The Mother Of The “Honey Bun Baby” Reacts To Her Son’s Viral Stardom

The fickle nature of the internet means that anything, or anyone, can go viral, even a 22-month-old baby. That's just what happened to Ashton Howell, or as he has recently become known online "honey bun baby," completely unbeknownst to his mother. In a recent interview with AL.com, Ashton's mom, Ariel Griggs, discussed her shock at seeing pictures of her baby boy all over the internet.

"My first thought was, 'How did they get my baby's pictures? I mean, I don't have these pictures,'" Griggs said in the interview. She quickly realized that the culprit was her 18-year-old brother, who used to babysit Ashton before he went off to college at UC Berkeley. "He thought it was funny to dress Ashton up, putting his 'little' big head in caps and stuff and taking pictures of him. I found out he has tons of pictures of Ashton on Instagram. I guess people just thought his pictures were cute and went from there," she said.

The viral picture, an adorable image of Ashton smirking in a red beanie, began circulating around Thanksgiving, but the meme doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon, and Griggs worries about the kind of content her son's picture is being associated with. "After Thanksgiving, I'm starting to see more that are the crazy ones," she said. "The last couple memes I've seen, they've been a little X-rated. I don't want people looking at my baby's picture and thinking of stuff like that!"