Commencement is upon us, and as the Class of 2025 prepares to walk they join a long line of forebearers who have spent Senior Week reminiscing about their four years at Tufts.
Tufts student newspapers provide us with insight into what members of each graduating class found particularly remarkable about their time on the hill – especially the commencement issues. Reading these is a delight: you often learn some fascinating and obscure piece of Tufts history that has been lost from modern collective memory.
One such piece of Tufts history is referenced in a short line in the 1997 Commencement issue of the Tufts Daily: “But perhaps the oddest event was the Giantman phenomenon of sophomore year, when an nine-foot tall ‘giantman’ would make appearances on the Carmichael quad to distribute butterscotch and teach the ways of giantness.” (page 13)
Who – or what – was Giantman?
On September 11, 1994, the Daily reports, Giantman returned to Tufts (his first visit had been a week before). He greeted a crowd of some 200 on Carmichael Quad, rounding the corner from Houston Hall, staying a few minutes and then departing past Olin. “I am giant. I am huge, and I have brought you …butterscotch!” he called as he showered the crowd with Werther’s Original. He declared his intent to teach the Tufts population, solicited questions (What football team does Giantman support? The Giants, of course!), and then left as suddenly as he had come.
“Check the library steps for notices about the next appearance,” the article concludes. “This is something you should not miss. This guy is huge.”
Giantman went on to make more appearances at Tufts throughout the fall of 1994. His final appearance was in April 1995 at “A Different Narcotic” – a six-band concert sponsored by WMFO held on Carmichael quad. Giantman appeared during Electric Fun Machine’s set, the band setting up his entrance by chanting his name. He gave one final pronouncement before disappearing forever: “Students of Tufts, fear me not! For I am the benevolent Giant Man! I have come to show love!” (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/351/transcript)
But who was he, really?
The answer to this question comes not from TARC’s holdings, but from a This American Life story by Tufts alum Hillary Frank (A1997). As you might expect, Giantman was two students, Scott and Podo (no last names given), one sat on the other’s shoulders. And Giantman’s origins appear to be a mix of random circumstance and sparks of creativity.
Scott and some friends had been joking around, climbing on each others’ shoulders and declaring their giant-ness. This sparked in Scott the idea of Giantman, which he mused about aloud in the dining hall. Overnight, posters appeared all over campus advertising Giantman’s appearance on Carmichael Quad. Scott decided to go along with it (though he denies having had anything to do with the poster’s creation or dissemination), and thus Giantman was born.
But how seriously did students take Giantman?
An unambiguous answer to this question is hard to find. Again, most of our records relating to Giantman come from contemporary reports and letters to the editor in the Tufts Daily. The first article to mention Giantman makes note of “cynics” decrying him as the proverbial two-guys-in-a-trench coat, but there are also rousing defenses of Giantman in the paper. In her piece for This American Life, Hillary Frank claims that there were many committed true believers – students who believed Giantman to be a 9 foot tall man repeatedly visiting campus to give out butterscotch and wisdom. But there is also a tone in the coverage and letters to the editor that feels a bit tongue-in-cheek and hyperbolic.
Whether students actually believed in a 9 foot giant here to impart deep knowledge or whether they were collectively committing to a delightful farce, it is clear that for his following of 350 or so, Giantman was a rallying point, a figure who inspired camaraderie and maybe school spirit. As Hillary Frank observed: “When you're a student, it still feels like something exciting might happen at any moment. Life feels full of all this potential. But when you get out of school, that potential just doesn't seem to be there.”
In celebration of teeming potential and delightful farce, we would like to propose reviving the spirit of Giantman as Tufts’ very own cryptid. People of Tufts, fear him not! And celebrate with some butterscotch.
Do you have a story about Giantman? We’d love to hear it! Email us at archives@tufts.edu or find us at reunion.
Read more about Giantman in the student newspapers.
Read the transcript or listen to the episode of This American Life Hillary Frank contributed to (it’s Act 4!).