Growing up, Shelby Alfredson always wanted a room full of animals. Now a bedroom in her Atlanta home is dedicated to her five pet chinchillas.
“I wanted to have as many as I could,” says Alfredson, 31-year-old content creator and bassoonist for the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera.
During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, Alfredson started making funny videos of her pets for friends and family. She now shares them on TikTok @chinpals, which has garnered 235.2 million likes and 6.9 million followers. The “Chinfluencers” have 867,000 followers on Instagram and recently hit 932,000 followers on YouTube.
“It just started to blow up,” Alfredson says.
The chinchillas have recreated movies including Titanic, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter and The Lion King, among other hilarious antics.
“People are like, ‘How do you get the chins to do all this? How’d you train them?’ And the answer is, I didn’t. I planned everything out …