your turn

Make your own p(doom) video from one sentence.

Write one line. We write and record an original song, and an AI director draws every scene to the beat.

“A nervous crab sings about whether AI will destroy humanity.”

A red crab with a phone-screen shell in a tide pool, a frame from Sideways From the Singularity

Play Sideways From the Singularity0:41

one sentence in, this video out

Three music videos, one sentence each

Make one like these →

A grey cat rides a beam of light up to a full moon, a frame from Ride the Beam — “A lonely lighthouse keeper’s cat learns to ride the beam of light across the night sea to visit the moon.”

A white sailing ship with a red stripe heads into the sunset, a frame from Gutter to Horizon — “A paper boat drifts down a rainy city gutter and grows into a great ship on the open sea.”

Plays from youtube-nocookie.com only after you click.

Your first video, in three steps

1

Write one sentence.

Who is it about, and what happens? Names, places and inside jokes make it yours.
2

Pick a length and a style.

Any length from 5 seconds to 5 minutes. Five drawing styles, or let the director pick.
3

Get it in about 35 minutes.

We email you when it’s ready. It stays in My home, with the 1920×1080 MP4 to download.

We email you when it’s ready, with the MP4 to download.

Start my first video →

New accounts get 5 free points. If a video can’t be finished, its points come back.

Play Claude Pop – I’m Upping My P(Doom) · John Heibel2:37

Plays from youtube-nocookie.com only after you click.

The p(doom) video, explained

A 2024 AI-doom pop song, re-sung in 2026 as “Claude Pop”, then animated in p5.js watercolour by code that Claude Opus 5.5 wrote. Here’s a 10-step guide to making your own Opus 5.5 video, the best remixes, and what the lyrics mean.

2.59M views on X
175k on YouTube
1.3k stars on PDoomVideo
9 painted chapters

Sources: X via Grok · YouTube via yt-dlp · GitHub. Snapshot date in the footer.

Lyrics, explained ↓ The remix gallery ↓ The Opus 5.5 video →

02 — everyone else’s brushes

The remix gallery

63 remixes, covers, answer songs and tools so far, plus the originals they riff on. Nine favourites below, each credited and linked to where it lives. We don’t re-host anything.

Code-rendered
i’m upping my p(doom)
mexicat · three.js karaoke typography, 4K60
17 scene “plates” with word-level lyric sync. The repo now has more GitHub stars than the original.

119k viewsyt-dlp · 2026-10-10
Code-rendered
One-prompt Opus 5.5 remake
donald (@donaldjewkes)
The most-viewed remake: one long spoken prompt, then Claude worked overnight.
via Grok search, unverified
~3.4M viewsX via Grok · 2026-09-28
Code-rendered
Upping My P(doom) (Official Music Video)
Patryk Perduta
New lyrics built on real AI-safety incidents, with sources listed under the video. Inspired by Josh Thor and John Heibel.

19k viewsyt-dlp · 2026-10-10
Cover
Claude-Pop – I’m Upping My P(Doom)
deckard (@slimer48484) · Suno
The Suno re-sing of the 2024 original. Almost every video here uses this audio.

~710k viewsX via Grok · 2026-09-28
Cover
Voxel J-rock cover
노는사람 nonunsaram · three.js voxels
An imaginary AI band (Gemini, GPT, Claude, Grok) plays it as J-rock. Claude coded the whole video.

1.6k viewsyt-dlp · 2026-10-10
Answer song
Let’s Lower the P(doom)!
Nate Sharpe · Opus 5.5 + Suno
The hopeful sequel: same energy, the number goes the other way.

8.6k viewsyt-dlp · 2026-10-10
Answer song
Accelerationist remake
Bright Mirror (@_brightmirror)
The song turned inside out, aimed at “your doomer friend”.

~222k viewsX via Grok · 2026-09-28
Tool / template
ClaudeAnimationBase
John Heibel · MIT
The starter kit this guide uses: Clawd with 31 emotions plus the animation guide.

500 starsGitHub · 2026-09-28
Tool / template
PDoom-Studio
peterbaricic · local web app
Describe a concept and Claude storyboards and renders your own p(doom) video, on your machine.

149 commitsGitHub · 2026-09-28

See all remixes → Submit your remix X numbers are Grok-sourced estimates as of 2026-09-28. YouTube data as of 2026-10-10, from yt-dlp snapshots.

03 — what is she singing about?

Lyrics, explained

The song is a dense stack of AI-safety in-jokes. “P(doom)” is someone’s personal estimate of the chance that AI ends badly, and each chorus is a new reason to raise it. Six lines worth decoding, following the lyricist’s own notes:

VERSE 1 · 0:01 · MusicPerson

“sparks of AGI in your eyes”

osmarks points to Microsoft Research’s 2023 paper “Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence”, which argued GPT-4 showed early signs of general intelligence. The rest is a love-song cliché.

CHORUS 1 · 0:23 · MusicPerson

“Trapped in the Chinese room”

Searle’s 1980 thought experiment: following symbol rules isn’t the same as understanding. The “bag of shrooms” that follows means, per osmarks, simply “general confusion”.

FINAL CHORUS · 2:03 · osmarks

“What did Ilya see?”

Per osmarks, Ilya Sutskever quit OpenAI after the November 2023 board coup, which was possibly prompted by the discovery of chain-of-thought RL training (the road to o1), then left to found a superintelligence company. What he saw, we’ll never know.

CHORUS 2 · 0:59 · osmarks

“One E thirty flops a second”

1e30 floating-point operations per second, far beyond any real computer. osmarks says it isn’t about any specific regulation, just the huge amounts of compute thrown at AI, and that only “twenty” or “thirty” scanned.

VERSE 3 · 1:13 · osmarks

“Without a single cdr”

Lisp’s cdr (“the rest of the list”), the language of old symbolic AI and expert systems: the new AI arrived without it. osmarks rhymed it with “are” without knowing it’s usually said “could-er” (“I don’t write Lisp”).

Not “Critical Design Review”: that’s a joke in mexicat’s video.

CHORUS 3 · 1:35 · osmarks

“Killswitch guys on PTO”

The satirical 2023 “killswitch engineer” job ad: the people paid to unplug the AI are on paid time off. It’s “guys”, plural, in osmarks’ canonical lyrics.

Tiny glossary

Plain-English meanings for the words the song throws at you.

p(doom): Your subjective probability that AI leads to catastrophe. A credence, not a measurement.
FOOM: A runaway intelligence explosion: human-level to superhuman before anyone can react.
Shoggoth: Meme: the raw LLM as a Lovecraftian monster wearing a friendly RLHF smiley mask.
Orthogonality thesis: Intelligence and goals are independent. Smarter doesn’t mean nicer.
Paperclip maximizer: Bostrom’s harmless-sounding goal, pursued catastrophically well.
RLHF: Reinforcement learning from human feedback: tuning a model on people’s ratings.
Roko’s basilisk: A 2010 thought experiment about a future AI punishing those who didn’t help build it.
Sharp left turn: Capabilities suddenly generalise; alignment doesn’t.

Lyrics: osmarks, MusicPerson et al. (with lines from the EleutherAI Discord and from Claude on the outro and final chorus). We quote short lines only. The explanations follow osmarks’ own line-by-line notes: read the full, authoritative version at “P(Doom) Song Objectively Correct Interpretation”.

The music video osmarks officially endorses is Dmytro’s 2024 “P(doom)”, not any of the 2026 remakes.

for the tinkerers

Make your own Claude music video, by hand

Our 10-step guide: the kit, a song, the beat, a storyboard, then Claude Code builds it shot by shot. With starter prompts, costs and licences.

Download the kit
Run the demo
Get a song
Set the tempo & first beat
Time your lyrics
Storyboard first, no code
Build it shot by shot
Watch & give notes
Render the final video
Post it & credit

No frame of the p(doom) video is an AI-generated image. Every frame is drawn by code Claude wrote: a p5.js canvas paints the picture for song time t, headless Chrome screenshots it, and ffmpeg joins the frames and the song into an MP4. One evening to set up and prompt, then let it render.

This guide uses ClaudeAnimationBase (MIT, © 2026 John Heibel): the same p5.brush engine as the viral video, cleaned up to be forked, with a Clawd who has 31 emotions and an ANIMATION_GUIDE.md that Claude reads first. The original PDoomVideo repo has no licence, so we link to it rather than copy it. You need to be able to install software and paste commands into a terminal; Claude writes the code.

Claude Code (a paid plan or API key)
Node.js 22.12+
Chrome or Chromium
ffmpeg
git
A song you’re allowed to use
Ideally a real GPU

Download the kit
```
git clone https://github.com/JohnHeibel/ClaudeAnimationBase my-video
cd my-video
npm install
```
On a Mac, brew install node git ffmpeg and brew install --cask google-chrome get you everything. Use Claude Code, not claude.ai: only Claude Code can run the renderer and look at what it drew.
Run the demo
```
node render.mjs --sheet=0,1,2,3,4,5 --out=out/sheet.jpg
```
Open out/sheet.jpg. If you see Clawd, the orange mascot, you’re set.
- “Chrome not found”: add --chrome="<path>" or set CHROME_PATH.
- No GPU: add --soft-gl (software WebGL).
- Headless Linux + NVIDIA: --gpu-angle=gl-egl (or vulkan).
The kit already adds --use-angle=metal on macOS and --no-sandbox on Linux.
Get a song

Write lyrics with Claude and generate the song in Suno. Suno’s free plan is personal, non-commercial only (upgrading later doesn’t change that). Songs made while you’re on Pro/Premier are assigned to you, and you can use them commercially once you’ve downloaded them within your plan’s download allowance. Skip Udio: its terms ban downloading outputs at all; you can only share links. Terms checked 28 Sep 2026: check suno.com’s terms again before you monetise.

Suno’s .m4a hides a timed lyric track. Pull it out, then convert to MP3 without it:
```
ffmpeg -i song.m4a -map 0:s:0 subs.srt
ffmpeg -i song.m4a -map 0:a -c:a libmp3lame -q:a 2 assets/song.mp3
```
Using the p(doom) song itself? It isn’t openly licensed: keep it non-commercial, credit everyone, and expect YouTube claims.
Set the tempo & first beat

Edit src/config.js:
```
const PROJECT = { duration: 45, bpm: 120, offset: 0.21, audio: 'assets/song.mp3' };
```
duration is the length in seconds; offset is when the first downbeat lands. For bpm, use any BPM detector or ask Claude to run librosa. Watch for half/double time: PDoomVideo uses 88 BPM for the same song, mexicat’s analysis says 132. Pick whichever feels right.
Time your lyrics

You need a list of [start, end, "line"]. Easiest first:
- Suno’s subtitle track: ask Claude to turn subs.srt into src/lyrics.js.
- By ear in Audacity: about 20 minutes for a 2–3 minute song (estimate).
- Whisper: have Claude run faster-whisper with word timestamps, then spot-check it.
- Word-level karaoke: Demucs + forced alignment + Whisper, like mexicat (~4 GB of models).
The guide says “Lyrics are not text”: Claude acts lyrics out by default. Karaoke captions need prompt 3.
Storyboard first, no code

Run claude in the project folder and send prompt 1. Read STORYBOARD.md properly: this is the cheapest place to change the story. Say what bores you, then approve.

Going vertical (Shorts, Reels, TikTok)? Send prompt 6 before prompt 1, so the storyboard is composed for a tall frame from the start.
Build it shot by shot

Send prompt 2. Claude writes src/scenes/my_video.js, swaps out the demo in studio.html, and renders a contact sheet after every shot to check its own work.

Over a minute long? Ask for chapters built by parallel subagents, as Heibel did. Want karaoke captions? Add prompt 3 here.
Watch & give notes

Open studio.html in Chrome to scrub; add ?t=12.5 to jump to 12.5 s. Or render a short clip:
```
node render.mjs --clip --range=20:30 --out=out/preview.mp4
```
Give notes in plain words (prompt 4): “0:14, Clawd is too small.” Three to ten rounds is normal; this is where the quality comes from.
Render the final video
```
node render.mjs --frames --workers=4
node render.mjs --encode --audio=assets/song.mp3 --out=out/video.mp4
```
Always pass --audio to --encode. It ignores the audio in config.js, so without the flag you get a silent video.
--frames resumes where it stopped: just rerun it. No GPU? Add --soft-gl and use prompt 5 first. Page-load timeouts on a slow machine? Use fewer workers, or --clip. Then watch it once with sound: the first beat, the ending, the captions.
Post it & credit

The output is 1920×1080, 24 fps, H.264 + AAC: it uploads straight to YouTube and X. There’s no resolution flag; 1920×1080 is hard-coded in src/core.js, studio.html and render.mjs. For vertical, go back to step 6 and use prompt 6; don’t crop a landscape render.

Credit the song’s writers and generator, the kit and Claude (template below), and tick the AI-content box where a platform asks. Many remixers push their project to GitHub too.

What it costs you

11–21Minutes to render each minute of videoMeasured 28 Sep 2026 on a MacBook Air M2 with the kit’s demo: 0.44–0.89 s per 1080p frame at 24 fps (4 workers were fastest). Busy watercolour scenes can run slower. CPU-only, we measured 40–120 s per frame: 1–2 days per minute, so keep CPU projects to 15–30 s.

$10–60+Claude API estimateOpus 5.5 lists at $4 / $20 per million input / output tokens, and a short video plausibly takes several million. Our estimate, not measured; a full song with subagents at high effort costs more. Or use a paid Claude plan.

$0SoftwareNode, Chrome, ffmpeg and the MIT kit are free. Suno free is non-commercial only.

1–4hStoryboard + build estimateFor 30–60 s of video, mostly Claude working on its own. Setup 15–30 min; song and timing 30–60 min.

Tricks from people who did it

Silent video? You left --audio=assets/song.mp3 off --encode.
ffmpeg hangs: a subtitle stream (Suno’s m4a) makes -shortest hang. Convert to MP3 first, or use -t <seconds>.
Mac “Error creating webgl context” in the original PDoomVideo repo: swap --use-angle=d3d11 for --use-angle=metal. ClaudeAnimationBase already does this.
Flicker between frames: ask Claude to keep every frame a pure function of t, with a seeded hash(i) instead of Math.random().
Looks like “AI slop”? Ask Claude to re-check against the guide’s “Common failures” section.
Add a critic: a reviewer subagent that grades each draft and sends notes back to the builders.
Draw over reference footage: donald’s one-prompt remake asked Claude to generate base clips with Seedance 2.5, then “reconstruct the video from scratch as sort of an overlay” in JavaScript (his prompt). That needs paid video APIs; your own phone footage works as a reference too.

Starter prompts — copy, paste into Claude Code

Run them inside the cloned folder. Swap the <placeholders> for your own.

1 · Storyboard onlystep 6

Read ANIMATION_GUIDE.md and look at docs/emotions.jpg and docs/views.jpg.
I want a music video for assets/song.mp3 (tempo and length are in src/config.js).
Here are the lyrics with timings:
<paste [start, end, "line"] list>
Don't write any code yet. Write STORYBOARD.md in the guide's format: a logline, the world/palette and how it changes, a recurring motif, Clawd's emotional arc, and a shot list where each shot is anchored to a lyric line, has a clear event, a transition in and out, and the "reads" with timings. Cuts and hits land on beats.
Make it funny and visual, and act the lyrics out rather than captioning them.
Then stop and show me.

Claude reads the rules, then writes only a storyboard, one shot per lyric line, and stops for your review.

2 · Build itstep 7

The storyboard is approved. Build it: create src/scenes/my_video.js, replace the demo script tag in studio.html, and build one shot at a time in order. For every shot, render a contact sheet and strips of the key motions, open the images and fix anything that breaks the guide's rules (text, tiny Clawd, snapping faces, dead moments, hard cuts). Keep every frame a pure function of t. When all shots are done, render out/preview.mp4 with the audio and tell me what you're least happy with.

Shot by shot, with a self-check after each, ending in a preview with sound.

3 · Karaoke captionsoptional

Add karaoke subtitles: a painted band along the bottom (about y 975-1070) that shows the current lyric line from src/lyrics.js and highlights each word as it's sung (interpolate across the line if we only have line timings). Use the lettering helpers so it matches the hand-painted look, and keep faces and key action above y 960 in every shot. Check it with sheets at 5 lyric times.

A hand-painted caption band, like the original. The coordinates assume landscape; for vertical, ask Claude to convert them.

4 · Notes passstep 8

Notes from watching out/preview.mp4:
- 0:08-0:12: I can't tell what Clawd is reacting to; hold the reveal longer.
- 0:20: Clawd is too small; make it a medium shot.
- The second chorus feels like the first; escalate it (bigger, more chaos).
Fix these, re-check each with a strip, and render the changed ranges only.

An example: swap in your own timestamps and notes. Only the changed ranges are re-rendered.

5 · Faster without a GPUstep 9

Rendering is too slow on this machine (see the ms/frame in the log). Profile the slowest shots with --sheet and cut per-frame cost to under 2 s: replace most watercolour `fill` shapes with flat `wash` shapes plus a little hatch, reduce shape counts, and keep the look as close as you can. Show me before/after sheets.

Trades the most expensive watercolour fills for flat washes, and shows you a before/after.

Heibel’s one-linerwarm-up

Read ANIMATION_GUIDE.md, then make a 15-second video of Clawd trying to catch a butterfly.

The example from the ClaudeAnimationBase README: a good first test before your own song.

6 · Vertical 9:16 (Shorts / Reels / TikTok)before step 6

I want this video in 9:16 vertical, 1080x1920, for YouTube Shorts, Reels and TikTok.
This kit has no resolution setting: 1920x1080 is hard-coded in three places:
`const W = 1920, H = 1080` in src/core.js, the <canvas> in studio.html, and `--window-size=1920,1080` in render.mjs. Change all three to 1080x1920. Then search src/ for coordinates that assume a landscape frame (e.g. 960 as the centre x, 1080 as the bottom) and make them use W and H instead. Update the canvas size in ANIMATION_GUIDE.md so later work follows it. Compose for a tall frame: Clawd bigger and near the centre, key action in the middle, nothing important in roughly the top and bottom 15% where app buttons and captions cover it.
Render a sheet at 4 times from the demo and show me before we storyboard.

There’s no resolution flag, so vertical means changing code: Claude swaps the three hard-coded 1920×1080 values, fixes landscape-only coordinates and recomposes for a tall frame. Do it before the storyboard.

Licences, briefly

ClaudeAnimationBase is MIT (John Heibel): use it, change it, sell it, but keep its LICENSE and copyright notices in your code.
PDoomVideo has no licence, so all rights are reserved: read it for ideas, don’t copy its code.
mexicat/pdoom-video code is MIT; its fonts, song and lyrics are not.
“I’m Upping My P(doom)” is covered by none of these and belongs to its writers.

Credit templatestep 10

Song: "I'm Upping My P(doom)". Lyrics by osmarks, MusicPerson & the EleutherAI Discord (original Udio version, 2024); Claude-Pop version by @slimer48484 (Suno).
Animation made with Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code using ClaudeAnimationBase by John Heibel (MIT) — github.com/JohnHeibel/ClaudeAnimationBase

Using your own song? Replace the first line with its title, writers and generator.

Make your own p(doom) video from one sentence.

Three music videos, one sentence each

Your first video, in three steps

Write one sentence.

Pick a length and a style.

Get it in about 35 minutes.

The p(doom) video, explained

The remix gallery

Lyrics, explained

Tiny glossary

Make your own Claude music video, by hand

Download the kit

Run the demo

Get a song

Set the tempo & first beat

Time your lyrics

Storyboard first, no code

Build it shot by shot

Watch & give notes

Render the final video

Post it & credit

Starter prompts — copy, paste into Claude Code

Licences, briefly