Roman empire
Etymology
From a September 2023 trend in which women asked the men in their lives how often they thought about the Roman Empire — and were startled that the answer was often "daily." It was prompted by a post from Roman reenactor Gaius Flavius (Artur Hulu) and spread rapidly on TikTok and Instagram; "my Roman Empire" then generalized to any such fixation.
noun · /ROH-muhn EM-pyre/
A topic that someone thinks about far more often than anyone around them would ever guess.
What it names
It names the private, recurring preoccupation — the thing your mind drifts to unprompted and often. It gives a handle for the gap between how mundane a fixation looks from outside and how frequently it actually runs in someone’s head.
Example
The 1998 World Cup final is my Roman Empire — I think about that game at least once a week.
Related idea
Distinct from an obsession, which others usually notice; a Roman Empire is quiet and often invisible until someone asks.
See also