Noelle DiNardo

One especially popular phrase is 6/7, accompanied by a seesawing hand motion.

Upper School librarian Erica DiBella first heard about the Gen-Z brainrot phrase “6/7” from her son. 

“He explained it to me, and I still don’t really get it,” she said. “I am no longer part of the younger generation.” 

The trend “6/7,” falls under a bigger category known as “brainrot,” a slang term coined to describe words that result from perceived mental or cognitive decline caused by consuming excessive amounts of low-quality, unchallenging or trivial online content. Over the summer, a couple other terms that emerged were “Steal a Brainrot” and “Jet 2 Holiday” What started as funny phrases on the Internet has now transformed into staples in students’ vocabulary. 

“Brainrot doesn’t necessarily make sense,” sophomore Toby Yip said. “It is just the new slang.”

For Yip, the nonsense of it is the whole point. He admires its randomness and humor. His favorites are Italian brainrot–AI generated characters; Skibidi toilet, a talking head in a toilet; A barbershop haircut, an excerpt of a musical that quickly went viral; and 6/7, the height of his GOAT, Lebron James.

As the summer progressed, students found themselves with a new variety of brainrot that they have not seen before.

“Before, brain rot was like Steal A Brain Rot, Italian Brainrot. But now we have a lot more variety,” Yip said.

Students credit this increase in the variety of brainrot largely to more artificial intelligence bots on social media, which create brainrot slop videos. They believe these bots to be the reason for the new globalization of brainrot.  

“I was traveling around the country and around the world. I saw a bunch of people with the 6/7 hand motion,” Yip said. 

Students also feel like adults in their life look down upon them for using brainrot. They state how their parents get mad at them for using it, so they try to conceal their use of it.

Upper School science teacher David Castillo has a similar view on the situation.

“A part of me sits there and says, oh my gosh, they should be speaking properly,” he said.

For Castillo, the comparison clicks when he remembers his own “brainrot.” As much as today’s teens laugh about phrases like 6/7, he recognizes that the same thing was happening in his childhood—just with different references.

“At the same time I recognized fully that it was the same thing for us when I was a little kid and it was the Ninja Turtles and then kids would start saying Cowabunga.” 

DiBella has a similar view on the situation. She believes that similar to Gen Z and Gen Alpha having their brainrot slang, she believes her generation had their own “brainrot.” 

“I was saying radical, or I was saying someone is all that and a bag of chips,” DiBella said.

To Dibella, this shift shows that language and slang has always been shaped by young people finding new, creative and often silly ways to express themselves. She also points out that the way slang spreads has changed dramatically.

“Nowadays,it’s social media that spreads all of this, teens talking to teens and then through social media,” DiBella said. 

But DiBella also posed a question. 

“How does that work for my generation that didn’t have social media when I know that my husband and I had the same slang words when we lived in different states growing up?”

Castillo has an answer for this. He compared it to TV in his generation.

“We would get home and then just sit in front of the television, try to watch cartoons all afternoon right after school,” Castillo said. “Everyone in a city is watching the same shows at the same time. So all the kids in a city were watching the same TV show cartoons at the same time.” 

That shared media created shared language. If one character had a quirky catchphrase or repeated a funny sound effect, kids would bring it to school the next day, such as “Cowabunga.” Soon enough, an entire nation would speak the same way.

“It’d be the same thing,” Castillo said. “We’d have little catchphrases or funny things that happened and we keep doing them or recreating them together.”

Of course, brain rot isn’t ideal in every context. Yip admits that the classroom is one place where it can backfire.

“Everybody in the whole classroom loses focus,” he said. 

Teachers see that too. They feel that slang and brainrot language should be kept separate from schools and formal places.

“Oh, a hundred percent I would say that I draw the line for formal assignments,” Castillo said. “As long as they’re not actually trying to use brain rot on their concept check answers, I’m okay with it.”

As the years go on brainrot will just continue to grow and become more popular. Yip predicts that 41 – a rival to the popularity of 6/7– is going to be the next big thing. After all, whether it’s “rad,” “all that in a bag of chips,” “Cowabunga” or “41,” the truth is clear: slang may rot your brain, but at least it’s funny while it lasts.