What are huns? The definitive guide to huns and hun culture

At the pub, a friend briefs us with the key lines from her latest date. “She was nice… she was a hun,” she says. As one, we nod our understanding. We have now met this girl too.

A friend’s BBQ is amped up by the arrival of late guests. They have, of course, been at a bottomless brunch. Within minutes they are waxing lyrical about the addition of eggs to a potato salad and have unrepentantly broken a table and passed out on sofas. They too are huns.

Aside from exemplary anecdotes, how can we explain what a hun is? How can a hun’s essence be distilled beyond what that epitomises them? Can hun culture be explained? Can it?

It’s a question that’s been plaguing me for a long time. And so, I sought answers.

The friend who went on the date, Anne, provides her expertise. “It’s like the archetypal Essex/Surrey blonde girl with heels and a dress doing her makeup on the train drinking a Starbucks on her way to get drunk in London,” she says.

To Huff Post, meanwhile, a hun is someone who is “relatable and has an air of camp about them.”

“In some cases,” they say, “they ooze down-to-earth charm, in others they exercise their divaship.

“What they all have in common is a naughty sense of humour, often coming out with ridiculous observations or anecdotes that make perfect soundbites. Their hun-ness may be conscious or unconscious, but essentially they are low-key iconic in everything that they say and do.”

VICE, on the other hand ,describes hun culture as “’low’ culture revelling in its own self.

“It uses a mix of nostalgic throwbacks and topical TV and music references to talk about the various debasements of life in your 20s and 30s: Think hangovers, dating indignities and pandemic isolation”.

They admit “it’s hard to explain what it is without using disparate examples” and they are correct.

And so:

Disparate examples demarcating hun culture: a list

• ALWAYS supporting your female friends – especially if they have been wronged by a man
• Drinking prosecco
• Dressing up (with heels) to go to any event – even if it is sitting in a park
• Loving Starbucks but not drinking coffee (Yes, this is possible)
• Loving Nights In As Much As Nights Out
• Living, laughing, and also loving
• Eating Chinese takeaways in front of the TV
• Every woman on every British soap
• Most reality TV stars
• Echo Falls wine
• Sugary cocktails – Pornstar Martinis in particular
• Enthusiasm
• Being extra
• Being camp
• Being a bit basic
• Taking Instagram shoots before going out
• Noughties pop
• Greggs
• Rebekah Vardy suing Coleen Rooney for libel
• Jeans and a nice top

But examples of hun culture are not enough to file this exercise in anthropology as complete. To really find answers, I had to go out into the field. I had to talk to some huns. So I try to contact some.

Huns: a list

• TOWIE and just general icon Gemma Collins
• Presenter Davina McCall
• Presenter Alison Hammond
• X factor star Alexandra Burke
• This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby
• How clean is your house? star Kim Woodburn
• X factor star turned Loose Women host Stacey Solomon
• Actress Helen Worth (who plays Gail Platt on Coronation Street)

But apparently trying to get in touch with a hun is like staggering home from a nightclub while trying not to vomit out an orange mural of aperol spritz – difficult. And no-hun got back to me.

“You ok, hun?” you may ask me in response to being ghosted. Well, no, not really.

So, it's time to ask the experts for help. Hunsnet is an Instagram account sharing the latest and greatest moments in hun culture. If somebody was able to help me, it was going to be Gareth, the man behind the account.

He says: “A hun is an all-round up for a good time person who is pop culture obsessed, can poke fun at themselves and is always in on the joke.

“Being labelled a hun is a badge of honour. If you identify as a hun you are immediately welcomed into an inclusive club.

“Who wouldn’t want that?”

And with that I have everything I need.

So, that’s huns distilled more than any vodka ever could. Their essence captured. My journey complete and by the end of it I feel closer to huns than I ever have before.

So it’s time to slurp my Frappuccino and get ready for a Big Night Out. For huns.