Why would TikTok influencer Paul Zimmer change his identity?
Alexandra McArver and Moira Sirois
Paul Zimmer was a Musical.ly star when the short lip-syncing video app called TikTok was known as Musical.ly. He was known for lip-syncing and flashing his abs for his 12-year-old fanbase with captions like “Happy Black History Month :).”
His fans followed him to other platforms like Instagram and Youtube where he quickly grew in fame. Though, his Youtube channel wasn’t what fans expected from such a famous influencer. It showed that Zimmer, instead of going to raging parties with large groups of friends, enjoyed playing small tabletop games, like tabletop bowling, and going shopping. His primary income was most likely from his Youtube channel, but there was also a way for him to make money on Musical.ly.
One feature on Musical.ly was Live.ly, which lets users stream themselves live for their fans to watch in real-time. On Live.ly fans could send virtual “gifts” to the user that are paid for with real money, and thus by sending gifts to an influencer, fans sent them real money. On his live streams, Zimmer would tell his fans that if they sent him a gift then he would give them a shout out on his page, which was an empty promise he never fulfilled despite the fact that fans were paying for it. This caused many fans to turn on him and start a campaign to “cancel Paul Zimmer.”
After this, in the spring of 2017, Zimmer deleted all his social media accounts. He disappeared from the internet and went completely off the grid, until now.
Zimmer finally posted a picture on Instagram in October of 2019, after almost two years of silence, which made all of his followers immediately confused. Instead of attempting to apologize or even bring up why he left, his post was about an “actor” named Troy Becker who somehow looks exactly like him. The post was a simple side by side comparison of Zimmer and Becker and the more you look at it the more clear it becomes that those two guys are the same person.
“This actor @TroyBeckerIG kid literally looks like a younger sexier version of me (laughing emoji) I don’t even use social media anymore but had to post this hahaha,” Zimmer wrote.
Becker’s Instagram, tagged by Zimmer, showed an account with very few followers, with Becker saying only that he was “blessed to be filming my TV show” with a photograph of him standing in an empty field with no lighting or filming equipment.
Zimmer then followed up a few days after his initial post to say that he was retiring from social media but would be giving his accounts, along with all his followers, over to Becker.
There was never any indication that the two identical men had ever met up in person, so why would Zimmer give up all his followers to someone who was essentially a complete stranger? The reasoning he gave in his lengthy goodbye post was “because [Becker] is one of the dopest people I know and he is literally my younger twin my much younger twin I believe Troy is 15 or 16 years old hahaha…” Keep in mind that Zimmer is 24 years old. So not only does it seem like Zimmer is trying to rebrand from an influencer to an actor by pretending to be another person, but that person is meant to be a teenager when in actuality Zimmer is in his mid-twenties.
Now that Becker had Zimmer’s Instagram he began posting and it was immediately clear that Becker’s posts are laughably similar in cadence and emoji use to Zimmer’s, although Becker attempted to differentiate himself by posing holding a football with the caption “I love sports,” so clearly he can’t be Zimmer because Zimmer never said anything about sports.
Becker also continuously posts about his upcoming acting projects, whether that means a TV series or movie, and attempts to legitimize these claims by posting short clips of himself acting. One clip was about two minutes of a camera focused on only his face as he has a conversation with a mysterious person you never see and who never responds to anything Becker’s character says. In another clip he posted, he actually was acting along with someone and was filmed by a pretty poor quality camera, but it didn’t take long for people to notice that the dialogue used in the scene, that was supposedly from a short film Becker was in, was taken directly from a scene in the popular Netflix show 13 Reasons Why.
It is also bizarre that although Becker continuously posts about upcoming projects if you visit his IMDb page it says that he has no past or upcoming projects. The only thing his page says is that “Troy Becker is an all American actor. He has been acting from a very young age and has received high praise for the charm and realism he brings to his characters.”
Becker also has a website linked on his IMDb page, thetroybecker.com. On it, there are four different tabs: home, reel, bio and contact. The home page is blank except for a picture of Becker. The reel tab consists of one YouTube video, although when you attempt to play the video, it is restricted and a message pops up that says “If the owner of this video has granted you access, please sign in.” What is the point of having a reel if nobody can watch your only video? The bio tab has the exact same information as his IMDb profile, in addition to the same picture that’s also on his homepage. Finally, the contact tab has an email address.
There are now hundreds of comments on Troy Becker’s TikToks saying things like “Paul it’s really creepy you’re pretending to be 16” and “CEO of pretending to be a different person,” but that hasn’t stopped Becker from continuing to post once he turned off the comments on both Instagram and TikTok. As of today, Zimmer’s social media accounts are still in Becker’s hands and he is continuing to attempt to convince people that they are not the same person.
