Post format · Teaching posts
The explainer: real viral examples and how it's built
A term everyone uses and few can explain is a post people save. 6 viral posts on X from 6 creators used this format between May and October 2026. Their median views were 182K, and their median reach 14.5 times the creator's follower count.
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Real examples
The 5 most viewed posts, one per creator.
Niels Rogge
@NielsRogge
417.4Kviews
For anyone curious how Jev works, I made a visual explanation using @claudeai :) This is based on the Qwen2.5-RLCD model which @harshagundal released on @huggingface The idea is to replace autoregressive LLM generation by a single Transformer decoder (of a pre-trained LLM)…
24.3K followers · Sep 16, 2026
Om Patel
@om_patel5
257.3Kviews
SOMEONE BUILT A CAPTCHA THAT TAKES FABLE 5, ONE OF THE SMARTEST AI MODELS, 10 MINUTES TO SOLVE the letters dont exist in any single frame. theyre only visible because of how they move, hidden in the motion itself > freeze it on any frame and theres nothing there > you…
27.3K followers · Jul 16, 2026 · Video
Rico Go | Ricardo Gorski
@ricardogorski
194.1Kviews
The EU 🇪🇺 has a legal 3% tax loophole for SaaS founders. No need to go to Dubai. No “Offshore company” either. It's called the Cyprus IP Box Regime & it's an EU-approved tax incentive. Most software entrepreneurs have never even heard about it. But Cyprus has quietly…
4.4K followers · Sep 20, 2026
Sam
@0xTraderSam
170Kviews
This is the most unique perps exchange design I've seen in a while. Particularly because of the $PAPER mechanism. Here's how it works: > @papertrade_xyz is a synthetic perps protocol on HyperEVM without fees, funding, or slippage. > If you lose a trade, your full margin goes…
12.4K followers · May 13, 2026
ＤＡＮ_ＡＮＴＯＮＥＬＬＩ
@__el__toro__
137.1Kviews
This is a great visualization of how liquid flows in a lobe or gear pump. Your intuition might have you thinking the fluid gets squeezed between the rotors (picture what might happen if a string or your finger got sucked in there...). Well, your intuition is wrong. The center…
9K followers · Sep 25, 2026 · Video
How it's built
Answer this first: What's a term in your field you could explain simply? For example: “What a posting slot is, and why it beats posting when you remember”. Then write one line or paragraph per bracket, in this order:
[The term, as the title] [What it is in one plain sentence] [How it works, step by step] [Why it matters to the reader]
The median viral post in this format was 1,179 characters long, and 3 of 6 had a photo or video. Use it to grow your audience and show how you think.
Formats like it
- The numbersA real figure stops the scroll, and the decisions behind it are what readers save.
- The mistake and the fixNaming the mistake the reader is making earns the right to give the fix.
- The playbookA promised outcome with steps in order is the post people bookmark.
- The receiptsAn itemised list speaks for itself and reads fast on a phone.
All formats, as fill-in outlines: tweet templates and LinkedIn post templates. What's going viral right now: this week on X.
Questions
What is the explainer post format?
A term everyone uses and few can explain is a post people save. It goes in this order: the term, as the title; then what it is in one plain sentence; then how it works, step by step; then why it matters to the reader.
Does it work on LinkedIn as well as X?
Yes. The examples on this page are X posts, and the same shape works on LinkedIn: Postel's own list of LinkedIn openings that beat their creator's usual engagement includes one in this format. On LinkedIn, put the first beat in the first two lines, before "see more".
Where do these examples come from?
From Postel's library of individual creators on X. Each day, posts from the last two weeks by creators with at least 1,000 followers that have reached 5 times their follower count in views are checked once: a model sorts each by format, and a stronger model approves it as a clear example. 6 posts from May to October 2026 were tagged with this format; the page shows the most viewed one from each of up to five creators.
How do I write a post in this format in my own voice?
Answer one question first: What's a term in your field you could explain simply? Then fill the template on this page with your answer, one beat at a time. In Postel, pick this format under Viral posts › Formats and it writes the post for X, LinkedIn or both from your answer, in the way you write (one AI credit per network).
I'm one of the examples. Can I have my post removed?
Yes. Send the post's link through the contact form at postel.app/contact and it comes off this page within a few days.