Katie Kennedy, better known as The History Gossip, has a more impressive resume than the craziest ‘finance bro’ you know. She is a proud Geordie, a former BBC apprentice, a Durham alumna, a TikTok content creator with over 500,00 followers, a published author, and a current master’s student at Oxford. But, as I discovered when I met her in a Cowley café, The History Gossip is so much more than her resume.

 

 

Where are all the Horrible Histories kids now you ask? They are watching The History Gossip. Much like Horrible Histories, The History Gossip brings history to life using humour. She has produced viral TikToks such as, “Was Anne of Cleeves a minger?” or “Did Mary Shelley lose her v-card on her mother’s grave?”. In these, she explores and explains the personal lives of historical figures. Despite what textbooks or historians would have you believe… they were humans with actual thoughts, feelings, and quirky sex lives.

 

 

Katie beams with a love of history, “it brings me so much joy”, she tells me. She first got interested in history through being dragged around National Trust Houses as a child. She initially protested this, “I wanted to play Nintendo Dogs.” “Why are you making me go around dead people’s houses?” she’d ask. Still, she would “end up loving them because it brought it to life, and it felt like I was the lady of the manor”. Another major influence was Horrible Histories, something that shines through in her humour and approach to making history more accessible.

 

 

Katie’s content largely focuses on women in history. She covers the difficulties women faced such as, Margaret Beaufort (Henry VIII’s grandmother) getting married at age 12 or doctors’ belief that listening to music caused menstrual cycles. In Katie’s words, “Who let these doctors pass their medical exams? Because it sounds like they were in bottom set at school”, showing her signature witty and quintessentially British sense of humour that is woven into every video. However, she is also reclaiming the sexual agency of historical women. The myth of ‘the demure woman’ is purely a construction. Victorian women might have had “the face of a smacked arse” in photographs, but they still sent their exes crude Valentine’s Day cards or posed naked for photographs.

 

 

It’s fitting that so much of Katie’s content explores gender history as her master’s degree specialises in women during the 18^th century. As we discovered, we’re actually both taught by the same professor. I asked her if any professors knew about her TikTok career. She replied with, “I don’t think they’re on that side of TikTok”. Very few tutors do know and are supportive of her mission to make history more “accessible”. Although Katie left out telling them “the bits where it’s rude and sweary”, she thinks one of them might have found her account, as they mentioned “something about the history gossip” in an email. Katie combines the academic and the popular aspects of history as she hopes to serve as “a first point of contact” to people who are newer to history or didn’t enjoy it in school. Her use of British slang and humour is a key part of her content as it makes history engaging. She tells me, “the videos that will do well will have to be a bit naughty, so I’ll have to work around that, British slang might not get picked up”. This further demystifies history by making her videos fun and engaging – even if American viewers need a glossary (something her book comes with).

 

 

In person, Katie is very down to earth and intelligent, defying the negative stereotype of influencers and TikTokers. This reflects Katie’s side of TikTok as her content is focused on being factual. She’s even been nominated for Educator of the Year in the TikTok awards. Katie describes her corner of TikTok very glowingly, saying, “‘I think it makes such a difference when the people in the career space are really supportive and not competitive”.

 

 

Katie’s TikTok rise has been rapid, she began posting on her account around a year ago, “It got to third year, I was doing my dissertation, I was sick of my life and I decided to post some history videos on TikTok… I feel very grateful and very lucky”. Initially however, she “blocked everyone from Durham, all my friends and family as I was mortified”. It was going fine until Anne of Cleeves got in the way.  Great British Memes page reposted her “Was Anne of Cleeves a Minger?” video and the rest is history. Katie realised, “I should stop being embarrassed about it because I really enjoy it and it’s starting to go well, so I started to unblock people.”

 

 

Earlier this year, she was approached by an independent publishing company, which led to her book deal. Katie’s debut book, which came out earlier this month, is called “The History Gossip: Was Anne of Cleeves a Minger?”. The book offers a fun historical fact for each day of the year (and they are actually fun, I promise). Katie’s favourite fact is about the first ever hot air balloon channel crossing that turned into a strip show. Whilst crossing, the inventors realised the weight of the balloon was making them sink into the water, however (quite ingeniously?) they decided to lessen the weight by throwing things overboard, including their trousers! Can you blame them, it worked – also how heavy were their trousers?

 

 

Katie has achieved so much in such a short time, how on earth does she manage her time?! “Badly,” she replied. After thinking about it she advised, “I think it’s just trying to prioritise stuff, so when I was at Durham the priority was: I really want to get the grades for Oxford… my social life did suffer a bit, but I need to keep up posting every day on TikTok as I can’t get that time back”. She also recommended trying not to “put too much on my plate”. Advice we can all learn from, especially in Oxford.

 

 

Katie’s loving Oxford, even if her fresher’s week involved finishing her book (and you thought your fresher’s week was intense). We bonded over the very “alright” food at our colleges, although according to Katie the St. Hughes’ “food slapped”. She gushed about her college, “the library is stunning… sometimes it’s distracting because all I want to do is take pictures because it’s so pretty”.  Katie’s main aim is “demystifying history”, but in the process she’s also demystifying Oxford and pursuing academia. To lots of people, Katie is demonstrating how it is viable to pursue an interest in humanities and further education, even if you are not Bartholomew Hamish Montgomery III.

 

 

In the future, Katie hopes “to write another book and continuing posting”. From talking to her, I can tell how much she loves her job and her degree. There is Katie Kennedy, the brilliant student and The History Gossip, the funny and sassy content creator. Where will her career go in the future? Unlike the sinking hot air balloon, surely the only way is up. ∎

 

 

Words by Mikela Persson-Caracciolo. Image Courtesy of Katie Kennedy