Tyler Bergantino first realized he was tall in second grade when he served as the goalie for his soccer team. Because the parents of the players of the opposing team were arguing over whether he was actually 10 years old, the game was delayed by an hour. From then on, his mother began carrying his birth certificate to matches and games to prove his age.
By 12, Bergantino was six feet tall. By 16, he was 6-foot-9.
The average height for adult men in the United States is a foot shorter, about 5-foot-9; the average woman, 5-foot-3½ inches. Only about 15 percent of men in the United States are six feet or taller, according to the most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, despite what their dating profiles might have you believe.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that only 2,800 people in the world are over seven feet tall. “Even if that’s doubled — like, 5,000 people in this world are seven-footers — almost 20 percent of them have probably been to Tall Tour,” Bergantino said.
Tall Tour is an event series conceptualized and hosted by Bergantino, 32, who lives in South Carolina. He has spent the past year traveling across the United States, from Las Vegas to New York, to bring people together to “celebrate one thing,” he said, “and that’s height.”
On Sept. 12, the Tall Tour will make a stop in New York City to coincide with New York Fashion Week and inaugurate a tall-person fashion show. The event, which has a 1,000-person capacity, will feature models as tall as 7-foot-6 wearing size-inclusive brands like One Bone, Have It Tall and the Shaquille O’Neal XLG line at JCPenney.
“It’s almost like it accidentally happened,” he said. After quitting his software sales job in 2024, Bergantino had been posting TikTok skits and interviews with other tall people on social media full time.
While in Fort Worth in May 2025, he posted about hosting a tall-person meet-up. Four people — whose heights ranged from 6-foot-5 to 6-foot-10 — attended the event. The post performed well, with almost 250,000 likes on Instagram.
As the group swapped stories about being tall, “it kind of clicked to me,” Bergantino said. So he decided to host another in Fort Worth, and six people showed up. In Las Vegas, 30 people came. In Los Angeles, it was 50.
“After Chicago, that’s when it all went crazy,” he said.
There, at the Warwick Allerton Hotel in downtown Chicago on Oct. 19, 2025, Bergantino hosted what would become the inaugural Tall Ball, where hundreds arrived, many of the women towering in heels for the first time. Bergantino awarded crowns to the Tall King and the Tall Queen.
Caitlin Austin, a 35-year-old customer-service worker based in Seattle, heard about the Tall Tour via Instagram. At 6-foot-4, Austin is used to being one of the tallest people in a room. “I’d never really met any other women my height,” she said. As soon as the tour announced a Seattle date, she booked a ticket for herself and a friend, who is 5-foot-11. “I’ve never seen an event like this planned before,” she added. Austin was third runner-up for Tall Queen. She had such a good time, she attended another Tall Tour event, in Phoenix.
Initially, Bergantino didn’t charge for the events, instead investing over $100,000 of his own money and collaborating with venues in return for free publicity on his growing social platforms. But as the events grew, Bergantino started charging $25 for general admission.
Awareness of the Tall Tour spread through word of mouth and social media, with videos reaching 50 million views. Bergantino and his friends, known online as the Tall Boys, who range in height from 6-foot-9 to 7-foot-4, have even been accused of exaggerating their height. “We met somebody at the mall, and he’s like, ‘I’m just going to admit to you right now — I’ve been commenting that you guys are A.I.,’” Bergantino said.
The Highs and Lows
Studies have revealed that tall people earn more money over a lifetime than their shorter counterparts. Taller women are often viewed as having greater authority in the workplace. Taller men are often seen as more sexually attractive and are perceived to be more effective leaders. On average, politicians tend to be significantly taller than the average American.
But there’s also a stigma that comes with being tall, especially for tall women and girls. Girls tend to have a growth spurt earlier than boys.
“In elementary school, they would often have us line up by height,” Austin said. “I was always No. 1 in the line, and the boys were so much below me. When you’re young, people can be very cruel about you standing out like a sore thumb.”
In the early 2000s, some American pediatric endocrinologists prescribed oral estrogen to suppress growth for tall teenage girls. This is no longer practiced.
Traditional gender norms associate height with masculinity and dominance. And early adolescence is when body image issues and eating disorders start to emerge. “Height is different to other dimensions of body image,” said Dr. Daniel Talbot, a clinical psychologist and lecturer at Australian Catholic University. “It’s highly salient, it’s hard to disguise, and largely unchangeable.”
In his research on height dissatisfaction, which mostly focused on those of shorter stature, Talbot looked at compensatory behaviors for different heights. For those who are taller, that might look like slouching or ducking down in group photos so as not to stick out.
There are other issues that come with being tall, like shopping for pants that are long enough and finding short dresses that don’t fit like shirts — even getting into a car, or fitting into any standardized seat.
Bergantino said it’s really hard to articulate the struggles of being tall with those who aren’t, but at Tall Tour, people just get it.
“I love standing out, love how powerful it’s made my voice, and I love the attention I get from it,” Austin said. “But I never really realized how important normalcy is.”
Dating While Vertically Inclined
Bergantino hopes the impact of Tall Tour will expand beyond the events. “My main goal for Tall Tour is getting airlines to give a free upgrade if you’re over 6-foot-6,” he said.
He launched an app last month called V.I.P., or Vertically Inclined People, and has plans to include a dating component down the line, which he had originally tried to do — and quickly abandoned — during Tall Tour’s first run.
“We realized that when we set the standard of ‘Come to Tall Tour to find your tall husband,’ it didn’t go over very well,” he said. It quickly shifted the gender balance at events, with the tall men being swarmed. One study found 23 percent of heterosexual men and just 4 percent of heterosexual women would accept a relationship where the woman was taller.
“One of my tall guy friends said, ‘I’m not going to that — why would I want to feel short?’” Austin said.
Despite its name, Tall Tour maintains a height-inclusive policy at events. “The same way that I couldn’t go on that bouncy house when I was a kid, or the same way that we can’t ride roller coasters, I don’t want anybody to feel that way,” Bergantino said. “I’ve been told a lot of times that this is healing for the inner child,” he added. “That’s what really sunk in for me through all of this.”
He hopes people come away from the events “knowing you’re not alone, but also knowing you’re not the tallest — there’s always a bigger fish,” he said.
The only downside, he said: “There’s one person who actually is the tallest.”
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