Katie Kennedy is a quietly spoken Oxford University student busy studying for her masters degree - but when she's not got her head buried in a dusty tome, she's producing sharp, witty videos for her 500,000 followers on TikTok.
Videos like 'Why did Egyptian pharaohs want to take their sisters to pound town?' and 'Did people shag during the plague?' have racked up over 45 million views, with viewers loving her irreverent takes on the ancient figures we learned about at school.
The 22-year-old has loved history since she was dragged around National Trust properties “every Sunday” by her parents as a child. Her interest is piqued by social history - hence the name of her channel, @TheHistoryGossip, which has had more than 14 million likes in just over a year since she launched the platform.
"I'll do fun, cheeky history for my videos - very naughty, quite sweary, which my dad does not like," she laughs from her bedroom at Oxford University. "It's things like, why did Elizabeth I have minging teeth? And then I'll explain that she used to brush her teeth with sugar paste, she loved marzipan. I like to focus on different periods of history, and if I find something interesting, hopefully other people will, too.”
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Hailing from Durham, Katie’s own family come from a mining background, which adds an extra layer of interest to her love of the past. “My great-grandad was a miner, my mum’s side have always lived in the north-east so there’s lots of social history there,” she explains. “It’s really interesting when people talk about the kings and queens of Britain, but actually from a working-class background, to focus on normal people in history and their stories is even more fascinating. Just normal people and what they did in their day-to-day lives.”
In between graduating with a degree in ancient history and archaeology, and winning a place at Oxford to study mid-18th century history for her masters, Katie has written her first book, The History Gossip: Was Anne of Cleves a Minger? And 365 Other Historical Curiosities, named for the first of her TikToks to really go viral, racking up three million views alone. “I remember visiting my friend in Oxford and we were in this ramen restaurant,” says Katie. “I’d posted the Anne of Cleves video just before we left and then left my phone for ages. When I checked it later it really started popping off, and that was the first time I thought, ‘ooh, interesting’. I can’t get over it, it’s so bizarre. But I’ve had people come up to me in the street and say, ‘do you make history TikToks?’ it’s really lovely, I’m very grateful for it.”
The most gratifying aspect of her hobby, says Katie, is knowing her videos are grabbing the attention of other young people. “The best part is when I get comments that say, ‘I’ve chosen to do GCSE History because of you’ or ‘I’ve pre-ordered your book to get me through my GCSE History’ - I’m like, as long as you don’t quote it word-for-word, that’s great!” she laughs. “It’s lovely to get those comments, it’s why I do it. And when people message and say, ‘I want to do history at uni, do you have any advice?’ I try to answer as many as I can because I think it’s so kind when people take time out of their day to comment nice things. I really appreciate it - especially on the internet, where it can be a nasty place, but I haven’t experienced that much.”
The worst Katie gets is confusion about her accent - mostly from Americans. “They’ll ask me to turn on the subtitles,” she smiles, “and then they’ll say, ‘what does minging mean? What does munter mean? Why is she talking like this?’ But I love using that type of language because that’s how I speak in everyday life, and I feel that it makes it more accessible to people. There’s a glossary at the back of the book to all the slang I use, so hopefully that will come in helpful…”
Struggling with a lack of confidence when she first started university, Katie had no idea her channel could help boost her self-esteem.“When I started it, I was in the final year of my degree and just wanted a creative outlet,” she remembers. “ And then I was a bit self-conscious. I was like, ‘I'll have to present myself in a certain way and talk about things in a certain way to be taken seriously’. And I think once I started to relax, be myself, make it funny, it just kind of took off from there. So I'm really grateful for that, that people have responded so well and gone, ‘I like your humour, I like your accent’. That means a lot. ‘Cause I always get paranoid that people don't understand me!”
With the launch of her book and more followers subscribing to TheHistoryGossip every day, Katie plans to keep her fans happy with even more scandalous historic goss. “I need to get more organised,” she laughs. “I do try to post a video a day but I should have some sort of system.” Katie has set her sights on doubling her followers to a million before she graduates. “That would be incredible,” she sighs.
*The History Gossip: Was Anne of Cleves a Minger? And 365 Other Historical Curiosities by Katie Kennedy is out on Thursday November 7 (£14.24, Michael O’Mara Books, 2024)
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