HUH YUNJIN’s Instagram is continuously being updated even as you read this article. “we dont dress to impress”. At times, there’s an unapproachable aura about her Instagram feed just like the lyrics to the songs by LE SSERAFIM. But then she pulls a 180 and posts “I’m so chili soup (추워탕)” when it’s cold out, or “hey party!” along with a picture of a jellyfish. YUNJIN knows what’s trendy, and successfully uses photos and memes to show off her tastes. Here are some ways HUH YUNJIN portrays her infinite charms on her Instagram account, very much like on stage. 

YUNJIN’s Aesthetic

One LE SSERAFIM fan once said: “Name: HUH YUNJIN, Special skills: Instagram.” HUH YUNJIN is good at Instagraming. Everything - down to the order of the posts, the vibes, every single detail - is well thought out. No photo makes it onto her feed without care. Instead of the ubiquitous selfie, she posts a screen grab of taking a selfie, a screen grab of a text conversation with her sibling after sending her a selfie, or a picture of KIM CHAEWON’s phone while she is taking a selfie. None of her pictures are obvious, all of them are fun, and deeply nuanced. It is no wonder that her Instagram became a staple on the mood boards of Instagram enthusiasts who want to make their feed look just as aesthetic. Her feeds are full of comments like, “HUH YUNJIN is an expert at curating her Instagram feed,” “She’s peak gen z energy and I love it,” and “This is so creative.” Followers are in awe of her creative use of the platform, and some even ask “How?” in bewilderment. If you managed to take the perfect selfie but couldn’t upload it because of the uncomely background, then look no further than HUH YUNJIN’s “Jen wears stripes again (젠또줄)” post. She drew cute checkered, floral, and striped patterns over the backgrounds, deliberately giving her pictures a crude look with roughly sketched flowers and coloring outside the line. Her “Instagram sensibilities” that are absolutely called for by this generation might be her secret to maintaining a steady stream of “peak MZ energy” comments.

YUNJIN’s Use of Memes

One keyword that seems to run through her entire Instagram account is “relatable.” YUNJIN who is known to teach the other LE SSERAFIM members expressions and memes that are commonly used among American Gen Zs like, “It girl energy”, and “IDC (I Don’t Care)” often communicates with her followers with memes on Instagram. She drew attention with a picture of the this year’s summer-craze tanghulu, shared her life with selfies, then signed off with the meme with the words “I wanna go home (집에 가고 싶다)” in a dramatic speech bubble. As seen through the comments like, “YUNJIN’s just like us... She eats tanghulu and wants to go home...,” and “last slide so true,” YUNJIN uses memes in a way that makes her incredibly relatable. “By the way, did you know? You lose your memory if you see someone cute.” This over-the-top meme that the members often hear from their fans found a home on YUNJIN’s phone case in the form of a sticker, which she proudly boasted on Instagram. This goes to show how meme-friendly HUH YUNJIN is. And now, her Instagram feed is a veritable “meme party”: “HOW MANY LETTERS IN JENNIFER (HUH YUNJIN’s English name)? (There are eight letters in JENNIFER, which sounds like ATE),” “Are you Kazuha? Kaz u ha-ve my heart (fearnot rizz) (A play on word using KAZUHA’s name, rizz is short for “charisma” and FEARNOT’s way of flirting with LE SSERAFIM).” They are filled with memes using Gen Z language. Jokes are considered failures if they need explaining, and memes follow the same rule. Depending on what sorts of memes are used, the target audience can get larger or smaller. HUH YUNJIN has an excellent understanding of memes, and therefore she is able to use them in a flexible way. There is never a need for her followers to explain what they mean to YUNJIN, which allows them to enjoy the memes freely.

At times, HUH YUNJIN creates her own memes using various Instagram functions. For example, the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s song “Labyrinth” that goes, “Breathe in, breathe through” was posted with a picture of YUNJIN meditating on a mat; the lyrics to “Anti-Hero,” “I’ll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror” was accompanied by a selfie looking away and shedding fake tears; the lyrics to “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve,” “Living for the thrill of hitting you where it hurts / Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first” was paired with a picture of squatting on the floor looking panicked. “She’s so real for this.” Fans who see HUH YUNJIN “over immersed” in the music say that they almost mistook her account for a dedicated Taylor Swift fan account. These memes that highlight the “fan HUH YUNJIN” persona makes her even more approachable to her fandom FEARNOTs in the sense that she too, is somebody’s fan.

YUNJIN’s Sense of Humor

HUH YUNJIN’s Instagram is full of her unique brand of humor. The captions for her picture dressed in stripes is “Do you have any stripe-inquiries😶 (줄무늬사항 있으실까욥😶),” and shares fun anecdotes like when she went to work with her shirt on backwards, how she ruined a shirt she liked because she washed it wrong, or the time when HONG EUNCHAE asked her to make a pretty smile but later felt sheepish when she saw that she went a tad bit overboard. The sequence in which YUNJIN uploads her photos shows her attitude towards Instagram. Chic pictures wearing a stage outfit that looks like a wedding dress is followed by a picture of YUNJIN awkwardly imitating a statue. Swipe a picture of her donning a coy Barbie-like expression and you’ll find a goofy picture of her eyes half-closed. She doesn’t choose one single perfect cut out of 100 of her dressed to the nines. She also shares the B-cuts that other people would have deleted. This is a rare thing for a celebrity who is expected to constantly look perfect. Susan Buckner Rose who is the Head of Product Marketing at Instagram says that calling things “Instagrammable” is a phenomenon that stemmed from wanting our posts to be recognized when they are uploaded onto our feed. But YUNJIN expresses herself without exclusively sharing how she looks in the best pictures which incidentally brings joy to people. She doesn’t pick and choose pictures that are likable, she uploads the ones that people can’t help but like. This is why HUH YUNJIN’s Instagram pictures are so relatable, but at the same time, extremely difficult to imitate. How ironic it is that the closer the followers feel to her the more she seems like the star that she is.

How to Insta like YUNJIN

There’s a reason why TikTok is flush with tutorials on YUNJIN-style Instagraming under titles like "Insta Layout - Yunjin ver.,” and “Selfie ideas by Yunjin.” A simple tutorial on how to take a picture like YUNJIN was in the “Perfect Night” music show behind the scenes. It goes something like: “1. Use the camera on the back of your phone. 2. Have the face of our Queen YUNJIN.” But perhaps we could learn from the different angles she takes her pictures in. HUH YUNJIN’s favorite angle as shown in the “PSICK SHOW” is the frontal, where the camera isn’t angled too high or too low. Another point to note is to make sure your face fills the whole screen like in YUNJIN’s first Instagram post. If you're not up to taking selfies yet, refer to her low angle selfie. YUNJIN often shares her OOTD with pictures taken while looking down at the camera. You’re taking a picture with friends? The wide angle is your friend. HUH YUNJIN captures what she saw, what she ate and where she is with the members.

Down YUNJIN’s Memory Lane

HUH YUNJIN is the it-girl, but she also uploads pictures that couldn’t be farther away from being trendy. You can find hints of styles that carried over from when we mainly communicated on Facebook or Kakao Story on her Instagram feed. As you swipe through HUH YUNJIN’s posts, you can find collaged photos in 2-panel, and 4-panel images. This is nothing new to us today, but it was a wildly popular selfie format in the 2010s. HUH YUNJIN’s 2-panel selfie that has mildly visible pixels with an added yellow filter is reminiscent of the times “back in the day” when we couldn’t take one single photo without our filters. There’s more: throwback items like wired earbuds, classic horn-rimmed glasses and overalls, hand-writing a letter for a fan who might have spent a rough week, going on a picnic with a bunch of fan letters and a diary, and a sketch that captures the scenery of a summer’s day - these mellow images impart a warm and cozy ambiance to her feed.

The “HUH YUNJIN” Trend

HUH YUNJIN made it onto the “Dazed 100” 2023 list and is the only K-pop artist to have done so this year.. “Young superstar creatives and talented tastemakers.” Dazed chose the word “tastemaker” to define the “Dazed 100.” The word literally means a person who makes taste – a person who led the trend this year. It is the definition of HUH YUNJIN.

HUH YUNJIN’s Instagram account that was first opened on August 9 last year has been on the radar of fashion media outlets. W Korea and Allure Korea singled out HUH YUNJIN as the one who brought back the overlined lip that can look overdone if you’re not careful. The Daily Fashion News introduced HUH YUNJIN as the queen of the “decorated bag” style. Singles Magazine’s overview of YUNJIN’s New York trip looks on their Instagram account saw a record number of likes. Fashion magazines are focusing on her Instagram account, her selfies, pictures that are uploaded from the green room right before shoots, and pictures of her outfit that she styled on her day off. Dazed illustrates HUH YUNJIN in two words: “Musician,” and “@jenaissante.” If you want to know more about HUH YUNJIN’s “good tastes,” head on to @jenaissante.