Sloosh in 1998.

For those of you who haven’t heard, the Word of the Year according to Dictionary.com is….six seven? 6-7?

I can practically hear the Dateline voice through my phone as I browse the news stories about “6-7” meme: The teens are calling it six-seven. Should you be concerned if you hear your teen six-sevening? The facts every educator and parent needs to know—tonight at 8, 7 central. But never fear! Unlike the dangerous teen trends of the 2000s, 6-7 has nothing to do with trading bracelets for sexual favors or tainting the water supply with acid rain, direct from Saddam Hussein’s arsenal.

For those of you who are like, what the fuck? allow me to fill you in: 6-7 is some kind of meme/inside joke that’s especially popular among Gen Alpha. Apparently, any mentions of the numbers 6 and 7, or the number 67, will derail an entire class of middle schoolers. Teachers even report avoiding page 67 in textbooks to prevent classwide mayhem.

The only thing adults universally understand about 6-7 is that it’s annoying. It’s actually very easy to find out the origin of 6-7, although less easy to understand it. There’s a whole Wikipedia page for it, but I zoned out after mentions of various wacky characters which made me feel very old, like a rapper named Blizzi Boi, and someone with the name “Taylen.” If you’re an adult and trying to make sense of all this, this is your sign to stop trying, because the “meaning” isn’t the point. The point is to annoy you. The point is that you don’t get it.

If you want a teenager to explain 6-7 to you, you’re out of luck. I am neither a teenager, nor am I someone who truly understands the lore of 6-7. But what I can do is explain a similar meme, before social media, before TikTok, before Taylen and Blizzi Boi, that took over my school in 1998—sloosh. I’m convinced that although the meaning (if there was one) was different, that sloosh served the same purpose. It was the 67 of its time. Alternatively, you could say that 6-7 is the modern-day sloosh.

Anyway, the story begins: at some point in my third grade year, a bunch of the boys in our class began saying “sloosh.” Nobody knew what it meant. It didn’t really mean anything. Sloosh was sloosh. They said it in a bizarre yodeling voice, with a slight autotune-esque lilt in the middle of the “oo” part. When you say “sloosh,” pretend to be swallowing air right in the middle of the word and extend that “ooooooo.” That was sloosh.

An important part of sloosh was that only boys could say it. Remember this part, because it’s important.