The Unbearable Weight of Being the IUMUN Insta Handler

Also known as; how it feels being the muse of the Turkish MUN scene.

Usually, when people are participating in an MUN conference, they train for diplomacy, debates, or how to tie a tie. I train for making carousels at 2 AM because unfortunately, the Instagram algorithm waits for no one.

Leading the creative team for IUMUN is like being in an intense love triangle between Illustrator and Photoshop. Chaos, passion, blood, sweat, tears. There’s me, squinting 3 millimeters away from my screen at a font size difference no one will notice.

The creative process starts the way all great things do;  with the vaguest draft possible. 

“We need to post something for this or that.” 

From there, it’s texting the Marcom group (sending love, Defne and Efe), finding the guideline we made ages ago in my files, and trying to turn it into the coolest thing ever. We aim for serious-but-interesting, professional enough but still fun. I sometimes like to complain about the process a little, then some people say: “Why not use AI then?”

AI design is clean, yes. But also cold, lifeless. That’s not what we need for IUMUN. Our visuals need a heartbeat, a pulse, a joke sometimes, hidden in the alt text. AI doesn’t know what it feels like to export something with the wrong ratio three times and not realize, and still try to export for the fourth time with love. I do.

(Hi Beyza! This section was for you!)

Another thing we battle? People who take, let’s say, ‘inspiration’ from us. Don’t get me wrong, inspiring people is literally the reason we do this. But sometimes, the inspirations are a bit too-familiar. There’s something bittersweet about a layout I spent an entire afternoon tweaking to show up in a different account, miraculously with the same text placement and color scheme.

To be perfectly fair, after 25k people see your post and it racks up hundreds of thousands of views for your account, you stop caring about the competition. There’s only one winner after all. 

Design isn’t just decoration for us, it’s how we communicate who we are before we even utter a word. IUMUN’s feed isn’t just some posts, it’s what we are. It’s our personality. Every color says something, every caption is a conversation. So when it all comes together, when the grid looks like freshly baked bread out of the oven, and someone mentions; “This post made me want to apply.”, suddenly, every late night export, every font decision, every existential crisis over line spacing feels worth it.

Until, of course, someone messages: “Hey, didn’t we have this post due tomorrow?”

Written by

Neva Öztürk