Where did How Often Do You Think About The Roman Empire come from?

Swedish influencer Saskia Cort (@saskiacort) posted the original Instagram compilation of male responses on September 25th, 2022, though the format only broke through in English via an August 2023 Instagram Reel from @gaiusflavius.

What does How Often Do You Think About The Roman Empire mean?

The question probes an alleged gap between what women assume men mentally dwell on and what men actually report, with Rome answers ranging from once a week to daily and often surprising the woman asking.

How do you use How Often Do You Think About The Roman Empire?

The typical use is filming yourself asking a male partner or family member the question and posting his unedited answer, or using the "my Roman empire" spinoff to describe your own recurring mental fixation.

Is How Often Do You Think About The Roman Empire still popular?

The trend hit its viral peak in mid-September 2023 with multi-million-play TikToks from creators like @thatadhdlife and @idkhowyoufoundme, and the phrase is now a recognized reference point rather than an active format.

How Often Do You Think About The Roman Empire

Q: What is How Often Do You Think About The Roman Empire?

It is a 2023 TikTok and Instagram Reels trend where women filmed themselves asking the men in their lives how often they think about ancient Rome, usually catching surprisingly frequent answers.

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Published July 30, 2026

How Often Do You Think About The Roman Empire is a 2023 social media trend where women filmed themselves asking the men in their lives how often they thought about ancient Rome. The surprising answers, often daily or weekly, turned into a viral TikTok and Instagram Reels format.

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Overview

How Often Do You Think About The Roman Empire is a question format in which women asked the men in their lives (partners, fathers, brothers, friends) how frequently they thought about ancient Rome, then filmed or screenshotted the answers1. The men consistently responded with surprising frequencies, from once a week to every single day, which turned the exchange into a viral talking point on TikTok and Instagram Reels in September 20232.

TikTok

The format also spawned the spinoff catchphrase "my Roman empire," where users described whatever niche subject they mentally revisited on a loop, from specific pop stars to obscure historical events3. Reaction videos and commentary threads dug into why so many men reportedly ran mental laps around gladiators, aqueducts, and Roman legions.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Instagram (originated) / TikTok (viral spread)

Creator

Saskia Cort

Date

2022

Swedish influencer Saskia Cort (@saskiacort) seeded the trend on September 25th, 2022, when she posted an Instagram carousel of ten screenshots collecting DMs and comments from women reporting on their male partners' Rome-related answers1. Her caption invited followers to ask any guy the question and pointed to profile highlights labeled "guys eat" and "the kingdom of Rome" for further responses (translated from Swedish)1.

The original post picked up about 3,000 likes over the following year and got local press coverage in Swedish outlet Mitti Göteborg on November 25th, 2022, roughly ten months before the trend jumped to the English-speaking internet2.

How It Spread

The English breakout moment arrived on August 19th, 2023, when Instagram user @gaiusflavius posted a Reel telling women that men thought about the Roman Empire far more often than they realized and urging them to ask their husbands, boyfriends, fathers, and brothers3. That Reel pulled roughly 51,900 likes within a month3.

Individual women started filming the question in early September 2023. On September 1st, TikToker @whitelocksvstheworld filmed her partner answering "every day," pulling about 192,800 plays and 7,800 likes over 13 days4. Four days later, X user @KelseyMLoo tweeted her husband's identical "every day" response, hitting roughly 25,900 likes in nine days5.

Virality peaked on September 13th, 2023, when TikToker @thatadhdlife posted a video about the trend that pulled 1.2 million plays and 136,200 likes in one day, while TikToker @idkhowyoufoundme filmed her boyfriend's answer and hit 1.3 million plays and 221,200 likes in under 24 hours6. By mid-September, users were riffing on the format with "my Roman empire" variants covering their own recurring mental obsessions6.

How to Use This Meme

The template is a one-question interview, typically filmed in a casual home setting. The woman asks the man some version of "how often do you think about the Roman Empire," then lets the camera catch his answer without much editing. Common convention keeps the man's response as the punchline, whether it is "every day," a defensive deflection, or an unprompted tangent about legions. For the "my Roman empire" spinoff, users often skip the interview and simply announce their own private obsession with the same framing.