People Are Crazy – Even the Small Ones

By Janice Lane Palko

I’m not the biggest country music fan, and I don’t drink beer, but one of my favorite quips I often quote to sum up the absurdity of life is the lyric from country singer Billy Currington’s 2008 hit song “People are Crazy”: “God is great, beer is good and people are crazy.”

By now you are probably aware of the “6-7” phenomenon, where when the numbers six and seven are mentioned, kids shout “6-7!” and make a juggling hand motion. 

For those who don’t know, this means nothing; it’s just “a thing.” Some attribute it to a song, but no one knows for sure. I first came across the 6-7! craze in October. We were babysitting the grandchildren one Saturday night and my husband was watching college football. When the announcer said, “And the score is now 6-7.” Suddenly, my two-year-old grandson began moving his hands crazily and shouting, “6-7!”

“What is he doing?” I asked his older sisters, and they all did the same thing, but none of them could tell me what it meant. 

A few weeks later I was selling my novels at a Christmas craft show in the South Hills. I was situated next to a crafter, a woman who made homemade Christmas ornaments. She had “6-7” ornaments, and they were selling like crazy. I saw one teacher buy 15 of them—one for each of her students. Of course, I bought one for the grandkids, and they were so excited to receive it, they all burst into the hand motions. 

The craze has made headlines all over the media, and even Vice President J.D. Vance posted a humorous incident on December 9 on his X account about it: 

Yesterday at church the Bible readings started on page 66-67 of the missal, and my 5-year-old went absolutely nuts repeating "six seven" like 10 times. And now I think we need to make this narrow exception to the first amendment and ban these numbers forever.

I even caught myself doing it. As we left the gym one evening, my husband and I were discussing the holiday class schedule, when he said, “I can’t remember if the class is at 6 or 7. I instinctively said, “6-7!”

Apparently, the “6-7” fad is driving parents crazy. I’m not around kids all day long, so I may not be the best judge of this, but I think the “6-7” thing is funny. As the song says, people are crazy. 

From swallowing goldfish to cramming into phone booths to streaking, young people have always embraced fads and people have always been influenced by others’ behavior. 

Did you know that during the 13^th and 17^th centuries a dancing mania swept Europe, where people danced to exhaustion. Experts still don’t know what caused it, whether it was something physical or psychological. Scientists call these types of behaviors “mass madness.” On Wikipedia there is a list of mass madnesses that have swept the culture, everything from an epidemic of German nuns biting each other in the 15^th century to the 18^th century belief that playing an instrument known as a “glass harmonica” would drive you mad. 

Sometimes “group think” can lead to evil like the Salem Witch Trials, but when it’s harmless, it’s amusing.

So, embrace the “6-7” because soon it will fade into the past and be regarded as ridiculous as pet rocks. 

Oh, and by the way, on December 27, my parents celebrated their 67^th wedding anniversary, You know “6-7.” You probably can guess how their great-grandchildren commemorated the occasion.