animated explainer

A Kurzgesagt animated explainer on whether aging could be cured within our lifetimes, made with Lifespan.io and the LEAF foundation. It introduces the idea of treating aging as a medical problem.

An animated simulation comparing single-winner voting methods such as plurality, instant runoff and STAR. Colored regions show which candidate wins as a randomized electorate shifts across a two-dimensional political space, building on Ka-Ping Yee's earlier diagrams.

Animated adaptation of Tim Minchin's beat poem 'Storm', in which he argues with a hippie at a London dinner party. It satirizes alternative medicine and defends science and reason.

Last Day of War is an award-winning CGI animated short by Dima Fedotov in which automated machines keep following orders and prepare a bomber after all humans are dead.

A 13-minute hand-animated short film that takes a symbolic journey through the unconscious, built around Carl Jung's idea of confronting the Shadow. It mixes 2D animation with spiritual and apocalyptic imagery.

The first part of Extra History's animated miniseries on the South Sea Bubble. It explains how England's government debt led Robert Harley to turn to financier John Blunt, whose schemes began inflating artificial demand for shares.

An RSA Animate video that illustrates a talk by geographer David Harvey on the crises of capitalism. It covers creative destruction, wage stagnation masked by credit, and the search for a more just economic order.

An amateur animation of Tom Lehrer's satirical song New Math, which pokes fun at 1960s math teaching and subtraction in base 8. The animation illustrates the old and new subtraction methods.

Kurzgesagt's animated explainer on the human immune system, describing the body as an ecosystem and how immune defenses cope with the variety of invaders. It promotes their book Immune.

CityNerd explains why traffic congestion grows nonlinearly as more cars use a road network, and why adding road capacity tends not to fix it. It covers the consequences for drivers, bus riders, cyclists and pedestrians, and discusses alternatives such as true bus rapid transit.

Animator Joel Haver explains how he makes his short films using rotoscoping and the EbSynth tool, along with the software he uses. The method is a labor-intensive, frame-by-frame process.

CGP Grey explains the Single Transferable Vote, a proportional ranked-ballot system, and why politicians have little incentive to adopt it. It is a short animated explainer of how multi-winner ranked voting works.

CGP Grey's five-minute animated explainer on how copyright terms grew from 14 years to life plus decades. It uses Disney and Star Wars examples to argue the system has gone wrong.

An animated Kurzgesagt explainer on bacteriophages, viruses that kill bacteria, covering how they infect and burst cells and their potential as therapy against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Jared Owen's 3D animated breakdown of how a Brunswick GS-X bowling pinsetter works, showing its mechanisms for sweeping, lifting and resetting pins and balls.

Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor on organ, shown with a Music Animation Machine bar-graph score instead of traditional notation.

A Wendover Productions explainer on the political agreements, from the Chicago Convention onward, that determine which airlines can fly where. It lays out the five freedoms of the air.

Kurzgesagt's animated explainer on CRISPR gene editing, covering how the technology works and what it could mean for curing disease, designer babies and aging. It frames genetic engineering as an irreversible change coming to humanity.

A Kurzgesagt animated explainer on the climate and environmental cost of meat. It covers how beef drives deforestation and emissions, and how this compares with plant-based foods.

A short Globe and Mail animated explainer on why renting can leave you as well off as buying a home. It walks through a rent-versus-buy comparison using Toronto numbers and the opportunity cost of a down payment. The video notes it dates from 2015 and the housing market has changed since.

A Kurzgesagt animated explainer on meat: why people love it and what it costs animals, the environment and health. It lays out the complicated trade-offs of meat production and consumption.

An animated xtranormal explainer on quantitative easing, what the Federal Reserve was doing and how things got there. It was made by Omid Malekan.

A five-minute animated explainer of liquid democracy, in which voters can delegate their vote to trusted people. It starts from the origins of democracy and contrasts direct and representative models.

The BBC TV version of the Babel Fish passage from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with Ford and Arthur aboard a Vogon ship, narrated over the show's hand-drawn animated Guide entry.

CGP Grey asks whether Star Trek-style teleportation would kill you and recreate a copy, working through the philosophy of identity and the Ship of Theseus. It is a short animated explainer.

A Kurzgesagt animated explainer on how humanity could build a Dyson sphere, a swarm of structures capturing the sun's energy. It covers using Mercury's materials and a step-by-step construction approach.

A short animated explainer that stages a $100 footrace in which contestants start at different distances from the line, depending on the advantages or disadvantages they inherited. It uses the race as a metaphor for how unequal starting points shape outcomes, citing US census income and poverty figures.

Kurzgesagt animated explainer on the Dark Forest answer to the Fermi Paradox. It argues that if advanced civilizations exist, staying silent may be the safest strategy because revealing yourself invites a first strike.

The first chapter of 3Blue1Brown's Essence of Linear Algebra series, introducing vectors with animated geometric visuals. It begins a series that builds intuition for linear algebra from the basics.

3Blue1Brown's animated visual introduction to the Fourier Transform, showing how a signal breaks into frequency components.

CGP Grey's animated adaptation of The Dictator's Handbook, explaining how rulers stay in power by keeping a small group of key supporters happy rather than ruling fairly. It lays out selectorate theory and how resources shape regimes.

CGP Grey's video "Humans Need Not Apply" argues that automation will make a large part of the workforce economically obsolete, much as engines did for horses. It surveys robots and software replacing both physical and mental labor.

CGP Grey narrates an animated adaptation of Nick Bostrom's Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant. The story uses a dragon that demands a daily toll of lives as a metaphor for aging and society's acceptance of death.

CGP Grey explains that the City of London is a tiny, separate entity with its own governance, history and privileges, distinct from the city called London. He covers its financial role and how it is run.

CGP Grey explains first-past-the-post voting and why it pushes elections toward two dominant parties. It is the first in his series on electoral systems.

CGP Grey's quick, witty explainer on the differences between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England, and the countries that make up the UK.

CGP Grey explains the history of the US Social Security card and number, and why they became a de facto national ID despite never being meant for it. He also covers why America resists a proper identity card.

A short explainer on the history and mechanics of public key cryptography and the Diffie-Hellman key exchange. It uses a mixing-paint-colors analogy to show how two parties can agree on a shared secret in public.

CGP Grey's sarcastic animated video adapted from the book How to Be Miserable, listing habits that reliably make people unhappy. By inverting the advice, it shows what to avoid and prompts reflection on goals and routines.

CGP Grey's six-minute explainer of the relationships the UK could have with the EU, based on Barnier's slide, shown as orbits of different closeness. It explains why the UK's red lines ruled out the closer options.