Vice President JD Vance jokingly called for instituting a “narrow exception to the First Amendment” Tuesday to prohibit Americans from uttering the numbers “six” and “seven,” referencing the viral meme that has exploded in popularity among children and teens, including Vance’s own five-year-old chil...

These people still don’t care for the First Amendment.

  • Hylactor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1704·
    6 days ago

    The very short article makes it pretty clear that this a was a joke. When we take these types of headlines at face value we become just as mindless as the maga crowd.

    Vice President JD Vance jokingly called for instituting a “narrow exception to the First Amendment” Tuesday to prohibit Americans from uttering the numbers “six” and “seven,” referencing the viral meme that has exploded in popularity among children and teens, including Vance’s own five-year-old child.

    “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,” Vance wrote in a social media post on X. “And now I think we need to make this narrow exception to the first amendment and ban these numbers forever.”

    The meme, which has baffled and confused adults for months, traces its roots to the 2025 song “Doot Doot (6 7) by rapper “Skrilla,” which had been used on highlight videos of the professional basketball player LeMelo Ball, whose height is 6’7. Clips of basketball players and young sports fans uttering the phrase “six, seven” while doing exaggerated hand gestures also accelerated the meme’s spread.

    The meme’s use in schools has been so prominent among young children and teens that some have begun banning its use, a policy that Vance now appears to agree with, at least in jest.

    “Where did this even come from?” Vance continued. “I don’t understand it. When we were kids all of our viral trends at least had an origin story.”

    • danc4498@lemmy.worldEnglish
      39·
      6 days ago

      Thanks for being the voice of reason!

      There’s so many awful things these people are doing, we don’t need to make stuff up to get mad about.

    • Tilgare@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      6 days ago

      This is some quality reporting - that’s more details on the memes’ origination than I’ve ever read before. As far as I knew it was utterly random.

      “Where did this even come from?” Vance continued. “I don’t understand it. When we were kids all of our viral trends at least had an origin story.”

      First of all - hilarious that the article explains where it came from and then ends with this quote.

      But no, we absolutely did not have an origin story for all of our childhood memes. Every kid knew about the Mew under the truck in Pokémon red/blue, or that Marilyn Manson removed a rib. People still marvel today at the proliferation of that (false) information - how did we all hear it, and where in the world did it come from?

    • JoshsJunkDrawer@lemmy.mlEnglish
      329·
      6 days ago

      The problem is that he is appatently comfortable making these “jokes” in the first place.

      • KoboldCoterie@pawb.socialEnglish
        301·
        6 days ago

        I mean, if he said it completely seriously, and the article was published saying he had, then he later came out and said “It was just a joke guys! Jeez, so uptight!”, I’d agree with you, but it was apparently clear from the outset that it was a joke and the headline is likely intentionally written to sensationalize it. The only problem I see here is that someone at rawstory thought this was newsworthy.

      • Hylactor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        71·
        6 days ago

        That’s “a” problem to be sure, but perhaps not “the” problem. For example, every president for the past 36 years has pardoned a turkey for thanksgiving. Given the genocide of Native Americans by the US government, and the supposed occasion of Thanksgiving this seems like many smacks in many faces. Or making light of execution, which America is just one of 3 OECD countries (us, japan, and south korea) who even have capital punishment anymore, is in extremely poor taste. So joking about free speech is tone deaf I agree, but not unprecedentedly so, and not necessarily the purview of either party.

        Long story short, there are bigger fish to fry, and we can’t afford to waste our anger rather than apply it where it belongs.

      • Mark with a Z@suppo.fiEnglish
        5·
        6 days ago

        Of all jokes from this crowd, this one I don’t think is the kind that that’s actually a hint.

    • kbal@fedia.io
      11·
      6 days ago

      As a joke it probably would’ve been more funny if it weren’t for all the reporting about how they were deporting people for posting JD Vance memes and are now demanding to see everyone’s social media accounts at the border.

    • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      6 days ago

      I agree with you.

      Is also think our VP is in poor taste to make jokes about how he’d like to fire off an exception to the 1st amendment. It’s just another example of total disrespect for our constitution and personal arrogance within the executive branch.