To the three dedicated people that Google Analytics tells me read our blog, I’m sorry. We’re still a young company, and exclusively online, so all the startup advice is to go “social” and get a blog going. You’ve probably seen our efforts at this of late.
Well things were wearing on me so I figured I would use one of those websites to hire a writer to create something for us. Big mistake.
I put out the call for 3 short articles I could use that were generically about issues relevant to tall folks like us. I will now post exactly what I received so you can know not to repeat my mistakes.
Article 1
There’s no denying that people tend to assume that tall people are thin and shorter people are heavier. Tall people may be heavier in an absolute sense, but they will rarely look it. Making shirts exclusively for people who are tall and thin is possible because this is a common body type, even though tall people are going to be rarer by definition.
There’s a reason for this phenomenon: it’s easier for tall people to stay slim. They can burn more calories than shorter people even by doing the exact same exercise. It also takes more energy just for tall people to move, so they can eat more. They also tend to carry weight better, so tall people that are technically overweight can still look slim, since their bodies are large and long enough to carry the weight. There are plenty of advantages to being tall. Being slim even when you’re technically not is one of the most surprising benefits.
Article 2
While standards for tallness have changed historically, being tall has almost always been considered positive. For women, the situation is complicated. Tall women seem more powerful and authoritative, and their height has often been praised. Many historical beauty icons have been tall. For men, ample height has been a universally positive trait.
John Adams once remarked that when they were making appointments for generals for the Revolutionary War, George Washington was the tallest man in the room, and that’s one of the reasons why he was selected. Leaders have often been usually tall, and the ones that weren’t seemed to try to hide it by being more authoritative in some way or another. The lead actors today who aren’t tall are sometimes filmed to make them look taller than they otherwise would have been.
Tall people, especially tall men, have always had the advantage historically. When tall people fret about having to find clothes that fit their body type, they can at least console themselves with that.
Article 3
People who are considered tall today should imagine what it would be like for them to go back in time. They would be considered giants! Abraham Lincoln was six feet and four inches tall in the nineteenth century, and he was considered almost freakishly tall. While ample height has usually been a positive characteristic, there is sometimes a limit, and Abraham Lincoln was thought to have crossed that limit.
Today, he would be notably tall, but he would need to be a good four inches taller for people to really see it as a detriment. Being six feet tall once evoked the exact same response. People today think that Napoleon was very short, but at five feet and six inches, he was only a little below average in height for the time. Historical people would be baffled by the sight of t-shirts for tall and thin men today, but not just because of the style and the fabric. They would think that they had been designed for a race of giants.
Conclusion
None of these articles is bad necessarily, just not something worthy of being its own post. Article 2 for example advises tall people to not fret about finding clothes that fit since we have other advantages. Uh, we sell clothes specifically for tall, slim people. I want you to fret. Because fretting makes you want to buy a decent fitting shirt, which we have for you.
Also I believe we were all surprised to learn that although we are slim, we are, in fact, technically not. Whatever that means. Oh and in the scheme of things historically speaking, you’re not just tall, you’re REALLY tall! Feel good about that!
Anyway, for your amusement, and as a clever way to still get something out of it and turn this content into a blog post, here are the results of my efforts. Safe to say we won’t be hiring cheap, anonymous writers online anymore.
