Behind the scenes with Love of Huns: An interview with the elusive founder of the viral Instagram account

Just Tattoo of Us is a reality TV show in which couples design tattoos for their other half. The catch? They cannot see their ink until it is done. In one episode, someone’s idiot boyfriend tattoos an actual poo onto his girlfriend’s leg and she weeps - that is until presenter and hun Charlotte Crosby comforts her.

“I’m sure you could get the poo covered up. You could make it look like a cupcake with the icing on the top?” she says.

Crosby is comforting her female friends in the face of the worst adversity. As such, she is a hun. And this hun exchange, and countless other hilarious moments like it, are captured by Love of Huns, the Instagram account for everyone and anyone with an appreciation for hun culture.

The founder of the page, who wishes to remain anonymous, says they started it in 2017 while “incredibly hungover” and watching back to back clips of Big Brother.

“The page was started for close friends with a similar love of huns to enjoy,” they say. They “didn’t really expect the page to grow as big as it has.”

But the page has certainly grown big. The Instagram account boasts some 533,000 followers who anxiously await more hun content and a further 30,000 follow them on Twitter. Why?

“People can relate and idolise to the iconic huns that we have grown up with. It’s relatable with a hint of self-deprecation British humour.”

Nostalgia also plays a key role in hun culture, they say: “We idolise noughties culture from the fashion to the lifestyle to the difference we had in reality TV back then. It’s the people we’ve grown up loving.

“If someone can reference a Big Brother quote from 10 years ago or quote ‘digustang’ out of context and you know what they’re are referring to, you would hope they are a hun culture fan.”

Due to its success, the page has attracted recognition from celebrities and huns featured in its posts and famous figures like Dani Harmer regularly comment on the page’s Instagram posts. But they are not always happy:

“We did once share a photo of Chloe Mafia holding a chomp and bottle of vodka. She then DM’d us asking to take it down immediately or else she would get her lawyers involved.. so we did.”

But: “Our content always celebrates hun culture so people are usually happy to be included. We’ve actually had quite a few people saying it’s been their life ambition to appear on the loveofhuns feed.”

We’ve struggled with the nebulous definition of a hun in the past. But to the Love of Huns founder, it is easy to break it down. The key markers of hun status are: “prosecco, aperol spritz or any pinot”.

“It could be a pink mini cooper/convertible fiat 500 with stick-on eyelashes eyelashes. Could be a HOT PINK Katie Price Range Rover. It could be oysters at the shard - could be a boots meal deal,” they said.

Hun culture also overlaps with queer culture, they explain: “The overlap comes from the gaudiness and camp that so many huns have. The pumped up personalities, the irreverence and the drama (both real and fictionalised) reflect the queer attraction to all things fun and over the top.”

With so many to choose from, who are their favourite huns? “Alison Hammond - if you’re having a bad day, she’s the serotonin hit you need.”

Diane Abbott is also “one of us” due to the time she drank a Mojito on the tube, and Big Brother has been a great source for “iconic” Gemma Collins and Tiffany Pollard moments.

The account grew steadily during the coronavirus pandemic when people took to the internet to pass the time, it being – of course – illegal to do much else. So what’s next for huns and the love of them in a post pandemic age of social contact?

They tell us to keep our eyes “peeled” for events they will be planning in the future but are cagey about what they could entail.

As for other brand extensions, when we ask how much money they make from their hun based merchandise including slogan-tees, they are tight-lipped. “Don’t be so cheeky luvvie,” they scold, asking us to imagine the words in hun Kim Woodburn’s voice.

That’s us told, then.