Opinion | Thanks to Tom Holland and Joe Jonas, tall men should be very afraid: ‘Short King Spring’ is coming

Gentlemen, 6 feet or taller, I have some terrible news.

If you are single and keen to attract the ladies, you might consider femur-reduction surgery. Or stop wearing shoes? Maybe learn to walk and talk while slouch-crouching with passable posture? You need to do something — something! — to not be as tall.

Tall is out. Short is in. And somewhere in heaven, Dudley Moore is squealing, “I told you!”

The New York Post recently proclaimed: “It’s Officially ‘Short King Spring’ And These Fellas Are Soaring.” Unfamiliar with the term, I found other headlines this week: “Tall Men Move Over, ‘Short King’ Is A Thing in 2022,” and “Forget 6’2 Men With No Personality, The World Is Finally Waking Up To The Reign Of Short Kings.”

On Tuesday, a feature in GQ Australia posed a query: “Thanks to Hollywood tropes, our culture’s glorification of athletes and our very, very conventional understanding of masculinity, tall men have always taken precedent over short men in the dating pool. But could that be about to change?”

The photo exhibits in this Short King feature Down Under include Joe Jonas and Keith Urban. Why shorter men are now more appealing than taller men is unclear. But as the Post reported: “The TikTok tag #ShortKing has more than 329 million views, with some users calling the increase in interest ‘Short King Spring.’ The trend is perhaps inspired by Tom Holland and Zendaya… whose height difference — he’s 5’8” and she’s 5’11” — doesn’t deter their romance, but, rather, breaks the internet.”

Now I ask: How is this not height reverse-discrimination?

I have no dog — teacup chihuahua or Great Dane — in this fight. Depending on the brogues I lace on, I’m in the 5’10” range. I’m not tall. I’m not short. I’m average. Well, my wife will say I’m below average when it comes to executing chores in a timely fashion. But that has nothing to do with my height. Even on stilts, there is no way I could execute my chores in a timely fashion because there are way too many chores and I am only one man.

It’s great women are increasingly attracted to potential partners who, while standing face-to-face, have eyelashes at their nipple levels. This is progress. It has taken a flame-thrower to the regressive notion that men must be taller. Celebrities like Jason Statham and Pharrell are Short King pioneers. Did you know when Tom Cruise starts dating someone, his first Valentine’s Day gift is binoculars so she can see the top of his head?

But what about the Tall Kings? This is my concern anytime the culture goes into pendulum overdrive. If every young hottie now yearns to hook up with a travel-sized soul mate, what will become of the 6-feet-plus men who, through no fault of their own, were born into the top percentile of human height? Must they all make it to the NBA to find a spouse? Must they pretend they can’t effortlessly grab a box of Cheerios from a top shelf at Sobeys?

What the Short King Spring zealots are overlooking is that it’s hard to be tall. The physical world conspires against them. Their legs don’t fit in airline coach. They’re constantly banging their heads walking into pubs. It’s way harder to buy off-the-rack. My best friend in high school was already 6’7” and when we’d skip class and go to St-Hubert, he’d order a family meal for himself at 11 a.m. because he needed those calories. You think my heart didn’t break watching him eat an entire chicken before we scooted back to chemistry?

It was hard to be big and tall. In terms of lifestyle, it was almost a disability. For crying out loud, if I was driving and he was in the passenger seat, I needed to open the moonroof.

This is my fundamental issue with Short King Spring. Height has no resonance in matters of the heart. You can’t gauge charm and charisma and kindness with a tape measure. You could go on a first date with Danny DeVito or Jason Momoa and have a blast. The perception of height as a virtue is a social construct. Yeah, back in the cave days, there was undoubtedly an evolutionary advantage to being with a guy who could grab a branch and push you up a tree before the sabre tooth tiger clamped onto your spine. Those days are gone.

And that’s why it also makes no sense to do a 180 and accuse any guy over 6 feet of being “romantically problematic,” or saying those over 6’2” have “no personality.” It’s high time we dispense with stereotypes like the “Napoleon Complex.” Fine. However, lifting one group up should not be a zero-sum game that results in any bloke who can clean his eaves without a ladder getting shunned from the dating pool. This is bias. This is wrong!

All I’m saying is this upcoming Short King Spring should not amount to a Winter of Discontent for our Tallboys. The world needs both. And everyone deserves a fair shot at love. Whether they can squeeze into a duffel bag or high-five a giraffe’s nose, it doesn’t matter.

Height is as pointless as skin colour: It is what inside that counts.

And good or bad, what’s inside can never be scaled.