A video explaining recursion, where every explanation about recursion has a radically different video style, make this self-referential & clever & fast moving.
Make it yours. Replace "recursion" (it appears twice) with your concept and keep "has a radically different video style" for the genre switching. "self-referential" suits recursion in particular, so swap it for a word that fits your topic.
Recursion explained in nine video styles
A 75-second explainer of recursion in which each explanation switches to a different video genre, nine in all. Every scene is drawn in React and SVG, with music and sound effects synthesized in Python, from a one-sentence prompt to Opus 5.5.
“Genuine one-shot”
- Claude Opus 5.5
- React
- SVG
- Python
- One-shot
How it was made
Every scene is drawn in React and SVG, and the music and sound effects are synthesized in Python. The only files that aren't code are a few hundred small textures, such as film grain and bokeh, which were generated by code in advance to speed up the render, plus open-source fonts.
Posted Sep 26, 2026 · X · 557 likes · 70k views · 56 comments
Prompt from: Post body, in quotes
Look notesby Reference
A video about a video about recursion. Each scene is a different genre nested inside the last, tracked by a call-stack bar of genre tabs and a depth counter across the top.
- Color
- Changes with each genre: terminal green on black, golden bokeh for the nature documentary, black-and-white noir, a purple-and-teal infomercial, gold trailer type on black, and a pastel explainer card at the core.
- Type
- A monospace breadcrumb of genre tabs (INTRO, CORP, TERM, 8-BIT, DOC, NOIR, KIDS, TV, trailer) with a depth number; bold condensed white capitals with RECURSION in red; a terminal man page; italic serif for the nature documentary; typewriter capitals for noir; a red rubber-stamp BASE CASE; metallic gold capitals for the trailer.
- Framing
- Frames inside frames: a video player nested in concentric outlines, a TV inside a set, a card inside gold frames. The breadcrumb bar runs across the top of every genre.
- Sound
- Music and sound effects synthesized in Python, according to the creator.
- Structure
- "PLAY A VIDEO THAT EXPLAINS RECURSION." over a nested player, a terminal man page for recursion, a nature documentary on the recursive fern, a film-noir office, a 1-800-RECURSE infomercial, a trailer building to "...THE BASE CASE.", noir again with a BASE CASE stamp, then "AND" with RETURN and depth 0 over the original explainer card.
