The filmmaker who brought international attention to a reclusive West Virginia clan widely described online as America’s “most inbred family” has revealed the moment from his first visit that still unsettles him years later, describing a chaotic scene of barking, shouting and flight that he called “the craziest thing I have ever seen” and urging curiosity seekers not to go looking for the family themselves. Mark Laita, the Los Angeles photographer behind the Soft White Underbelly YouTube channel, first met the Whittaker family in 2004 in the hamlet of Odd, roughly 75 miles south of Charleston, and returned repeatedly from 2020 to document their lives; speaking about that initial encounter in a podcast conversation quoted by several outlets, he recounted arriving by dirt road to a cluster of structures and being confronted by nonverbal or semi-verbal reactions that upended any expectation of a conventional interview. “We come to this trailer and then a little shack on the other side of the road. And there’s these people walking around and their eyes are going in different directions and they are barking at us,” he said, adding that one man would bolt, screaming, with his trousers falling to his ankles, before kicking a garbage can. “It was out of control — the craziest thing I have ever seen.”
Laita has said the encounter—and the reactions of protective neighbours—left an imprint strong enough that he still warns fans and passersby never to try to visit the family themselves, describing the surrounding community as armed and intensely defensive of the household’s privacy; on an early attempt to make contact, he said, he was confronted at gunpoint by a neighbour before later returning with help from law enforcement to establish an introduction and, eventually, trust. “Visitors aren’t welcome,” he has stressed, asking that people engage through his documentation rather than by turning up at the property uninvited. Accounts of his remarks circulated again this year as older clips resurfaced and online interest spiked after fresh videos from the holler drew millions of views.
The Whittakers’ appearances on Soft White Underbelly since 2020—interviews, grocery trips, haircuts, and holiday gatherings filmed with Laita’s spare, front-facing style—catapulted the family from Appalachian anonymity to worldwide fascination and controversy. Laita has said that, during filmed conversations, one relative told him her parents were double first cousins; he and viewers observed that some family members communicate via grunts or idiosyncratic vocalisations, and that several display physical or cognitive impairments that outside commentators have attributed to consanguinity without clinical records being made public. The videos, including “Inbred Family – The Whittakers” and follow-ups, have collectively drawn tens of millions of views and donations through fundraisers Laita organised for food, repairs and housing after a 2024 fire.
The attention has brought money and material support to a household long described by Laita as living at the margins—along with persistent ethical questions about dignity, consent and exploitation that he has addressed by insisting viewers are better served by seeing uncomfortable realities than by looking away. “Everything is exploitative,” he has argued when pressed on whether his work crosses a line, framing his project as an unvarnished portrait of people often ignored or stigmatised. That posture has not quieted critics who say viral portrayals reduce complex lives to spectacle; nor has it deterred audiences, whose interest has only grown with each new chapter posted to the channel or reposted by tabloids and social accounts.