As we all know, Mother of Daughters, aka Clemmie Hooper, was revealed in November to have been using a fake profile on website Tattle Life to gossip about other mum Instagrammers she knew (and was friends with) in real life. The scandal got even worse when it was discovered she’d made racist comments about one, Candice Brathwaite, and some even demanded that her post as a midwife to be called into question.
Clemmie, and her Instagram account with 675,000 followers, was ‘cancelled’ – and a few weeks later she took the final step, by deleting her page entirely. When the dust settled – and the shock died down – much of the talk was about whether Clemmie could ever make a comeback. It’s the question for our digital age, really – can you be 'uncancelled'?
Well, now it seems that one influencer thought he had a way around it. Except he definitely didn’t. And we wouldn’t recommend Clemmie trying it.
The New Statesman is reporting on the oh-so-weird case of Paul Zimmer and Troy Becker – and it takes some explaining.
Paul Zimmer was a huge US star on now defunct app, Musical-ly. Joining in 2015, the app was about lip-syncing to music and making videos – and in 2018 it was then bought by TikTok, the latest social media sensation where people, well, mostly lip-sync to music and make videos.
Zimmer became a big star on the site, with seven million followers on the app, and one million on Instagram. But then, in April 2017, things got dark, when it was revealed he was accepting gifts from his fans in return for mentions and DMs – this was actually facilitated by the app, with young fans able to buy stickers that transferred into cash for him.
However, some complained he’d been taking the money and not always delivering. After the hashtag #BanPaulZimmer arose, he disappeared from social media entirely for two years – even his Instagram and YouTube was wiped. His fiancé, Jamie Rose, also disappeared.
Until late last year, in October, when Paul Zimmer posted a picture of himself, with a beard, next to someone who appeared to be him, without a beard. Except he claimed it was a young actor called Troy Becker who just looked loads like him. He tagged in @TroyBeckerIG, an account with few followers or posts.
Obviously the internet smelt a rat.
A third post is what really weirded everyone out though, in December, where Zimmer said he liked Becker so much that he was going to transfer all his followers to him.
‘Hey it’s Paul Zimmer,’ he posted, ‘This is prolly gonna be my last social post ever… I have come to a place in my life where being in the spotlight and being an entertainer is no longer my passion... although it deeply saddens me to leave so bluntly, especially that so many of you have watched me for so many years.... I didn’t wanna leave my social media pages just sitting to die... soo I have decided to give my social media accounts to @troybeckerig because he 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…’
The internet did a series of deep dives which all seemed to suggest that Zimmer was, indeed, pretending to be a teenager (he’s thought to be about 24) and actor and was hoping to relaunch himself that way. Some even found that originally, on Becker’s IMDB page, his nickname was ‘Paul Zimmer’. Sooooo, not so internet-savvy after all?
Following the New Statesman’s investigation (and a load of comments by fans like ‘Paul, it’s really creepy you’re pretending to be 16’) most of the posts have been taken down and deleted and the TikTok account that remains has no name and an @-handle compirising of just a load of numbers.
So, as we roll into 2020 and we still wrestle with what it means to be cancelled, who can come back, who can’t and how they go about it, nothing is really sure. Except that, proooooobably, pretending to be someone eight years younger isn’t gonna be the workaround you need.
READ MORE: Clemmie Hooper Admits To Posting Anonymous Comments About Other Bloggers
READ MORE: Clemmie Hooper: The Mother Of All Mistakes?