EP 001 · 63 MIN A FAKE DOG COLLAR BRAND WENT VIRAL FIRST
We Accidentally Became Midjourney Experts (Here's How It Happened)
The short version
Episode 1 is Fast Hours' origin story. Drew traces his start to Midjourney's V4 era in late 2022, as a new dad drifting from photography, then to V5 as the quality jump that let him rebuild a whole customer event, landing page to slides, with AI. Rory, a self-described mediocre graphic designer, found Midjourney via viral Twitter posts, and his own first Midjourney post, a made-up dog-collar brand, went viral and got mocked in the comments.
Key takeaways
- 01
Midjourney's V4-to-V5 jump, not V5 alone, was the real inflection point: it turned a fun hobby into something usable for business.
- 02
A badly received post can still be the right pivot: one host's viral, heavily mocked dog-collar-brand post pushed him to post Midjourney work weekly.
- 03
Community hacks often become official features: fans manually blending two style-reference codes led Midjourney to ship its own style-weighting function.
- 04
Learn a tool while it's still rough: using it at its clunkiest teaches you why later changes matter and how to adapt faster.
- 05
Watch for what a tool still can't do: neither host could get Midjourney to render an upside-down goldfish lit correctly from above.
- 06
Separate play from production: both hosts say their best ideas come from open-ended personal sessions, not from prompting under a deadline.
- 07
A prompt-structure habit built for one job can become a teachable system: an internal formula for email images became something colleagues could repeat.
Receipts · said on the record
“I'm just like, okay, let's make a dog collar brand. And it was like, bang, it spit out this image that looked actually like a dog.”
“This one got like 800 and had like 500,000 impressions, and I'm just getting roasted in the comment section. Absolutely smashed, like this is trash.”
“Just a moment of silence for V4. God, that was like the best. I love V4 so much.”
“Can you actually generate an upside-down goldfish in Midjourney with the light coming in from the top onto the belly? … This is the first time I found something that was really hard for it to do.”
“It's like Christmas Eve, but you can't have your gifts for another 9 months.”
“We can't get consistent characters. We're doing character sheets and all this other stuff to try and hack around it. Bang. They come out with character reference. They get it. They listen.”
Chapters
- 0:00:00 Why We're Nerding Out Over AI Image Gen
- 0:03:00 From Dad Life to Digital Artist: Drew's AI Awakening
- 0:07:30 Rory's Late-Night Discovery That Changed Everything
- 0:12:00 The Wild Ride of Midjourney's Glow-Up
- 0:18:00 How Midjourney is Breaking All the Rules
- 0:25:00 Unleashing Your Inner Child: The Joy of AI Creativity
- 0:32:00 Battling the Haters: Our AI War Stories
- 0:38:00 The Mind-Blowing Future of AI-Powered Imagination
Questions this episode answers
How did Fast Hours get started?
According to episode 1, Drew and Rory had been talking about Midjourney constantly on their own and noticed there was no dedicated Midjourney podcast, so they started one as a long-form, unscripted alternative to short AI-news clips.
How did the hosts first discover Midjourney?
One host says he found it around November or December 2022, during the V4 era, while looking for a way to stay connected to photography as a new dad. The other, a self-described graphic designer, found it through viral posts on Twitter and joined via Discord.
What was the first Midjourney post that went viral for one of the hosts?
He made up a fictional dog-collar brand as a quick Midjourney exercise, posted the concept on LinkedIn, and says it jumped from his usual 20-40 likes to about 800 likes and 500,000 impressions, with plenty of comments calling it "trash."
Does episode 1 explain why the show is called Fast Hours?
No. In episode 1 the hosts never say the show's name on air or explain it; they only describe wanting a long-form space to nerd out about Midjourney together.
How do the hosts say Midjourney's product development differs from OpenAI's?
They describe Midjourney shipping features quietly, like character reference and style-code weighting, after the community hacks around a gap, versus what they call Sora's hype-heavy, long-delayed public rollout.
Show notes
Buckle up for a wild ride into the AI universe with Rory Flynn & Drew Brucker – two marketing bros who stumbled into Midjourney and never looked back.
In this episode, you'll discover: ✗ How we went from "WTF is prompt engineering?" to "I can't sleep without my nightly MidJourney fix" ✗ Why Midjourney is the secret sauce in our creative cocktails (and why your boss needs to chill about AI) ✗ The inside scoop on using AI without turning into a soulless robot (or leaving your couch)
From late-night prompt battles to accidental viral moments, we're spilling the tea on the good, the bad, and the hilariously glitchy. We dish on how we're navigating this newly inhabited world of AI-powered creativity – and why you should too.
Warning: Side effects may include uncontrollable urges to generate weird art at 3 AM, an addiction to style codes, and sudden desires to ditch your day job for full-time AI wizardry. Listen at your own risk!
Whether you're a Midjourney newbie or a prompt prodigy, this pod is for you. Tune in for laughs, learning, and a glimpse into the future of creativity.
Just make sure to blame us when you fall down the Midjourney rabbit hole.
