About

An Ancient Man refers to a viral video where a woman says she prefers an "ancient man" when asked if she prefers nice guys or assholes during a man-on-the-street interview. The video was posted to TikTok by @michelsonrenard in July 2022 and became a popular original sound and reference in videos on the site over the following months.

Origin

On July 19th, 2022, TikToker^[1] @michelsonrenard posted a man-on-the-street video where he interviews a woman outside of a club. He asks her, "What guys do you prefer, a nice guy or an asshole?" She answers, "An ancient man." The interviewer asks her to elaborate and she says, "Like 1800s. Don't you want to go away with me? It'll be like humans never existed, or technology," then laughs and runs off. The video gained over 2.2 million views in two months (shown below). The woman in the video is @vupersillain on Instagram.^[2]

A ancient man. An ancient man. Like 1800s. Don't you want to go away with me? It'll be like humans never existed, or technology.

Spread

The video became the subject of duet reactions and memes on TikTok over the following weeks. On August 22nd and 25th, 2022, TikTokers^[3][4] @chantalakermanfanpage and @errolyndaleyy posted videos where the lip dub to the video over duet, garnering over 800,000 and 2.1 million views respectively in two weeks (shown below, left and right).

On August 28th, TikToker^[5] @the.hotgirl.reading.list posted a skit where she references the ancient man video, garnering over 250,000 views in a week (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References