This makes me wonder if the Web is doomed:
We’ve all heard of the Ancient Aliens theory, a pseudoscientific belief that aliens built (among other things) the Egyptian pyramids. This week, however, history buffs on TikTok were confronted with a brand new conspiracy theory: “Ancient Rome isn’t real.”
This idea was put forward by @momllennial_, a history TikToker who often sparks controversy on the app. Previously, she’s theorized that Alexander the Great was a woman, that Jesus Christ’s name can be translated as “clitoris healer,” and that the iconic 18th century painting “The Swing” is full of hidden codes about the French revolution. Over the past few weeks she’s posted a lot about Ancient Rome, including a TikTok claiming that “Hadrian’s Wall can’t be proven to be of Roman construction.” [daily dot]
There’s ruins, ancient documents, history, archaeology, all documenting Rome. But this person, whoever it is, flings out some baseless assertions and gets attention.
Never mind that science is the search for truth. Attention!
This makes me play with the idea that people respected for their hard work in academics may one day pull out of the Web, out of Twitter, Facebook, and their own web sites, leaving it to be the domain of those who, like some narcissists I’ve known, will monopolize anything in order to get attention. People have already announced they’re leaving Twitter, leaving Facebook. Will they take the next step out of the hog’s pen?
And so much for Andreesen’s dream of the Web democratizing information. When information is not prioritized by truth-value, it all becomes swill, swill of uncertain intellectual nutrition value.
And will people walk away from that? Or will someone find a way to make the Web useful again?
In the meantime, it’s a sort of … well … I apologize … a Greek tragedy, now isn’t it?
For the most part though, the response to @momllennial_’s theories came in the form of factual debunk TikToks and history jokes. Right now, HistoryTok is full of academics satirically mourning the end of their careers because Ancient Rome Isn’t Real—and people generally making fun of the drama.
