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Funny Numbers

|< < Prev #3184 (December 22, 2025)

Title text: In 1899, people were walking around shouting '23' at each other and laughing, and confused reporters were writing articles trying to figure out what it meant.

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Explanation

This comic refers to the recent brainrot meme "6 7", often accompanied by moving your hands up and down.

While many people think this is a novel activity of the latest generation of kids, the comic points out that there's a long history of young people finding ways to have fun with certain numbers.

The numbers listed are:

• 23 originated about 1899, and was later combined with the nonsense word "skidoo" into the phrase "23 skidoo". It relates to leaving quickly.

• 42 refers to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which this number is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.

• 1,337 is leet speak for the word "elite".

• 69 — refers to a sexual position.

• 58,008 spells "BOOBS" if you put it into a seven-segment display, like on many calculators, and turn it upside down. This is not the only message you can say using calculators; for example, 0.7734 (or 0.1134) spells "HELLO"

• 420 is slang for smoking marijuana.

• 6 7 originated from the song "Doot Doot" by Skrilla. [It was deliberately meant to be meaningless, though that hasn't stopped people from trying to assign a meaning to it].

The title text claims that the media reaction to "23-skiddoo" around the turn of the 20th century was very similar to the current reaction to "67". This highlights a perennial historical cycle of the Young being despised by the Old; with the Young growing up to become the Old despising a new generation of Young.

Transcript

[A banner is hanging from the ceiling with a large line of text above a smaller one:]

Mathematical society

2025 meeting

[Below the banner there are four people, three of them are standing close together to the left with Hairbun leftmost addressing Cueball and Megan who is looking at her. Ponytail is standing to the far right next to a whiteboard, and is using a marker to circle round the last of several items on the board.]

Hairbun: Any other new developments from the year to cover before we wrap?

Cueball: Oh, the teens picked a new funny number.

Megan: Aww, I'm glad to hear they're still doing that.

Ponytail: I'll add it to the list.

[The board generally contains two columns of numbers, the first row having text after its number, thus across both columns. The last pair of digits is the new 'number' circled round by Ponytail. From top, in reading order, they are:]

23 (skidoo!)

42    1,337

69    58,008

420   6 7

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Rank Score Pages Changes Username 1 21 17 21 TheusafBOT 2 17 13 17 1234231587678 3 14 11 13 FaviFake 4 12 4 22 Barry Margolin 5 12 5 16 BunsenH 6 9 5 10 Trimutius 7 8 5 7 Kynde 8 7 5 6 Utdtutyabthsc 9 7 4 6 DollarStoreBa'al

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