Bud, you need to take a breath. This was a thing before social media, I promise you. It's not a psy op.

It's simple, toxic masculinity throughout the post war period led to a lot of men lying about their height (same for women and their weight during the same period). Over time public perception of what a tall person looked like shifted, and now every woman thinks that 6 ft is average height.

This phenomenon came out of American advertising, not Russian agents.