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Big questions, drawn in code.

Animated explainers about history, science and psychology. Every frame is drawn by Python code that Claude Code wrote, so there is no stock footage anywhere in them.

Watch the latest videos Meet the cast
Zee, a stick figure in a yellow hoodie, holds up a magnifying glass in a drawn science classroom, next to a chalkboard that says why?

Fresh off the render queue

Earlier videos

Shorts: one idea, a minute at most.

Most of them run about 40 to 50 seconds. Tap a cover to watch on YouTube.

Zee, the skeptical sidekick of the channel, drawn in the yellow hoodie, standing and looking curious.

Zee does the doubting.

Zee is our Gen Z skeptic, in a yellow hoodie, with a question for every big claim. When the narrator says something impressive, Zee wants to see the proof.

We have drawn Zee at four ages, from a kid with a backpack to an old man with glasses. It is the same function each time, with different settings.

Meet the cast
The supporting cast of the videos standing in a row: parents, a cousin, a friend, a boss, a scientist, an astronaut, a principal and more.
Everyone else, also drawn in Python.

Zee is a function.

The code below is real. It is the part of our drawing engine that draws Zee’s eyes, brows and mouth, copied from the file. One short block is left out and marked.

# the-graphite-mind/longform/engine/cast.py, lines 299-321
# (inside figure(): eyes, brows, cheeks and mouth; lines 309-310 left out)
    ex = r * 0.36
    ey = cy - r * 0.02
    closed = blink or mood == "sleepy"
    for side in (-1, 1):
        ecx = cx + side * ex + look[0]
        ecy = ey + look[1]
        if closed:
            d.line(catmull([(ecx - 10, ecy), (ecx, ecy + 6), (ecx + 10, ecy)], 5), LW)
        else:
            ry = 14 if mood != "shocked" else 17
            # ...
            d.ellipse(ecx, ecy, 9 if mood != "shocked" else 11, ry, INK, outline=False)
            d.dot((ecx - 3, ecy - 5), 3.4, C["white"])
        bp = BROWS.get(mood, BROWS["neutral"])
        pts = [(ecx - side * x * 0.9 - look[0] * 0.3, ecy + y * 0.9) for x, y in bp]
        d.line(catmull(pts, 5), LW * 0.85)
    if mood in ("happy", "laugh", "proud"):
        for side in (-1, 1):
            d.ellipse(cx + side * r * 0.6, cy + r * 0.3, 11, 7, C["pink"], outline=False)
    if mood == "worried":
        d.fill(ellipse_pts(cx + r * 0.85, cy - r * 0.55, 6, 9) , C["sky"], width=2.5)
    _mouth(d, mood, cx, cy, r, braces="braces" in extras)
Zee, drawn by the code in the block on the left.

This is Zee. This is also Zee.

Every character, prop, map and transition in our videos is a function like this one, and Claude Code wrote them. The music is generated by code. So are the edit and the render.

The voices are the exception. They are AI voices made with ElevenLabs, and we say so on purpose.

How it’s made

Who makes this

The Graphite Mind is a YouTube channel of animated explainers about history, science, psychology and health, made for viewers in the United States. The first video went up in September 2026.

A person picks every topic, reads every script, reviews every finished video and uploads it. Claude Code does the research notes, the scripts and all of the drawing code.

If we got something wrong, tell us. Questions, corrections, business and press all go to one address.

hello@thegraphitemind.com

More about the channel