If the mere mention of the two seemingly innocuous numbers, “6-7”, causes involuntary eye-twitching, bubbles of annoyance, and the strong desire to cover your ears, you’re part of the unfortunate band of tween and teen parents who are in the know.

Coupled with the up-and-down hand motion that accompanies the lazy drawl of “six seven”, this is peak brain rot content that’s permeated the vernacular of children all over the world – Singapore included.

The online dictionary Dictionary.com has even named “6-7” as its word of the year for 2025.

Just before this, you may have heard your children shouting or chanting random-sounding phrases such as “Ballerina Cappuccina”, “Tralalero Tralala”, “Chimpanzini Bananini”, and “Tung Tung Tung Sahur”.

If any of these sound familiar to you, I’m sorry. And if not, I’m sorry for introducing brain rot to you.

Teachers stand together in solidarity on forums such as Reddit, asking each other what the latest brain rot is so they can educate and brace themselves for the inevitable onslaught in their classrooms.

And as a mum, I’m obviously not spared either – because here I am, writing this piece.

Am I resigned to losing my once-adorable, innocent children to these annoying phrases and actions that frustratingly don’t seem to mean anything in particular and yet manage to hold my children’s minds in thrall?

WHAT IS BRAIN ROT, REALLY?

Crowned Oxford’s Word of the Year in 2024, “brain rot” is a phrase that was once used to describe the mental and intellectual deterioration a person experiences due to excessive consumption of too much low-quality content.

The term predates even the internet itself, but is now widely used to refer to the low-quality, low-value content often found on short-form videos on social media platforms.

The real problem with brain rot is that it impairs our children’s inclination and interest to engage meaningfully with and think critically about anything, says the writer. (Photo: CNA/Ooi Boon Keong)

Children bandy this term around almost too casually, using it to mean any meme, trend, or catchy, trendy phrase that’s caught the collective imagination of their peer groups. Using the trending brain rot term correctly seems to help them gain social currency and clout, signalling acceptance into a tacit in-group that’s perceived as cool.

Enter “6-7”.

I first heard this yelled out at home one afternoon by my two oldest children, both boys aged 12 and 10. By then, I was already prepared because I’d seen it floating around on social media, which I use pretty extensively for work.

But I was less prepared to discover that even my younger girls, aged seven and five, are not immune. Just this week, the seven-year-old yelled out “6-7” in the middle of her swimming class, to my horror.

A niggling sense of defeat washed over me – that these irritatingly vacuous phrases have somehow managed to worm their way into my children’s consciousness in spite of my best efforts to restrict their access to social media at home.

Nevertheless, I asked the boys what they meant when they said “6-7” to each other.

They shrugged and said, completely unfazed: “Nothing, Mum. It’s just the newest brain rot.”

IS BRAIN ROT REALLY “HARMLESS”?

That answer I got from my boys is, in my opinion, precisely everything that is wrong with brain rot.

Children – mine included – are mindlessly parroting these phrases, assuming they mean nothing. But all content comes from somewhere, even that of the brain rot variety. Just because the meaning isn’t immediately obvious doesn’t make it innocuous.

Take, for instance, the seemingly meaningless Italian brain rot family of AI-generated memes comprising bizarre animal-object hybrids that look like they exist in some dystopian alternate reality.

Earlier this year, my son introduced me to “Bombardiro Crocodilo”, an AI-generated image of a bomber plane with a crocodile head.

It seemed harmless to me at first. However, when I started looking up videos of this character, also known as “Bombardino Crocodilo”, I was aghast at the lyrics of some songs playing in the background, including one about the bombing of children in Gaza.

These videos seem to have been taken down now, but I still remember showing them to my boys as a warning to not mindlessly parrot phrases they hear from their peers, and to always chat with me if they felt unsafe or uncertain about anything, even if it just seemed like a harmless, fun internet trend.

And the “6-7” trend – which my boys believe refers to the height of an American basketball player named LaMelo Ball – has literally no actual meaning. Instead, it’s used by children to give nonsensical responses to each other or, increasingly commonly, to shut down attempts at meaningful conversation or instruction.

The real problem with brain rot is that it impairs not just our children’s ability to engage meaningfully with and think critically about anything, but their very inclination and interest in doing so.

Understood in this light, it’s no exaggeration to say that allowing our children to freely consume such low-quality content – content that is intentionally designed to draw them into an endless loop of mindless consumption – will hinder their ability to focus on anything meaningful.

INSTEAD OF PASSIVE ACCEPTANCE, TRY ACTIVE INTEREST

“My kids are already so exposed to all this brain rot anyway. There’s nothing I can do to stop this.”

It’s easy to think that way, but I refuse to resign myself to this as another sad but immutable fact of life.

Granted, it’s almost impossible to control what our kids watch outside the home. Stopping them from peeping at their friends’ screens when they’re out is hardly feasible.

But there’s still plenty I can do at home for my children.

Helping kids to develop a healthy relationship with the internet and social media is not just about being a traffic warden who tells them when to “stop” and “go”. (Photo: CNA/Ooi Boon Keong)

We still maintain strict rules about screen time at home – such as banning devices from their bedrooms, setting fixed time slots for games, and not allowing my children to mindlessly scroll on social media.

But helping kids to develop a healthy relationship with the internet and social media is not just about being a traffic warden who tells them when to “stop” and “go”.

I see it as my duty as a mum to keep myself up to date on the latest memes and brain rot.

I sometimes watch YouTube or Instagram videos with them, and regularly ask them to show me what’s funny so we can laugh together.

If I know the context behind certain images or phrases, I’ll also share that with my children – my way of encouraging them to think deeper beyond what they’re watching on the screen.

I also pick up a lot of their slang when they tumble into the car right after school and they haven’t yet completed the switch from “friend mode” to “son mode”.

Staying curious about their world is important to me. I make a consistent point of trying to understand it without dismissing whatever I don’t understand as “nonsense” or “a waste of time” – and when I respond to their interest with my own, I usually find that they’re happy to welcome me in.

I won’t lie: Hearing my kids shout things like “6-7” all the time can still get annoying.

But instead of stewing in my confusion or frustration, it’s far more useful for me to take these as priceless opportunities to understand what preoccupies my kids’ developing minds – and maybe even steer them away from thoughtless bandwagoning towards critical thinking.

Kelly Ang is a mother of five and a freelance writer.