
Learn about this trending phrase and what it means for our media culture
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Narrator/Announcer
This is an All Ears English podcast.
Aubrey Carter
Episode 2563 is Brainrot taking over the dictionary? Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz and Lindsey McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, usa. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com subscribe.
Lindsey McMahon
What are the three most common words of 2025 according to the big dictionaries? Find out today and learn what cool phrase is now Uncool in English.
Aubrey Carter
Do you ever start speaking English and suddenly the words disappear? You pause too much, you hesitate. You know what you want to say, but only later, not in the moment when it matters. This is where your fluency is breaking down and it's fixable. That's why we created our two minute fluency quiz. It shows you your exact English level right now so you know what to work on next. Are you B1, B2, or C1? Find out. Go now to allearsenglish.comfluencyscore and get clarity on your English level and how you can improve this year starting today. One more time, go to allearsenglish.com SLF.
Narrator/Announcer
L U E N C Y S C O R E.
Lindsey McMahon
Lindsay, do you know what the word of the year is? The word of 2025.
Aubrey Carter
Of 2025? Well, yeah, we've. We've exited 2025 already, but I'm guessing it has something to do with AI and the junk that comes out of AI maybe.
Lindsey McMahon
That's a very good guess. And I don't know if you were aware of this, Lindsay, maybe were listeners. I hadn't really thought about how there's a different word of the year for each dictionary. Like a dictionary chooses the word of the year. So we are going to share with you the word of the year from three of the different major dictionaries, but they are all very related and they're all about that sort of AI and brain rot, really. Which interestingly, was last year's word of the word of the year for. I'm trying to remember, maybe Oxford. The word of the year was brain rot.
Aubrey Carter
Really? Oh, my gosh. That's so interesting. Okay, so we're going in a direction. That's for sure. That's for sure.
Lindsey McMahon
But this was inspired by a listener question. Someone sent in a question about it and I had just discovered that this was the word of the year for Dictionary.com.
Aubrey Carter
Yep. And I'll go ahead and read the question. This is from our amazing listener, Rory from Singapore. They said, dear Allers English team, can you make an episode regarding this trendy thing? Some of my schoolmates say it often, but what does it mean? Actually, the trendy word is six, seven or six seven.
Lindsey McMahon
Just spelled out.
Aubrey Carter
You can't say 67, right?
Lindsey McMahon
No. And you have to have that sing songy six seven, like it's very. The same song. Wow.
Aubrey Carter
This is so foreign to me.
Lindsey McMahon
I love it.
Aubrey Carter
So, guys, we're gonna dive into this today. Go ahead and make sure you hit the follow button so you don't miss a single episode of our show. We cover words that have been around for centuries and words that just popped up last year.
Narrator/Announcer
Right?
Lindsey McMahon
Yes. This is so interesting. I'm really excited to dive in. So, yes, Dictionary.com's word of the year is six, seven.
Aubrey Carter
Okay.
Lindsey McMahon
The numbers. And I remember this being sort of controversial because people were like, those are numbers that can't be the word of the year.
Aubrey Carter
I know, right? Illegal.
Lindsey McMahon
Yes. Yeah. And I also looked into how they choose the word. So they choose it based on words that made an impact on our conversations online in the. In the real world. And they are looking at searches. They reported that searches of 6, 7 in increased sixfold in June 2025, which I think it was probably people trying to figure out why kids kept saying 6, 7 and what this meant and where it came from.
Aubrey Carter
Yeah, yeah. Probably their parents, right?
Lindsey McMahon
Uhhuh. But this is interesting vocabulary. What does six fold mean, Lindsay?
Aubrey Carter
Six fold means something increases by six times. Right. Y something becomes six times the number of the original number. So 6, 6, 36.
Lindsey McMahon
Right? Exactly. Yes.
Aubrey Carter
Right.
Lindsey McMahon
So six fold. That's a lot for it to increase by that much. And so this. We're going to share how this phrase originated. It was orig. The first instance of it was this song. Do Do 67 by Skrilla is the artist.
Aubrey Carter
Okay, interesting.
Lindsey McMahon
But it became popular in these video edits that were featuring professional basketball players, especially one, I'm not sure how to pronounce his name, Lamelo ball, who is 67. That's his height. Yeah, 2.01 meters tall. And so this meme. Something happened where. And they would go like this with their hands. I'd say six, seven, like this. And it became this nonsense thing that didn't really mean anything. But then it was described as annoying and like a plague. Because every time anyone said six, seven, kids at first would say six, seven and go like that. Ah. And it was be. It's like this brain rot phenomenon where like digital media that's of poor quality or makes no sense and is just silly kind of takes over the world all of a sudden.
Aubrey Carter
Oh, okay. So it's kind of a way that the kids have, they have a response when they see this slop. Right? The AI slop, which we'll talk about in, in a little bit.
Lindsey McMahon
Right, okay, exactly. And so this wasn't initially AI like definitely there have been like AI videos since then. But initially not so much. Right. But it, it's interesting how it really is all related. It became so prevalent. Like I would hear it so often. Just saw an article in the Atlantic called. It was it. It was titled something like 67 is dead. Adults killed it. And I loved it because we killed it very intentionally. I had conversations with my friends where we were like, we're intentionally going six, seven. And then the kids are like, no. Ah, cuz that, you know, we were too old to say that.
Aubrey Carter
So uncool if your mom saying it.
Lindsey McMahon
But so then now it's uncool for kids to say it because the adults took it over. So how long did that trend?
Aubrey Carter
I mean, what was the, the shelf life of that trend then? Aubry, when did it start? It was it like January of last year?
Lindsey McMahon
So we know that it was in June that it really blew up. Right.
Aubrey Carter
Okay.
Lindsey McMahon
2025 is when it was like searches increased sixfold. So right before that was not sure when this game came out, but it was like last month, maybe October of 2025 when I started hearing it everywhere.
Aubrey Carter
Okay.
Lindsey McMahon
My kids were saying it all the time. I, I would hear it at volleyball if the score was 6 7, somebody else would be like 67 every time. And then we would just laugh. It was just like funny but constantly interesting.
Aubrey Carter
So it maybe had a shelf life of six months, right? Maybe six months maybe.
Lindsey McMahon
And now it's kind of gone. You don't hear it very often. If someone says it, somebody else kind of groans now. So the Atlantic is right. It's dead and adults killed it.
Aubrey Carter
Well, that's good to know. That's good to know.
Lindsey McMahon
We.
Aubrey Carter
I was on a food tour in Rome and there were two young kids that a family had brought, mostly adults. And then a couple of like teenagers and parents were like. Or the other people in the group, the adults were like, what does this mean? And now I realize we were uncool by even asking about that because they were rolling our. Their Eyes at us because we were asking about what it meant.
Lindsey McMahon
That's so funny. They're like, that's so six months ago.
Aubrey Carter
Six months ago. You're so out of date. Right.
Lindsey McMahon
But this is interesting that the other dictionaries chose different words. Right. So Webster's word of the year was slop. You mentioned this, Lindsay. This is interesting. This is digital content that is of low quality. It is produced usually by AI and it's obviously AI usually. And like absurd videos, you know, advertising images that are clearly AI or cheesy fake news. Maybe it looks real and you click on it and then it's just clickbait.
Narrator/Announcer
Yeah.
Aubrey Carter
And I think even beyond that, you know, just there's. There's a tone that AI currently has. This will probably improve that. When you ask AI a question or where you ask AI to like write you an email or do something for you, it comes up with this bland language. Unless you train your AI really well, it just feels, you know.
Lindsey McMahon
Absolutely. I love the word slop to describe it. I'm obsessed. This. It's interesting to. I looked up the original meaning of slop, and in the 1700s it meant soft mud. But in the 1800s it came to mean food waste and would be like, pig slop was food waste that was fed to pigs. And that's when I sort of generally became like rubbish, like garbage or a product that is of low value.
Aubrey Carter
Yep. That's what I think of when I hear the word slop. I think of pigs. Like what you would feed a pig or would have back in the day, you know?
Lindsey McMahon
Yeah. I still grew up saying that we had neighbors that had pigs and we would go and feed them the slop.
Aubrey Carter
Nice. Yeah. So now AI is feeding us the slop. I love it.
Lindsey McMahon
So a couple examples of here. You might heard us, might hear it. Her said, my feed is full of AI slop. You might say if you start. If you're on TikTok or Facebook or something and you start just seeing these like, AI generated articles that seem like they're just clickbait. And if you do click on them, it's all ads and. And might even be like blatantly false or clearly false information.
Aubrey Carter
Yeah. I just try not to click on any of that stuff. Just stay away.
Lindsey McMahon
That's a good recommendation. Every time I've clicked on something like that, I regret it. I'm like, why did I click that?
Aubrey Carter
Oh, no.
Lindsey McMahon
Better.
Aubrey Carter
Yeah, for sure. Or here we go. I almost forwarded an article before realizing. Realizing it was just AI slop thrown together for clicks.
Lindsey McMahon
And this happens, right? My mother in law forwarded all of us, the entire family, an article that would have been very newsworthy if it were true, that it was kind of tricky. We're all sort of like, who's gonna tell her?
Aubrey Carter
Oh no.
Lindsey McMahon
And my husband was just like, oh, it looks like this might not be accurate. It looks like it might be clickbait.
Aubrey Carter
Oh my gosh.
Lindsey McMahon
Clearly break it to her.
Aubrey Carter
Yeah, I think older people are definitely more susceptible to that. But now there are even podcasts that are AI slop. There are podcasts out there that you can find and listen to that are hosted by AI bots, which to me is insane. I mean, that's just my opinion. No, thank you. Not interested.
Lindsey McMahon
I'm not interested. And I think even if like an AI voice reading a book, I don't like it. There are too many strange pronunciation things and it just feels disingenuous. I don't like it.
Aubrey Carter
Pretty much, yeah. Yep.
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Aubrey Carter
Okay then. What was the Oxford Dictionary's word of the year? I'm curious.
Lindsey McMahon
Really interesting. It was rage bait. And this is, you know, it's deliberate agitation. But they're so this. The reason this was the word of the year is because there's so much rage bait online comments, articles that are deliberately annoying someone in order to get clicks and views and comments.
Aubrey Carter
Deliberately annoying someone or provoking them, really.
Lindsey McMahon
Right, exactly. So I guess this was first used online in a posting on usernet in 2002 to designate. It was about driving, about road rage. It was designating drivers being flashed by another one. And they would call that rage bait. And now we use it. I hear it more for online. Like you were saying, deliberately provoking someone.
Aubrey Carter
I mean, I think the algorithms are kind of set up this way.
Lindsey McMahon
Right.
Aubrey Carter
To keep us hooked in and clicking through to those articles and sharing and that kind of thing.
Lindsey McMahon
Exactly, yes. And this has created a really interesting ethical debate about what's online and. And should everything be slop and rage bait? Should we try to make it be more uplifting or interesting, Engaging? Right. So this has been interesting to see sort of some of the debates online about how did things get this way and how can we fix it? Is it even possible?
Aubrey Carter
Probably in 2026, we'll see people starting to move, trying to move away from technology in some way. But then we're so embedded with technology.
Narrator/Announcer
Right.
Aubrey Carter
We need it now.
Lindsey McMahon
Have you seen these Lindsay ads for apps that are clearly rage bait, where it'll show someone playing the ad but making obviously bad decisions with the goal that you'll download the game to prove you can do better. I've not seen that.
Aubrey Carter
Terrible. Creative. Interesting. Interesting.
Lindsey McMahon
Creative, but also terrible.
Aubrey Carter
They'll do whatever they can do to get your clicks right. Or signups or downloads or whatever it is. So we're smarter than that, I think. Right? Yeah.
Lindsey McMahon
Yes. Let's hope we have a couple of examples. You can see how this would look in a sentence. Right. In a conversation, you might say, oh, don't reply to that post. It's obviously rage bait meant to get people arguing in the comments.
Aubrey Carter
Yes, I love that one. Or that headline felt like pure rage bait.
Lindsey McMahon
Right? Yeah. And that's happened. Right. They're the often news media outlets will know they'll get more clicks, more attention, more comments if they stir up people's emotions and they're happy to aim for negative emotions.
Aubrey Carter
I mean, even, you know, because usually how I get my news, I just try to go to specific, like websites. I just go to New York Times. I go the Economist or the Journal or something. But even the New York Times, like they do a little bit of this that try to be a little bit less sensational, of course, because it's a noteworthy publication, but you can tell that they'll a B test titles.
Lindsey McMahon
Yeah.
Aubrey Carter
Because you could see an article on Saturday morning, then you go back Saturday night, the same article has a different title.
Lindsey McMahon
Oh, that's interesting. Makes sense. I guess. And if it's like a new people might think it's a new article and click it again.
Aubrey Carter
Sure, yeah. That or they just figured that they were literally testing the click.
Lindsey McMahon
This one's doing better. Leave it out there.
Narrator/Announcer
Interesting.
Lindsey McMahon
Well, we have a little role play here where we can use these three words of the year all in one little conversation.
Aubrey Carter
Okay, let's get into it. Aubry. Here we go. Did you see that post about banning coffee before work?
Lindsey McMahon
Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure that's rage bait.
Aubrey Carter
You think so?
Lindsey McMahon
Yeah, it seemed designed to make people angry and boost clicks.
Aubrey Carter
I guess that makes sense. I feel like I saw six or seven slop articles just today.
Lindsey McMahon
Six, seven.
Aubrey Carter
Did you get the right intonation? We don't know. But it doesn't even matter anymore.
Lindsey McMahon
I've heard it a lot. Right. It's just six, seven. I also have heard it's funny today at volleyball, I heard early this morning they said 6:12 and then kind of like a play on where they were like 6:12.
Aubrey Carter
Interesting.
Lindsey McMahon
And because they still had that sing songy and that was kind of clever because it's like.
Aubrey Carter
Yeah, but do you think that the, you know, the Gen X generation, the parents of Gen Z, can they ever invent a phrase or is it just the young. The youngins, the young people that can actually invent a phrase?
Lindsey McMahon
I think we could maybe. It probably wouldn't get picked up as easily or as quickly. And we wouldn't. Because we have better things to do with our time.
Aubrey Carter
We do. Rather than stand around and figure out a right coded language. Yeah.
Lindsey McMahon
There's a reason adults aren't doing this.
Aubrey Carter
That's true.
Lindsey McMahon
That's true.
Aubrey Carter
I just think we can't do it because we're not cool enough. Right.
Lindsey McMahon
Like true.
Aubrey Carter
Yeah, there's a cool factor.
Lindsey McMahon
There aren't enough other adults that would be into it. They're all too busy too.
Aubrey Carter
Oh, so funny. So where did we use our key phrases here? So. So you said. I said, did you see that post? Panning coffee before work? And that would create some rage in me for sure.
Lindsey McMahon
Right. I would maybe click that. It's like a new law.
Aubrey Carter
Be really hindering on your personal liberties here. Right, right. And then you said. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's just rage bait.
Lindsey McMahon
Right, exactly. Meaning it is designed to make people angry, to get them to click and comment.
Aubrey Carter
And then what else?
Lindsey McMahon
Then you said, I guess that makes sense. I feel like I saw six or seven slop articles and that would mean like AI generated articles that are either not true or just, you know, intentionally there for clicks or comments. And then I said, six, seven.
Aubrey Carter
Yeah, you got the intonation right. I have. Not even close. So good.
Lindsey McMahon
I intentionally didn't make you ever have to say it. I'll have me be the one to say it.
Aubrey Carter
I'll catch on to the next trend. I'll get on early, I'm sure.
Lindsey McMahon
Yeah, you don't need to do this one. It's gone. It's done. People are just gonna roll their eyes at you if you say six, seven, like that.
Aubrey Carter
Now I know why those kids were rolling their eyes on the food tour. Now I get it.
Lindsey McMahon
So funny. I love it. We should have record for your food tour and saved you.
Aubrey Carter
I really should have. Really should have. All right, Aubrey, what's our takeaway for today? I mean, there. There are always new trendy words coming up. Where should we leave our listeners?
Lindsey McMahon
Absolutely. These are all fun, interesting words, but I think the biggest takeaway is about the discourse surrounding slop online rage bait. You know, how the Internet is changing and what, if anything, we should do about it. I think it's definitely really good advice to not click those articles. Like to be able to start recognizing rage bait or AI generated articles and not looking at them. Right. Don't just get your news on Facebook. It's tricky, though.
Aubrey Carter
But and just having conversations broadly about where, like, what are we consuming now? It's changed a lot. Even in the last year, between January 25 and 24 and 23, it's like, oh, my gosh, things have changed so much. And so where are we headed? Right. This is a good connection topic to share with a native speaker.
Lindsey McMahon
Absolutely. It would make for really interesting conversations. I've been having these conversations and it's interesting.
Aubrey Carter
Yeah, yeah. Really good stuff. All right, Aubrey, we'll see you back on the show very soon. Thanks for being on the mic with me today.
Lindsey McMahon
Awesome. See you next time.
Aubrey Carter
Take care. Bye. Thanks for listening to all ears. English. Would you like to know your English level? Take our 2 minute quiz, go to allearsenglish.com and if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything. See you next time.
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Hosts: Lindsey McMahon & Aubrey Carter
In this episode, Lindsey and Aubrey dive into 2025's "words of the year" as chosen by three major dictionaries, focusing on how current digital trends, AI, and online behavior are influencing English vocabulary. The hosts explore the rise and fall of viral slang like "six-seven," the infiltration of AI “slop” in online content, and the manipulative nature of “rage bait.” Along the way, they reflect on the meanings, origins, cultural implications, and shelf life of these trending phrases, providing both linguistic insight and cultural commentary.
Origin: From the song "Do Do 67" by Skrilla.
Further popularized: Through video edits featuring basketball player LaMelo Ball (6’7”), with kids mimicking the phrase with a hand gesture.
Viral Meme: Became a nonsense chant among youth, described as “annoying and like a plague” – a perfect example of ‘brain rot,’ digital media content that's silly, pervasive, and of low value.
Shelf Life: Rose and fell quickly—“six months, maybe.” Now, kids groan if someone uses it, as adults co-opted and thus “killed” it.
[05:00–07:38]
Usage Example: When the volleyball score was 6-7, everyone would say "six-seven" in a singsong way, just for the joke.
“Every time anyone said six-seven, kids at first would say six-seven and go like that. Ah. And it was ... this brain rot phenomenon where like digital media that's of poor quality or makes no sense and is just silly kind of takes over the world all of a sudden.”
—Lindsey McMahon (05:27)
Definition: “Slop” refers to digital content, especially produced by AI, that’s of low quality—absurd, bland, poorly written, clickbait, or obviously fake/AI-generated.
Word History:
Cultural Impact: Hosts reminisce about slop being what’s fed to pigs; now, “AI is feeding us the slop.”
Usage Example:
“Now AI is feeding us the slop. I love it.”
—Aubrey Carter (09:32)
“Even podcasts that are AI slop. There are podcasts out there that you can find and listen to that are hosted by AI bots, which to me is insane.”
—Aubrey Carter (10:39)
Definition: Online content, especially comments or headlines meant to deliberately provoke anger, outrage, or heated debate to drive views and engagement.
Origins: First seen online in 2002 (re: road rage), but now applies more to digital media.
Algorithmic Incentive: Algorithms reward rage bait with clicks and shares.
Ethical Debate: Are we being manipulated by slop and rage bait? What, if anything, can/should be done?
Usage Example:
“Comments, articles that are deliberately annoying someone in order to get clicks and views and comments.”
—Lindsey McMahon (12:50)
“That headline felt like pure rage bait.”
—Aubrey Carter (14:57)
Lindsey and Aubrey illustrate the new terms in a conversation:
[16:02–18:25]
Example:
Humor about how adults can't make viral phrases cool:
“I intentionally didn’t make you ever have to say it. I’ll have me be the one to say it.”
—Lindsey McMahon (18:12) “There’s a reason adults aren’t doing this.”
—Lindsey McMahon (17:11)
On “six-seven”:
“Adults killed it. ... I had conversations with my friends where we were like, we're intentionally going ‘six, seven’. And then the kids are like, no. Ah, cause that, you know, we were too old to say that.”
—Lindsey McMahon (05:57)
On slop:
“There are podcasts out there ... hosted by AI bots, which to me is insane. I mean, that's just my opinion. No, thank you. Not interested.”
—Aubrey Carter (10:39)
On rage bait and digital culture:
“Often news media outlets will know they'll get more clicks, more attention, more comments if they stir up people's emotions and they're happy to aim for negative emotions.”
—Lindsey McMahon (15:02)
On the challenges for ESL learners/adults:
“Do you think that ... the Gen X generation, the parents of Gen Z, can they ever invent a phrase or is it just the young ... that can actually invent a phrase?”
—Aubrey Carter (16:46)
Hosts’ advice:
"It’s definitely really good advice to not click those articles. Like to be able to start recognizing rage bait or AI generated articles and not looking at them. ... Don’t just get your news on Facebook."
—Lindsey McMahon (18:40)
Listener challenge: Notice new internet slang in your feeds and try to decode—or discuss—the cultural forces that shape it!