Under the Zimmer name, he was a Musical.ly (later TikTok) personality who was known for posting "a fairly innocuous if very corny brand on the app, doing things like making 'thirst trap' videos of himself lip-syncing to R&B songs and flashing his abs with captions like 'Happy Black History Month :)'.

"[2] However, Zimmer later became a controversial figure after he was accused of financially exploiting his young fans on Musical.ly's sister app, Live.ly, and trying to create a false identity for himself as a minor.

[3] Jennifer, the 20-year-old from Ontario, Canada, who had found Zimmer's acting school video, launched the Instagram account @paulzimmerconspiracies, which gained 510 followers.

In 2019, Youtube comedian and commentator Danny Gonzalez, who had criticized Zimmer in the past over scamming tactics and sexualized content directed at minors, agreed: his video explanation on the subject put the story into the mainstream.

[4] Having changed his legal name to Troy Becker, he announced in March 2020 on TikTok that he was an actor, and said that "Paul Zimmer" was "a character that I created for social media to entertain and inspire people."