It all started with an Instagram video where a man obsessed with the Roman Empire betrayed a secret of his gender: “Ladies, you can't imagine how often men think about the Roman Empire. Ask him, you will be surprised by the answer.” A follower consulted her husband and, to her surprise and that of her contacts on her networks, she replied that every day.
Thus began an experiment that has spread happily on the Internet in recent days. Videos of boyfriends on the couch at home abound on TikTok, giving figures that vary between several times a day and several times a month. “It is the cradle of civilization, every time I go down the road I think about it”, “technically, each word has a classical origin”, “can't you imagine yourself as a gladiator in the arena?”, they say. “What are you thinking about then?”
They, of course, also exaggerate their response with joy: “Sofia Coppola's films are our Roman empire”, “will Harry Styles think about the Romans?”, “thinking every day about our former best friend is our Rome”.
The explanation may have to do with strict male roles, the decline of civilization, or gyms. Maybe it's all a game, a shared exaggeration in the battle of the sexes. But what interests me is that, from time to time, we discover on the Internet that the human experience is irreplaceable and variable.
For example, networks regularly learn that not everyone has an internal narrator, a voice in their head that always accompanies them. And also periodically someone publishes their astonishment upon learning that there are those who cannot "imagine", that is, they are incapable of creating clear images similar to reality in their mind, a condition called aphantasia. Aphantasics, in turn, cannot believe that hyperfantasics can recover memories with the level of detail of a movie. Inevitably these discoveries go viral again and again, and I understand that. We don't have the slightest idea what's going on in each other's minds, and it's good to remember that.
