ANYONE who has somehow managed to avoid hearing the phrase ‘6-7’ at some point in recent months should consider themselves part of an elite group – they are either very fortunate, very offline, or not living with anyone under the age of 18.
Those with children – or even a passing relationship with internet culture – will likely have encountered the phrase, usually shouted by a young person, accompanied by a shrug, then followed by howls of laughter.
Why exactly it is so funny is hard to pin down – which seems to be the point. Like much of online culture, it’s absurd, contagious and largely detached from whatever the original meaning might have been… an in-joke everyone can get ‘in’ on, something the TikTok generation can laugh at together and bond over without needing explanation.
There is something rather wholesome in that. As Saturday’s story of St Lawrence pupils exchanging letters and calls with their counterparts in Barneville-Carteret showed, that same silly ‘6-7’ joke was able to bring young people together across language and geography.
That’s the gentler side of how ideas travel today.
But the same mechanisms that carry harmless jokes at speed across the globe can just as easily carry something heavier: the rigid and reductive ideas about masculinity and the role of women Louis Theroux highlights in his recent ‘Manosphere’ documentary, some of which, as we hear from one Minister in today’s paper, are already filtering into Jersey classrooms.
It is not a new phenomenon for young people to absorb and repeat what they see and hear, but what is different now is the pace and volume. Today’s algorithm-driven short-form video social media platforms favour repetition, meaning that a phrase, attitude or way of seeing the world can be encountered not once, but dozens of times in the space of a single afternoon. Repetition, over time, has a way of settling in.
The instinctive response is to hone in on the “extreme” content itself – to label it, challenge it and continuously attempt to keep up. That is clearly important, but it is a race that is difficult, if not impossible, to win.
Ideas tend to take hold when there is space for them to do so. If some are taking hold, it is worth asking why. What gaps are they filling? For young men in particular, are we offering a broad enough picture of confidence, success and strength, or leaving that space to be defined elsewhere? And are we doing enough to reinforce why equality between men and women is not a threat, but a shared gain?
The internet will always supply its share of phrases, gestures and memes – many silly, some more insidious. Some of those will pass; others will linger. What really matters is whether they arrive into a vacuum or into a culture that gives those ideas something to compete with.
