Meet Little Bubby Child: The internet meme having a light-hearted look at Appalachia

He may be known as Little Bubby Child, but with more than 29,000 Instagram followers and 23,000 Facebook likes, the cartoon country boy’s reach is far and wide.

Created by Eastern Kentucky based artist Kenneth Pergram, the upstart internet meme accounts provide a comedic and light-hearted look into the Appalachian way of life based loosely on off-the-wall statements from family, friends, neighbors and other characters in his life.

Although Pergram, 19, has been drawing since he was six, Little Bubby Child wasn’t created until early 2019. The rough sketched memes drawn on Microsoft Paint were inspired by the outlandish thoughts of his 10-year-old brother Wade.

“(Wade) would just come out with a wild or incoherent statement and I’d be like, ‘there ye go — it’s a ready made cartoon,’” said Pergram. “He took one of my mamaw’s collectible liquor bottles (shaped like a woodpecker) to show and tell once and told the class she had out-drank an entire road construction crew in Eastern Kentucky. I don’t have no idea where he even got that idea or if he thought it would impress the kids, but that’s what he told everyone. I made it into a cartoon that there’s a few versions of, one with her out-drinking a whole road crew in Viper, Ky.”

A red-haired clogging champion who sports a rat tail worthy of “Guinness World Records 2021,” Wade’s peculiar appearance and witty, head-turning one-liners provide a one-two punch ideal for attention-grabbing memes.

Pergram’s Bubby art touches on many simple, oftentimes unheralded characteristics of Appalachian life. One post will point out the health risks of watching Kentucky basketball while another about the Fourth of July is posted with the caption “We ain’t did much farworks this year just 2 stimulus checks worth is all.” Other Wade-inspired works include a cartoon featuring a flaming pile of tires that says “Burnin things is kinda like my yoga” and one with him squinting beside the caption, “that face when they come foolin around ur holler when you done toad them onced already.”

Pergram has also expanded his cartoons to portray other family members in his life. This includes his mamaw,who lines her purse with tin foil to bring biscuits home from Golden Buffet and does interpretive dances to Travis Tritt every time she drinks. Then there is his father who he jokingly said began bootlegging Mountain Dew by the third day of the COVID-19 pandemic while his uncle, a Chevrolet fanatic, puts his internet browser into incognito when he searches for Ford F-150s.

Other popular local personalities include the chain smoker at the grocery store, the fella looking to turn Bud Light beach towels into window treatments and the cosmetologist who refuses to learn a new haircut.

“It started off as just Wade but quickly grew into something bigger,” said Pergram. “We started to capture the oddball stuff we’d hear around us, from our neighbor issuing a challenge to the whole county to fight him to somebody going on about how it’s the end of days because they seen a lot of sixes that week — it’s endless. Inspiration is everywhere, like my mamaw performing some kind of black magic ritual before she chooses her scratch-offs (that really happens). I don’t know what she’s doing but it’s some kinda incantation she performs. Life is full of Bubby moments, that’s all I know.”

While goofy in nature, the “Bubby moments” depicted on the account have garnered the affection of countless Appalachians, who’ve messaged Pergram saying Bubby makes them feel seen, connects them to home and gives them pride in their culture and where they came from. “Anytime I get slightly home sick I come right to your page,” someone commented on the July 4 post about fireworks.

Says Pergram, “Truth be told I myself don’t fully understand what Bubby has meant to people. All I know is it’s comedy told from the life we’ve lived. It’s what’s funny to us in our little corner of the world. So really with that in mind a mission has kinda come out of it to make Bubby a place where our comedy and life experience can be expressed.”

His work has even crept into the musings of other creative Kentuckians including the music video for country music star Tyler Childers’ song “Country Squire.” The video was directed by Colonel Tony Moore, a cartoon artist and one of Pergram’s biggest artistic influences who is best known for his work on the first six issues of “The Walking Dead” comic book series.

Pergram has seized on the growing phenomenon of Little Bubby Child, creating merchandise including t-shirts, prints, stickers and more that is in high demand. He cut back his shifts at Little Caesars pizza because of the success of the drawings and recently launched a subscription page where fans can receive exclusive content such as cartoons music, podcast and more. He hopes to one day launch a Little Bubby Child animated cartoon, a dream he’s held since he was five.

“One of the things I’m happiest about is that a lot of my biggest supporters are mostly folks right around here and from rural backgrounds,” said Pergram. “Seeing that they like my work makes me feel like I’m on the right track. It may be a while yet but I promise there will be a Bubby cartoon as long as I got the strength to hold a pencil.”