Prompt Fatigue and Delegated Agency in Viral AI Prompt Culture - Viral Prompt Templates as Agency Prosthetics: A Structural Analysis and Design Proposal

Viral AI prompt templates circulating on social media are often framed as “stronger prompting,” yet their primary function appears to be psychological: they provide a felt sense of control (delegated agency) under conditions of fatigue, evaluation pressure, and relational uncertainty. This paper offers (1) a structural analysis of viral prompt forms (command tone, challenge framing, hierarchical role assignment), (2) a user-need model describing three overlapping motives—cognitive overload, internalized harshness, and delegated agency—and (3) an explanation of why such prompts can fail to improve well-being despite producing immediate “worked-feeling” effects. Finally, we propose a layered prompt protocol that separates rest/deferral, reflective decomposition, and research-grade verification modes to reduce dependency dynamics while preserving usability. We discuss ethical considerations, anonymization methods, and limitations of online-text-based observation.