How Often Do You Think About the Roman Empire?

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Featured Episode

About

How Often Do You Think About the Roman Empire?, also known as Asking My Husband How Often He Thinks About the Roman Empire or the Roman Empire TikTok Trend, refers to a 2023 Instagram Reels and TikTok trend in which women asked the men in their lives (husbands, boyfriends, fathers, brothers, etc.) how often they think about the Roman empire. When asked, the men predominantly said that they think about Rome frequently, resulting in the women being surprised by that. The participatory trend gained traction in September 2023, eliciting reactions and responses from both men and women online who tried to reason with and describe the phenomenon of men's fascination with the ancient empire, as well as users adding their own versions of "my Roman empire" with different things they frequently think about. Much of the discourse centered on the "red flag" status of a man's answer. Discourse about the phenomenon originally surfaced in late 2022, due to Swedish influencer Saksia Cort (@saskiacort).

Origin

On September 25th, 2022, Swedish influencer Saskia Cort posted to Instagram^[1] a series of 10 screenshots showing DMs and comments about how often men thought about the Roman empire, inspired by a story she posted in which she asked her followers to ask their male partners and friends the question. When translated to English, the description of her post read, "Ask any guy if he thinks about Roman empire / More contributions are saved in my profile under highlights 'guys eat' and 'the kingdom of Rome' / A hug from the male scientist." Over the course of one year, the post gained roughly 3,000 likes (six examples, shown below).

Spread

Sakshi Cort's theory quickly gained eminence on the Swedish internet, evident in a news article published by Mitti Göteborg^[8] on November 25th, 2022.

The trend gained prominence on the American internet on August 19th, 2023, when Instagram^[2] user @gaiusflavius posted a Reel that had text reading, "Ladies, many of you do not realise how often men think about the Roman Empire. Ask your husband/ boyfriend/father/ brother you will be surprised by their answers!" The Reel gained roughly 51,900 likes in one month (shown below).

Going into September 2023, women online started to post videos in which they asked the men in their lives how often they thought about the Roman empire. For instance, on September 1st, 2023, TikToker^[3] @whitelocksvstheworld posted a video asking, presumably, her partner the question who responded with "every day," gaining roughly 192,800 plays and 7,800 likes in 13 days (shown below).

On September 5th, 2023, X/Twitter^[4] user @KelseyMLoo posted about the original Instagram Reel, stating, "So I asked my husband: 'How often do you think about the Roman Empire?' / And without missing a beat he said 'Every day.' / YALL! Why!?" receiving roughly 25,900 likes in nine days (shown below).

The trend started to gain significant virality when TikToker^[5] @thatadhdlife posted a video on September 13th, 2023, about the phenomenon, referencing @KelseyMLoo's X^[4] post. Her video received roughly 1.2 million plays and 136,200 likes in one day (shown below, left). Then, later on September 13th, TikToker^[6] @idkhowyoufoundme posted a video asking her boyfriend the question, gaining roughly 1.3 million plays and 221,200 likes in less than a day (shown below, right).

Viral videos following the trend continued to surface on TikTok^[7] going into mid-September 2023, with users creating variants of the original for topics they commonly think about under the catchphrase "my Roman empire."^[9]