555-5555 name origin?

#1

What’s up yall
Wondering what the origin or significance of the name 555-5555 is.

My first guess is Dave Chappelle’s stand up bit about phone numbers in the movies always being 555-5555.

#2

you must be right, it’s the universal phone number.

The universal phone number used in examples, so as to imply that it is not a real number. It is almost entirely understood that the number is not to be called

you can hear a bit about it on the 555-5555 radio shows.

#3

My curiosity in it is less the origins (the universal phone number thing sounds right), but more the various different ways one could pronounce it in speech. It’s a bit cumbersome to say “Five Five Five Five Five Five Five” out loud, you see. Perhaps one could take it in the same direction as the game “VVVVVV” wherein the developer officially pronounces it as just “Vee”, so in turn 555-5555 could just be called “Five”. Or maybe “Five Seven”, “Seven Fives”, etc. It’s a fun name that’s rather open to interpretation, yet has an air of mystery about it.

#4

my friends and i have adopted ‘fives’ for short

#5

can we adopt this song as the official five five five five five five five theme tune? (1:20)

#6

“Fives” works for me. Makes it sound like a cool underground Jazz club.

“I’ll meet you at Fives…”

#7

yes we absolutely can, in fact i would encourage it

#8

Yea5

#9

the muslimgauze album

#10

or perhaps pronounce it like !!! - where each ! just reps a repeating syllable of your choice

555-5555 = DONKDONKDONK-DONKDONKDONKDONKDONK

#11

i like 5⁷ myself! :nerd_face:

#12

I know this probably isn’t the real deal, but this is what i thought when i saw the forum name:

Back in the older days (probably now still) people would put in “5” in the sub.fm chatroom to ask the Dj to reload / backspin the record (and play it again). I remember sometimes tunes would be dropped and the whole chatroom would be spammed by chatroom.

Anyone remembers that?