Why are women asking their husbands, ‘How often do you think about the Roman Empire’ on TikTok?
A new TikTok trend reveals something surprising: Men apparently think about the Roman Empire quite often.
It all started with an Instagram Reel shared by Gaius Flavius (@gaiusflavius), written as a kind of PSA for women everywhere.
“Ladies, many of you do not realize how often men think about the Roman Empire,” Flavius wrote in the video text. “Ask your husband/boyfriend/father/brother – you will be surprised by their answers!”
The reel soon caught the attention of Rev. Kelsey Lewis Vincent (@KelseyMLoo), an associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Wilson, North Carolina, who decided to put it to the test.
I saw an IG Reel that said something along the lines of “women have no idea how often the men in their lives think about the Roman Empire.”
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!?— Rev. Kelsey Lewis Vincent (@KelseyMLoo) September 6, 2023
“I saw an IG Reel that said something along the lines of ‘women have no idea how often the men in their lives think about the Roman Empire,'” Vincent wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, earlier this month. “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!?”
Vincent’s tweet quickly went viral, earning more than 7.6 million views to date. Shortly after she shared her own experience, other women started to do the same.
More than 5,200 people across the globe retweeted her post, sharing that they were also hearing about this for the first time.
Me: “hey boo, how often do you think about the Roman Empire?”
Blanks: “Every day.”
Me: “…do you know what this is apropos of?”
Blanks: “Not a clue.” https://t.co/qmOrkLLaNN— Dara Lind (@DLind) September 7, 2023
The conversation has since jumped to TikTok, where women share their husbands’ filmed responses to the question.
In one video, Sam Slupski (@theyaresam_) said she called her husband after seeing Vincent’s tweet and couldn’t believe what he said.
Apparently, he, too, thinks about it “Every single day.”
“And then we had a 45-minute conversation about the Roman Empire and then the Egyptians and then Neanderthals, and then it led to the Big Bang and I just like, reconceptualized my understanding of, um, humankind,” Slupski continued. “And so maybe now every day I will also think about the Roman Empire.”
Slupski’s TikTok quickly took off and sparked a ton of responses from other women who were shocked to learn their husbands, partners and boyfriends also share a secret fixation on the very same thing.
“Texted my husband, ‘how often do you think about the Roman Empire?’ And he responded, ‘twice today, why?'” commented @emily__crocker.
“My husband just said ‘we’ll there’s the Roman Empire and then there’s the Holy Roman Empire. Which one are you asking about?'” shared @schroodlydoo.
In a TikTok shared by Brittany Lowry (@listenwithbritt), she posted a clip of herself asking her husband the question.
“Maikal, how often do you think about the Roman Empire?” Lowry asked.
His response: “Like all the time, why?”
“Every boy you’ve ever met is like, ‘I wonder if I could survive in the Roman Legion,'” her husband added. “Like, that’s a normal thing.”
“Normal” or not, women appear to be dumbfounded by it.
TikToker Jenna K (@ifitwerentfunny) said that her husband responded to the question with, “Well in some capacity, probably every day,” which left her in stunned disbelief.
“I suspect that if you’re not carrying the mental load of the family unit you have a lot of space for the Roman Empire,” joked Jenna K in her own TikTok.
The real reason behind this phenomenon is anyone’s guess at the moment. Have men been fascinated with the time period since learning about it in high school history class? Or does it stem from a love of the Ridley Scott 2000 film Gladiator?
Whatever the case may be, it’s clearly leaving a lot of women both stumped and amused. It’s also led to a few tongue-in-cheek “theories.”
“Every man from birth is assigned a particular war or empire they become obsessed with for the rest of their life,” quipped someone on Reddit. “My one wasn’t the Roman Empire, however. Napoleonic Wars and the French Empire are more my bag.”
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