An old joke about men in general and husbands in particular is that they sometimes talk best by grunting.
But in West Virginia, it seems like almost the whole family does it. In fact, it's known for doing that so much that a filmmaker is making a series of YouTube videos about it.
In 2004, Mark Laita found the Whitaker family in the town of Odd, West Virginia. He went back to the town south of Charleston in 2020 and made a 12-minute movie about the family.
Critics say that Laita supports every bad idea about Appalachians. Two boys and one sister are double first cousins with both sets of grandparents.
Laita thinks the family has grown because they have kept having children. Laita says that some of its members will bark at people who say things they don't like if they don't like what they're saying.
Five videos of the Whitakers have been posted by Laita. In a clip from two years ago, some members talk, but they don't say much. Just one family member graduated high school.
Late last year, Laita said in a podcast that the Whitakers' neighbors don't like it when the family is "ridiculed." When he arrived, one threatened him with a firearm.
Laita decided to help the Whitakers out of kindness. In a video that was posted last year, he showed them how to shop at Walmart.
Laita also set up a GoFundMe account to help pay for the Whitakers' home and living costs. By Monday afternoon, close to $49,000 had been given.
The Daily Mail says that Laita needed a police guard on his last trip to see his family last year. One YouTube video of the Whitakers has 36 million views.
But at the beginning of one film, Laita says that "curious visitors" are not welcome in the neighborhood.