| name | dakota-content-design |
| description | Dakota (Thief of Boredom) viral Instagram carousel system — minimal-text film-aesthetic graphic posts engineered for shares and saves. 70K+ followers gained in 2025 and 20M+ views in 90 days from carousels alone, no reels. Covers carousel-vs-reels algorithm arbitrage, revelational slide architecture, the film treatment stack, and the test-verify-scale growth loop. |
| version | 2.0 |
| format | completion-engine |
| workflows | 3 |
| source | claude.ai export 2026-07-01 |
Dakota (Thief of Boredom) — Viral Carousel Content Design
Dakota (@thiefofboredom) grew from 180K to 250K+ Instagram followers in 2025 — including 54K followers and 11M views in a single month — posting ONLY minimal-text graphic carousels, no reels. His system exploits carousel-specific algorithm behaviors (follower reach, Reels-page promotion, second-chance impressions) and treats every slide as a standalone shareable asset with a consistent film-aesthetic brand. Production runs under 45 minutes per 10-slide post via an artboard assembly line.
Available Workflows
| # | Workflow | Produces |
|---|
| 01 | 01-design-viral-carousel.md | Complete carousel package: hook, slide-by-slide copy, design spec, caption + CTA |
| 02 | 02-write-standalone-slides.md | Set of revelational slides — each a standalone shareable thought |
| 03 | 03-audit-carousel-performance.md | Test-verify-scale readout on posted carousels with next-move call |
Quick Reference
- Carousels > reels for growth: they actually reach your followers, get promoted to the Reels page when performing, hit Explore more often, and are low-impact (no audio, self-paced reading).
- Two carousel types: Revelational (each slide standalone-shareable → growth) vs Informative (cohesive listicle → authority). Growth accounts lead with revelational.
- Hooks: "How I" beats "How to" — personal narrative over preachy instruction. Put a face (ideally yours) on slide 1.
- Slide 2 is a second hook: Instagram re-serves the next slide to followers who scrolled past slide 1 — design it to work cold.
- North-star metrics: shares and saves, not views or likes. Story-shares tap your followers' followers.
- Film treatment stack: box blur (radius 2 selfie / 4 sourced) → 15% noise → exposure −1.2 → brightness down → black & white → paper texture LAST.
- Canvas + grid: 2160×2700 (4:5), grid overlay, text 5 boxes down / 3 boxes in, kerning −80 to −100, line spacing ~18, lowercase with capitalized "I".
- Test-verify-scale: one test post → engagement check → verify next day → commit daily. Dakota's run: 133K → 350K → 4.6M views in three days.
- Baseline math: ~100 followers per solid post × 1 post/day = ~3K followers/month before any viral outlier.
Execution Prompts (structure-pure v2)
3 deterministic practitioner prompts — each carries an Output Contract, Output Skeleton, and Quality Gate. When a deliverable matches one, Read it and honor its contract instead of improvising the output shape.
- Dakota (Thief of Boredom) — Carousel Performance Audit —
skills/dakota-content-design/references/prompts-v2/carousel-performance-audit.md
- Dakota (Thief of Boredom) — Standalone Slide Bank —
skills/dakota-content-design/references/prompts-v2/standalone-slide-bank.md
- Dakota (Thief of Boredom) — Viral Carousel Package —
skills/dakota-content-design/references/prompts-v2/viral-carousel-package.md
