Does This Meme Show A Six Or A Nine? The Answer To The Viral Debate Explained

People will argue about almost anything online, and for over a decade, one of the most persistent arguments surrounds the "6 or 9" meme.

The drawing, which shows an image of two men arguing over whether a symbol on the ground is a six or a nine, has inspired numerous debates ever since it first popped up online, also inspiring more than a few memes in the past few years. So, is it a six or a nine? Here's what you need to know.

What Is The 'Six Or Nine' Meme?

The "six or nine" meme was first posted online as early as 2007. It's a comic strip by Russian artist Igor Vorobyov that purportedly dates back to 1972. The image simply shows two men looking at a symbol on the ground that appears to be either a six or a nine depending on which way you look at it, with one man supporting "six" and the other supporting "nine."

Throughout the 2010s, this image was recreated, edited and shared numerous times, often as an example of "relativism," which is essentially the idea that several different claims about a subject can be true depending on the perspective and level of context.

We don't know who drew the six or nine on the ground, so we don't know which one it was supposed to be, meaning it could be either depending on how you look at it.

What Is The Answer To The 'Six Or Nine' Meme?

As the image gained viral spread on social media throughout the 2010s, people tried their hardest to find an answer to the question.

Most are satisfied with the relativist answer that states it is both, but others claim that we don't have enough information and that objectively it must be one or the other. This has led to lots of back-and-forth memes debating the topic.

Then there's a third camp that claims the symbol might be neither a six nor a nine, but just a shape that coincidentally resembles these numbers. Maybe it's a lowercase "g" or a symbol in another language.

This takes the "we need more context" argument to a whole new degree and is becoming an equally prominent theory surrounding the meme.

For the full history of Six or Nine, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.