Unusually Famous: Why millions of people think I’m a toddler
DexertoTiny Tim has achieved viral fame for being able to sound exactly like a toddler. We spoke with the internet sensation about his rise to stardom and what’s next for his unusual talents.
Everyone’s got something they’re good at, but some folks’ talents are a bit more unique than others. For instance, we interviewed a guy who got famous for being able to accurately recreate the sound of just about any vehicle’s engine.
TikTok star ‘Tiny Tim’ also has a pretty interesting talent: he’s able to sound like a toddler, and often uses this special skill to prank call unsuspecting people by saying totally inappropriate things under the guise of being a little kid.
We got to speak with Tiny Tim about his talent, how he discovered he could do this strange voice, and what he plans to do with his skillset in the future.
Click here to watch the full interview.
Going viral for sounding like a toddler
‘Tiny Tim’ says he found out that he was able to do his toddler voice when he was in grammar school. Tim says that one day, he came in late for class — and when his teacher reprimanded him over his tardiness, he hit her with a hilarious one-liner in his special voice: “You don’t have to shout at me!”
The class erupted in laughter, and it’s been off to the races ever since… but not everyone was a fan of his comedy. In fact, Tim says that when he tried stand-up, he encountered a tough crowd. However, when he brought out his ‘toddler voice,’ the crowd seemed to love it.
After one of his shows, Tim claimed a radio DJ came “barging in” to the green room asking, “Where have you been?” He invited Tim to his studio to do some recording, and over the ensuing two years, Tim became a prank call connoisseur over the airwaves.
One of his prank calls in particular went viral after it was posted to social media. In the clip, Tim called in sick to an elementary school, pretending to be a student there. It “blew up” online — but it did get him into a bit of trouble with the police, who checked in on him after school staff contacted local authorities out of concern for the kiddo supposedly left at home.
The dark side of online fame
After skyrocketing to stardom, there were quite a few viewers who accused Tim of faking the prank calls and scripting the entire thing, or even using a filter to manipulate his voice.
“Not one video have we done where it’s scripted,” he told us. “There’s no rehearsal. There’s no planning. There’s no script.”
Although haters are a dime a dozen, Tim says that things took a seriously dark turn when his Facebook account got hacked early on into his internet fame. Tim claims that the hacker posted “horribly, smutty stuff” to his official page that “nearly wiped me out.”
“I dipped into a deep depression,” he admitted. “Knowing that you’ve built something up, which everyone loved, to then having it taken away from you. We got the Facebook page back, and if it wasn’t for my missus… I dread to think that road would have taken me.”
Tiny Tim isn’t in it for the money: “I want to make people happy”
Luckily, Tim was able to recover from the hack, and now gets stopped for photos and videos with fans on a fairly regular basis.
“I wouldn’t be where we are now if it wasn’t for people watching our videos,” he explained.
Since then, Tim has come up with a colorful cast of characters that pop up in his videos, boasting millions of followers across multiple social platforms — but although he’s able to make a decent living from his antics, he isn’t in it for the money.
“I just want to make people laugh,” he said. “I want to make people happy. I wanna spread as much laughter as I possibly can.”
As for the future, Tim hopes he can score a Netflix series someday where he’s able to interview high-profile folks with one of his classic prank calls at the end of the conversation.
“I would love a Netflix series,” he told us. “I would love a chat show where I’m on and talking to people in the public eye, and we talked about it, just an interview, and at the end we just go, ‘Have you got your phone on you?’ And we do a prank call at the end.”
Although Tim’s seen the good and the bad sides of internet fame, he’s continuing to bring joy to people with his hilarious prank calls — and hopes that one day, he’ll be able to reach even more people with his own show.