Short-form, long-reach: Can nonsense bring us together?

You can walk up to a young kid in another country, make the ‘6-7’ motion and, chances are, they will know exactly what you are doing.”

“Brain rot” has become the perfect insult for Gen Z and Gen Alpha internet culture. Trends such as aura farming, looksmaxxing, mogging, and “6-7″ are sometimes described as meaningless, annoying, or evidence that young people are becoming disconnected from reality.

And they likely are true, but completely dismissing these trends as nothing more than nonsense misses something important.

“Brain rot” became so culturally significant that Oxford named it its 2024 Word of the Year, defining it as the perceived deterioration of intellectual or mental ability caused by consuming trivial or unchallenging online content.

Researchers have since begun developing ways to measure digital overconsumption among Gen Z and Gen Alpha. A 2025 study in Egypt identified attention dysregulation, compulsive digital use, and cognitive dependency as measurable components of what is popularly called brain rot.

Clearly, the criticism is not unwarranted.

But look at how these trends actually spread, and a different perspective comes up — one that moves from absurdity, to shared shorthand, to something with real roots.

Take “6-7.” The phrase came from Philadelphia rapper Skrilla’s 2024 song “Doot Doot (6 7)” before spreading through basketball videos and TikTok. Eventually, Gen Alpha turned it into something almost completely detached from its original meaning. By late 2025, the trend had become a global phenomenon, with children and teenagers in countries outside the United States adopting the phrase and gesture.

The incredible part is that you do not need to speak English to understand it. You can walk up to a young kid in another country, make the  “6-7” motion and, chances are, they will know exactly what you are doing. There is no meaning to translate, because there was never much meaning to begin with — the gesture itself is the whole message.

Aura farming?

An AI-generated graphic was used by a Facebook group to promote a local “batalla de aura” in Mexico.

“Aura farming” carries more emotional weight. It became one of the defining pieces of internet slang in 2024, turning confidence, charisma, and embarrassing moments into a worldwide trend. While the trend may feel dimmed in the US, it has not disappeared internationally. 

In Mexico, young people have recently taken “aura farming” offline through batallas de aura, or aura battles, where participants perform poses and gestures inspired by internet culture. The phenomenon has also appeared elsewhere in Latin America, demonstrating how one internet trend can be adopted and adapted into something physical and communal.

Tung Tung Tung Sahur

Then there is Tung Tung Tung Sahur, which carries the most cultural specificity of all. The meme originated in Indonesia and is rooted in sahur, the pre-dawn meal Muslims eat before fasting during Ramadan. “Tung tung tung” imitates the sound associated with traditional Indonesian instruments used to wake people for sahur.

Yet the character became part of the worldwide “Italian brainrot” phenomenon, eventually appearing in games such as Steal a Brainrot and Fortnite. Something rooted in Indonesian culture became recognizable far beyond Indonesia.

For generations, music, art, and dance have crossed borders without requiring translation. The internet has simply accelerated that process and given young people more control over it. Instead of governments, corporations, and traditional media deciding what culture travels, young people themselves can make something go viral overnight.

That is why “brain rot” deserves more consideration than an eye roll or dismissal.

Yes, young people are consuming enormous amounts of short-form content, and there are legitimate concerns about attention and compulsive use. But reducing these trends to mindless consumption ignores how they can become another way for people to experience performance, music, and culture.

Timothée Chalamet received backlash after saying he did not want to work in ballet or opera because they were things people were simply trying to “keep alive” even though “no one cares about this anymore.”

Yet the internet has made it possible for both traditional art and new internet culture to reach audiences far beyond the places where they originated. A ballet performance can be watched by someone who has never been to a theater, just as a song, dance, or internet trend can reach someone thousands of miles from where it began.

In that sense, “aura farming,” “6-7” and even Tung Tung Tung Sahur can be viewed alongside older forms of art.

A SCREENSHOT of a friend commenting on a Google Doc using lyrics from a popular meme song that references “Tung Tung Tung Sahur.”

Not because they are equivalent to ballet or opera — though there is, of course, Ballerina Cappuccina — but because they rely on many of the same fundamental forms of human expression: music, movement, visual imagery, performance, and an audience.

The difference is of scale and depth. A short gesture asks way less of an audience than a two-hour ballet performance. But it may not last the year the way a classical art would. But durability and complexity aren’t the only measures of cultural value.

The difference is that internet culture can make every one of those forms immediately accessible.

A young person in Mexico can go and participate in an aura battle down the street from where they live, someone in Indonesia can recognize a meme rooted in their own traditions, and a teenager in the United States can watch a ballet performance on the same device where they learned the “6-7” gesture.

Maybe brain rot is not bringing the world together because it makes us smarter. Maybe it is bringing us together because we do not have to be.

We do not have to speak the same language or share the same cultural background to understand a rhythm, recognize a movement, or enjoy a performance. Opera and ballet have long crossed borders through music and movement.

Internet culture is simply doing something similar at a much faster pace. What changes is not the human desire to create, perform, and share, but how quickly and widely we can find an audience.

Internet culture is arguably the most democratic art form we’ve ever seen. That is an accomplishment of humanity’s need to connect.

Fernanda Japa is Editor-in-Chief of The Tack Online, Buena Vista University.