# Explaining Recursion

Style: [Motion Design](https://comotion.design/style/motion-design)
Made by: Ethan Mollick, @emollick on X
Original post: https://x.com/emollick/status/2103688362960019567
Length: 75 seconds
Tags: 8-bit, explainer, genre shifts, self-referential
Page: https://comotion.design/v/explaining-recursion

A recursion explainer that dives through nine nested genres, from terminal to 8-bit to noir to infomercial, hits a plain base case page, then climbs back out.

## How it was made

Tools: Claude Opus 5.5

Prompt: 962 words, shown to signed-in members on the page, free with an account.

### Process

Made by Claude Opus 5.5 from one prompt: "A video explaining recursion, where every explanation about recursion has a radically different video style, make this self-referential & clever & fast moving."

The prompt shown here was written afterwards from the finished clip, so it describes what is on screen.