Stephen Colbert admits he fears ‘we have hit rock backside’

During his opening monologue for the October thirtieth episode of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert admitted that “we may have hit rock bottom this week.”

The discuss present host was discussing the dictionary.com phrase of the 12 months, which is “6 7,” a preferred time period among Generation Alpha, popularized on TikTok. The time period has no definitive which means.

Colbert said to his live viewers, “We may have hit rock bottom this week, because dictionary.com has picked the term six-seven as the 2025 word of the year. Mm-mm. No. Word of the year has to be a word, not numbers. Okay?”

The viewers burst into laughter as he continued, “Some things can’t be numbers. This is worse than when Playboy announced their Playmate of the year was 8.” He then gave his best guess at what the time period means. He explained to viewers that anytime the numbers six, seven, or “any number at all” seem, Gen Alpha will start to say the time period “6 7” in response.

“As in, ‘what time do you get off work?’ ‘6 7.’ Or, ‘how many cookies did you eat?’ ‘6-7’,” he joked. “On a scale of one to ten, how dumb does Stephen feel explaining this? 6 7.” He also explained that the time period originated from the track DootDoot(67) by the rapper Skrilla.

This lighthearted section comes just months after CBS announced that The Late Show will end its run in May 2026 and that the network will retire the total Late Show franchise.

According to the network’s assertion, the resolution was “purely…financial against a challenging backdrop in late night,” despite ongoing political stress between late-night tv and the Trump administration.

CBS emphasised that the cancellation was “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount.”

During the present’s July 17 taping, Stephen Colbert told the viewers that he had discovered of the resolution only the earlier night time. He said, “It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”