Presenting: the Funniest (Read: Most Baffling) Roman Empire TikToks

There's a 0.00 percent chance you haven't either (a) stumbled upon Roman Empire videos on TikTok or (b) tried out the trend on your unsuspecting husband/brother/boyfriend/random man in your life. But just in case you're someone who refuses to download TikTok and are therefore in a state of abject confusion, here's the deal with TikTok's Roman Empire thing (and quickly, because we're all just here for the videos, let's be honest).

The trend was initially kicked off back in 2022 by Swedish influencer Saskia Cort but was re-ignited in the below video from a Roman re-enactor named Gaius Flavius who mused, "Ladies, many of you do not realize how often men think about the Roman Empire. Ask your husband/boyfriend/father/brother—you will be surprised by their answer."

So yeah, as you might expect, the trend pretty much involves users asking the aforementioned group the aforementioned question. The correct answer to which is obviously "never," but apparently a majority of men asked seem to think about the Roman Empire all the damn time? Like, anywhere from once a day, to once a week, to once a month—all of which are alarming amounts.

Though nothing is quite as shocking as this person's boyfriend, who speedily and cheerfully informed her that he thinks about the Roman Empire "three times a day."

Then we have this person, who declared he thinks about the Roman Empire "every day." Which is less alarming than three times a day but still feels like a lot of time to be spending thinking about the Roman Empire.

Then there's this man, who thinks about the Roman Empire once a week and seemed extremely defensive when it was pointed out that this was, perhaps, a lot of time to be thinking about the Roman Empire.

Meanwhile, this person asked multiple friends via text how often they think about the Roman Empire and got many confused answers that have frankly rendered me speechless:

And then we have this person, who thinks about the Roman Empire "once a month," which is honestly a huge relief considering the amount of time other people appear to think about it.

Actually, the only person who answered this question at all reasonably was this man who, when asked how often he thinks about the Roman Empire, said, "the Nicki Minaj album?"

Oh, and before we go, please be advised that Carson Daly has weighed in on the debate over on Today and revealed he thinks about the Roman Empire "daily."

"I do, every day," he said. "Yeah I do. First of all, the movie Gladiator is in every guy’s top five favorite movies. Joe Rogan’s podcast is wildly popular, and there’s this trend to have this modern understanding of sort of ancient philosophies like stoicism, cold plunging is a big thing right now, keto. Looking for guidance and self-improvement and it all harkens back to Marcus Aurelius. This is the Roman Empire."

Wow, the ghosts of the Romans would very much like Joe Rogan's name to NOT be brought up, but okay!

Anyway, I'll leave you with these:

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