What I Think About When I Think About the Men Thinking About the Roman Empire Thing
And the birth of "Authentic-To-Inauthentic-Couple-Prank-Pipeline"
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Hello Sternal Journalists,
A couple weeks ago, I was e-scootering with my wonderful partner to a social engagement and she casually said, “How often do you think about the Roman empire?”
I shot back, “SEEN IT, but nice try!” This is because I knew that she was attempting to (recreationally) entrap me in the prank-slash-meme-slash-internet-phenomenon roughly referred to as “the Roman Empire thing” or “the men thinking about the Roman Empire thing.”
You likely know what I’m talking about, but in case you don’t, this is a style of social media video where women ask the men in their lives how often they think about the Roman Empire (while filming—sometimes surreptitiously, sometimes overtly) and then pretty much no matter what, are ASTOUNDED by the frequency the man reports.
And that’s about it. The video ends with normally some guffaws from the woman filming and asking as well as bro-y shrugs from the subject.
First of all and less consequentially, this sets off alarm bells for what I will now dub the Authentic-To-Inauthentic-Couple-Prank-Pipeline (ATI-CPP). If you’ve heard me talk out loud or perhaps seen something I’ve posted on social media recently, you may know that I am a Couple Prank Truther. If there is ever a TikTok of one member of a couple playing a prank on the other, I am extremely skeptical and will generally believe that it was staged.
To be clear, people are allowed to stage pranks on TikTok. In a vacuum, it’s probably healthier to spend time with your partner making cute, stupid, mutually-agreed-upon hoax videos than it is to create an environment where each of you is constantly on edge about potentially getting Wile E. Coyote’d for some clout.
But as someone who has experience in both prank-y shenanigans and filming dumb videos, I can tell you that actual pranks are harder to do. Filming a dumb video involves planning, logistics, and commitment. Doing a prank (whether you film it or not) involves all of that PLUS subterfuge. It is simply harder.
And because the language-slash-medium of social media creators is in many ways ~the meme~, any prank or trend that picks up steam, even if it’s authentic the first time, it will eventually be so overrun by the people who have to create a bunch of content and want to do it as quickly and simply as possible that most of the version of what you see—or at least a very visible portion of them—will wind up being made up.
On top of all that, most staged TikTok pranks are completely uninteresting once you notice how bad the acting is and that the person being pranked started just a little the reveal.
So the ATI-CPP is a phenomenon by which something that might have been interesting and funny and authentic in its first iteration gets watered down over the one-to-one repetition and replication of it. This is counter to how memes often work, where a picture (Instagram) or a phrase (Twitter) or a sound (TikTok) is endlessly attached to different and varying scenarios to create a bunch of very funny and/or enjoyable pieces of content.
Back to the Roman Empire thing, I believe that a lot of these “women asking the men in their life how often they think about the Roman Empire” videos are staged. That is annoying for the reasons I’ve stated above. But, unlike most other couple social media content, I think a lot of them are real. Which is all the more annoying that they’re still boring.
Perhaps (and I am genuinely open to this being the truth) as a guy, I am the butt of this joke and therefore I’m missing some of the nuance of why it’s particularly interesting or funny that a guy thinks about the Roman Empire twice a week or whatever.
But also perhaps… people are getting too caught up in the goteeeem component of the meme and not stopping to ask their loved ones “Oh you think about this thing I didn’t realize you think about? Tell me about that. What do you think about when you think about it?” etc. etc. etc.
And I’m not trying to zap it of its funniness. I see that there’s a hilarious inversion of alpha male culture when a man has to stare past a camera into his lover’s eyes and sheepishly admit that he thinks about a culture that connotes manliness.
I just think there’s more funniness to mine! He’s probably thinking about the Roman Empire because of Gladiator or like one Joe Rogen Experience episode where Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations was referenced. Hearing him stutter through trying to explain stoicism would make the video soooo much funnier.
I am not the first to say, but I am presently one of the people who will most passionately tell you that you can love someone, love something about them, want to encourage it, AND ALSO MAKE FUN OF IT.
There is love and laughs being left on the table. And this is where I’ll get a little but hopefully not too holier-than-thou:
The writers strike is tentatively over as of a few hours ago. It doesn’t directly affect me, but it directly affects a lot of people I know and love. And even though there were very specific and very known things that were being fought for in this strike and even in normal times, if you get a television writer or otherwise creative person in a social setting at their most passionate, they will rail against the powers that be for not being brave enough to empower creatives to try new things.
On a platform like TikTok where the whims of the mob dictate a video’s popularity, we are the powers that be. When we settle for videos and memes (Pause: this take is wild even for me. Resume:) that aren’t doing anything original, we are collectively creating a more boring baseline into which we all dunk ourselves for sometimes hours a day.
But also, when a loved one tells us that they spend significant mental energy on something we had no idea they ever think about and our response is “lol, POSTED IT,” we might actually be changing the way we communicate in a dangerous way.
In short, the Roman Empire tiktoks are interesting but dangerously incomplete in a way that sets shitty precedents for inter-couple communications and creates a more boring ecosystem of creative decision making.
Recommendations
Meditations. Book. Come on, of course I’m going to mention my one big Roman Empire connection. This book written by Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius is composed of notes he wrote to himself that pretty astoundingly mostly still apply to life today. I like many read it during the pandemic and it helped my fall asleep.
Not Rocket Science. Standup Special. My friend and colleague Chris Waitkus just release his stand-up special which I can attest was wonderful and hilarious because I was at the taping of it. He is a literal rocket scientist and does not seem like it at all in the best way possible.
Sending a book to a friend. Activity. I was at dinner with fiends the other night and someone brought up how Monster Energy Drinks is one of the most consistently upward-trending stocks of all time (ask the men in your life how often they think about that). I have no idea if this is true, but I sent this image to my friend who is finance… we’ll call it gentleman:
He immediately responded “if only Rasta Monsta could have had the same success.” This was a reference to the greatest Doug Ellin-derivative HBO show of all time after Ballers, How to Make it in America.
But he then said, “I was thinking about you this morning. I just finished this book and think you’d love it. Would you read it? I’ll send you a copy.” And he did! I just received it and am already a couple chapters in. What a delightful way to connect with a friend.
Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl. Song. If I was more pop-eloquent and it wasn’t 1:28AM PST, I would say something more than this Chappell Roan song “is extremely Gaga-esque and extremely it’s own thing,” but I’m not and it’s not so that’s what you get. It is a real bop. Highly recommend starting your week with it.
Alright, that’s all this week! Much love!
Julian
P.S. I spend anywhere between two and twelve hours a week on the Sternal Journal. If you enjoy receiving it (and are RICH) consider becoming a paying subscriber. For just a few bucks a month, you can provide me with a bit more time to come up with fun topics, poems, and interviews; and you with probably fewer typos.