South Dakota's 'TikTok-famous' inmate is ready for a new chapter in life

Chris Chipps' has been living through a redemption arc ever since he went to prison for burglary, identity theft and grand theft nearly a decade ago.

Chipps, now 39, is an inmate serving at the Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield, South Dakota. He has been staring down the barrel of a 31-year sentence for breaking into a home in 2014, where he helped himself to rare meds, tools and credit cards.

A week before that, Chipps was interviewing for a job in Meade County, South Dakota. He stole his interviewer's car after they met.

His past actions are documented on state and judicial archives. The stain on his criminal record is permanent. But Chipps is not the same man who entered the pen all those years ago. He said he doesn't want to be reduced to "Chris, the criminal."

And now, he's becoming known for something else. While Chris Chipps has been repenting on his own time, Jade Chipps, his wife, has been helping him restore his public and self-image. And they're doing it through TikTok.

Locked-up and on TikTok

Chris Chipps wouldn't call himself a philanthropist, but past Paste BN Network reporting from the first year of his sentence highlighted his generosity. Using money received from a family profit-sharing account, Chris Chipps, who was 33 at the time, donated $5,000 to a young girl with rare disease ― and another $20,000 to families who reached out to Chris after that article ran ― all while behind bars.

“I’d made so many poor choices,” Chris Chipps said in a 2016 interview. “I wanted to do something that I knew was right.”

He'll be the first to tell you that what he did all those years ago was wrong.

"We all know it's not funny to commit felonies and be in prison and, you know, break the law and do bad things and end up where I'm at. But, at the end of the day, it is what it is, and you've made your mistakes," Chris Chipps told the Paste BN Network during a virtual visitation.

But these days, Chris Chipps isn't so fixated on making amends as he is trying to make people laugh on TikTok. He's the face of @chrisalous2.0, an account his wife helped him create last year.

Jade Chipps, 33, who has her own following of nearly 300,000 people, started posting TikToks about their unique situation when the couple started dating in 2018.

"We met, then we got married a few months later and, like, rushed into things. So that kind of like blew up on TikTok, all the hate comments, but then I started getting a lot of followers," Jade said. "Every time I made a video about Chris or mentioning that he's in prison, like, those tend to go pretty viral. Because it's very ― I don't know what would the word be. People are like, 'What the hell?'"

Chris Chipps' account stats are low compared to his wife's, but nearly all of his posts are a hit. His videos regularly see 10s of thousands of views, with some even going viral and reaching almost a million. As of April, @chrisalous2.0's most watched video has 3.7 million views and more than 340,000 likes.

Most of Chris Chipps' TikToks have a subversive, self-aware sense of humor intended to make light of his situation.

One short posted on Dec. 17 depicts a photo of a young Chris with a superimposed caption that reads "'He's going to grow up and do great things in this community.' -Mom." The video then cuts to a second-long clip of a grown-up, muscled-out, orange-suited Chris Chipps flexing to Jade through a prison window to the intro of Los del Río's "Macarena."

"Jade pretty much comes up with the main concept of it. And then I just kind of chime in with the prison-related humor. And that's one thing some people don't get or some people might take the wrong way," Chris Chipps said. "But at the end of the day, it's basically just making light of a dark situation. You know what I mean? It's just trying to find humor."

The consequences of being a prison TikToker

His situation would sound absurd if his reality wasn't so concrete. Behind steel grillage bars, Chris Chipps can't watch his own videos without being written-up for possessing a phone. Jade manages his account and posts videos on his behalf.

That's not to say he hasn't seen them. Chris Chipps said he was in a minimum security unit at Rapid City prior to the Paste BN Network interview, where he was caught with a cell phone last year. He was caught watching his own TikToks.

"I got caught with the cell phone and then eventually I got sent here back [to Mike Durfee State Prison] from minimum unit," Chris Chipps said. "That was a minor offense … [but] then they changed their policies, which made it a major. So, yeah, I got in trouble for that."

The Paste BN Network reached out to the state Department of Corrections regarding Chris Chipps' facility rules violations and the disciplinary measures taken against him. The department did not acknowledge questions on Chris Chipps' violations, visitation policies and distribution of disciplinary reports. Instead directed reporters to the state's public records and files law, which exempts inmate matters from being public records.

TikTok's next move could affect millions - We break down the platform's global dominance.

The artist pays the price

When it comes to suffering for his art, Chris Chipps is a repeat offender. He said he's had three TikTok-related write-ups during his time in prison. Besides being moved to a more stringent penitentiary, Chris Chipps has also lost months-worth of visitation hours with his wife and family when caught.

"One of them, I had to go to the warden to get overturned because Jade had recorded me through a video visit while she was at home in Florida," Chris Chipps said.

Jade lives in their Florida home, which Chris purchased after selling his Sioux Falls property.

"I was on the screen here at the prison. We did a video visit and it was basically just me waving and not doing anything and having a visit ― nothing inappropriate," Chris Chipps said. "Well, then they wrote me up for it and said that we weren't allowed to record any visitation. They tried to take my visits from her and the rest of my family for, like, six months. I had to fight that and they got that overturned. Then, it happened again. Same thing."

At the Springfield prison, Chris Chipps is well known for his online antics. Fellow inmates have seen his self-deprecating reels, he said, as have the uniformed sentries overseeing his stay in the pen.

"Some of the guards will tell Chris that he's 'TikTok famous,' like, just joking around," Jade said. "There are some guards that tell [Chris] they don't think our TikToks are that funny."

Lately, however, Chris Chipps hasn't received much feedback from prison staff on his content. He thinks that might have something to do with the fact Gov. Kristi Noem banned TikTok on state devices back in November.

"Now they can't watch them, unless they're watching them from home," Chris Chipps said. "But I don't think it would be professional for them to comment on that, you know."

Former and fellow inmates seem to have a finer sense of appreciation for the "#prisontoks," Chris Chipps said. This demographic, Chris Chipps said, finds his TikToks "funny and hilarious" on account of their relatability.

His reception among the greater Internet community, however, is diverse. Between the many, "bruh" comments, variations of the crying-laughing emoji and even amorous declarations as seen on traditional thirst trap posts, there are those curious few who wonder at his charges and even question whether he should be posting in the first place.

"How do you joke? I'd be so guilty and ashamed," one TikTok commenter says.

"why [sic] is this a flex, literally," asks another poster.

"You can't just dwell in misery and dwell on the fact that you're viewed as this horrible person because you're imprisoned," Chris Chipps said. "[We're] using humor to kind of embrace that, but not necessarily glorify it in any way or try to make it look like it's OK or anything."

Despite the public spectacle of it all, there is a deeply personal benefit to acting silly over the Internet, Chris Chipps said. His TikToks exhibit his trials and tribulations, with its inherent warts and all, in a way that allow him to reclaim his image, Chris Chipps said.

By that same token, TikTok has been Chris Chipps' way to escape from the realities of prison life, vicarious as it may be.

"Normalcy is definitely a good word [I'd] use because it makes you feel more one with the community or one with life in general and just having somewhat of a normal life instead of feeling trapped all the time," he said.

Teamwork makes the TikToks

Jade Chipps, who is originally from Florida, met her future husband through a prison pen pal page in 2017. Chris Chipps had already been imprisoned for about three years up to that point. She had been living in Denver at the time, where she worked as a flight attendant.

"That's why I chose to write to Chris, because he was in South Dakota. It was close," Jade said. "I would travel back and forth, see him and then we started getting more serious."

With the proverbial ball-and-chain attached, Chris and Jade got hitched in October 2018 on the grounds of the South Dakota State Penitentiary.

Because of his prison sentence, Chris Chipps said their marriage has been somewhat atypical up to this point. He said he hasn't met some of Jade's family, including his mother-in-law, nor has he met Jade's three dogs and two pigs.

A bigger concern, too, would be the lack of time they've been able to spend together as married couples traditionally would, but the TikToks the Chipps create alleviate their long-distance struggles.

Jade coordinates their video ideas during their visitation hours, but this has as much to do with Chris Chipps' living situation as it does with him being somewhat behind the times, she said.

"It definitely makes us bump heads a lot, because he'll come up with an idea, and I'm like, 'That's really not that funny,' because he has been in prison since 2015," Jade said. "His humor is kind of old school."

Outside of recording virtual visits ― a practice that came to an end after the write-ups ― the Chipps have to put on their creative hats to make their TikToks. Sometimes, this means Jade Chipps risks recording her husband, either flexing or lip-synching to trendy audio in front of a prison hallway window, through her car windshield.

During a lonely holiday season, Jade came up with the idea of buying a $100 cardboard cutout of her husband and fashioning it to a Roomba. That became its own viral ― sometimes, weird ― sensation, Jade said.

"I thought it was hilarious. I mean, some people might try and spin it like it's being creepy or her being too obsessed with me or whatever," Chris Chipps said. "I think it's all in good humor. It's not like she's going to bed with it. It's happy to follow around the house."

There are certain elements to loving an incarcerated person that can feel alienating to the free spouse. This is something the Chipps have seen first-hand through the messages written by those on a similar journey.

"I've also met like a lot of people that reach out to me and they're like, 'Oh my God. Your TikToks make me laugh so hard. Thank you for being open to your situation. I don't feel so alone. I can't be as open my family, you know. That I'm with someone that's incarcerated,'" Jade said.

More TikTok trends: People on the app are 'mewing.' Experts weigh in on this controversial beauty hack

Chris Chipps, a soon-to-be free man

Chris Chipps' next chapter in life starts the moment he takes his first free step out of prison. Because Chris Chipps has accumulated earned discharge credits and successfully appealed a judge to reduce his grand theft charge by 24 months in late 2017, that chapter is slated to start in June 2025.

Chris Chipps acknowledged it will be a struggle to transition back into a community he hasn't been a part of for close to a decade. But with his newfound Internet fame, it'll be like he never left.

"Transitioning into the community can be hard sometimes. So I think having those people rallied around me and Jade … It's like you have something going for you," Chris Chipps said. "You're not necessarily laughing about the fact that you made the mistakes, but … it definitely helps me move on and move forward with my life."

Dominik Dausch is the agriculture and environment reporter for the Argus Leader and editor of Farm Forum. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook @DomDNP and send news tips to ddausch@gannett.com.