---
id: "2026-09-23-donaldjewkes-one-prompt-music-video"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-23-donaldjewkes-one-prompt-music-video/"
as_of: "2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00"
date: "2026-09-23"
date_precision: day
category: culture
importance: 3
confidence: high
status: [Confirmed]
sources: 6
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-04"
---

As of: 2026-11-13 13:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-23-donaldjewkes-one-prompt-music-video/

# "I spoke to my computer for 5 mins, Claude worked for 12 hours"

Full title: "I spoke to my computer for 5 mins, Claude worked for 12 hours": @donaldjewkes' Opus 5.5 P(doom) video hits ~3.6M views

On 2026-09-23 Donald Jewkes posted a K-pop-styled remake of the Claude Pop "I'm Upping My P(doom)" video that Claude Opus 5.5 made from one dictated prompt in about 12 unattended hours, using Seedance 2.5 and image models (via fal) plus ElevenLabs as tools, then drawing JavaScript animation over the generated footage. With ~3.6M views it is the most-seen work of the genre, and its published prompt became a template others copied.

## Key facts
- X post 2026-09-23 16:44 UTC: ~3.61M views, 10.3k likes, 806 reposts, 441 replies (fxtwitter, 2026-09-29); video 2:21
- Prompt posted as a reply (~555k views): make an 'updated version' of the Claude Pop video, use Seedance 2.5 + fal character/style sheets, ElevenLabs sound design, a 'pop protagonist that represents you' adapted from 'a sunflower-esque' Claude character, K-pop as a visual anchor, rotoscope-style JavaScript overlay, big kinetic lyrics, 'spend all of the usage' of a Claude Max plan, ~$2k of fal credits, 'make no mistakes.'
- Follow-up reply: 'Claude had access to SD2.5, elevenlabs, libraries of references, and the repo from @other__reality'
- Derivatives: Pleometric (2026-09-24, ~670k views) followed the same workflow; makevoid remade it 'as a paper music video' (6M tokens + ~$65 of image/video generation); Nick Dobos called the prompt 'masterclass prompt engineering'

## What happened

Jewkes quote-posted John Heibel's original and said he dictated the prompt (it contains speech-to-text errors like "foul" for fal and "Navi Stokes" for Navier–Stokes). He asked Claude to weave in "all of the current memes" on the timeline, such as the Navier–Stokes blow-up hype and "the Shinji meme", in an "internet brutalism" style, aiming at "a San Francisco tech Twitter audience". The work is a hybrid: generative video models make the base shots, and Opus-written JavaScript is drawn on top of them as the visible layer.

## Why it matters

It is a public example of a single long-horizon agent run (about 12 hours) producing a finished creative work, with the model orchestrating other generative models through APIs. Its reach made "one prompt, overnight" the defining claim of the genre. Critics such as the OrcaRouter analysis point out that it depended on a heavy harness, reference libraries and paid tools.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): 146 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): 85 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen (training cutoff March 2026): 176 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): 115 days after its cutoff

## Sources

1. [donaldjewkes: the video (X)](https://x.com/donaldjewkes/status/2102801274173587569) (x.com, discussion)
2. [donaldjewkes: full prompt (X)](https://x.com/donaldjewkes/status/2102801469976248500) (x.com, discussion)
3. [donaldjewkes: tools used (X)](https://x.com/donaldjewkes/status/2102801906573935057) (x.com, discussion)
4. [Pleometric: follow-up video (X)](https://x.com/pleometric/status/2103082510607610023) (x.com, discussion)
5. [makevoid: paper remake (X)](https://x.com/makevoid/status/2103945695803924943) (x.com, discussion)
6. [Nick Dobos on the prompt (X)](https://x.com/NickADobos/status/2102898978849448301) (x.com, discussion)

## Changes

- 2026-09-29 (filed): Created

## Related

- 2026-09-22: [Anthropic releases Claude Opus 5.5](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-22-claude-opus-5-5/index.md)
- 2026-09-22: ["Claude Pop": music videos made by Claude Opus 5.5 for the AI-doom song "I'm Upping My P(doom)" become a genre](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-22-claude-pop-genre/index.md)
- Archived: 5 posts and 1 video, listed in https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-23-donaldjewkes-one-prompt-music-video/index.json