How can I access the Midjourney app?

The answer is you cannot, and my realization that there is no Midjourney app was a rather strange experience.

Filled with enthusiasm, I went to Google Play Store and typed ‘Midjourney app' - excited to try out this new tool as it just seemed like a really cool app to have.

The Internet did not disappoint me. I stumbled upon the app below, which definitely is not the official Midjourney app! 🥹

Why did I even search for the Midjourney app? One morning, I woke up to an unusual piece of news; the 45th President of the USA, Donald Trump was arrested. With highly detailed images surfacing across social media and news pages showing the struggle of this arrest, my first reaction? Oh no!

Why did I believe these images? All this chaos sprung amid news that Trump is facing possible criminal charges, while the International Criminal Court had issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.

But did they really just put Donald Trump into prison? Well, thankfully, the answer is no. These images were created by the founder of Bellingcat, an open-source investigations group - Elliot Higgins. He asked the latest version of Midjourney (v5) to illustrate the spectacle of Donald Trump getting arrested. And just as one would expect, Midjourney v5 nailed it.

Higgins didn’t stop there. He generated a series of images that became more and more absurd: Donald Trump Jr. and Melania Trump screaming at a throng of arresting officers; Trump weeping in the courtroom, pumping iron with his fellow prisoners, mopping a jailhouse latrine, and eventually breaking out of prison through a sewer on a rainy evening. The story, which Higgins tweeted over the course of two days, ends with Trump crying at a McDonald’s in his orange jumpsuit.

Such incidents surely raise an important question - can AI-generated art be considered authentic? We touched upon this very topic in depth in this blog post.

Now, what is Midjourney?

Midjourney is an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species.
- Midjourney

Their text-to-image generative tools powered by AI are game-changing and have already impacted multiple aspects of our lives, including politics. This is an extremely creative tool that helps create images with the use of commands.

Then, what's the alternative to using the Midjourney app?

Midjourney’s AI program, at present, is only accessible via the Midjourney Discord server. In the Midjourney Discord server, you can create images using prompts by messaging the bot or by inviting the bot to a third-party server.

So here is what I did; I visited the Midjourney homepage and clicked the ‘Join the Beta’ button to get started. This redirected me to the Midjourney Discord server.

Next, I registered for the Midjourney Discord server and joined a Newcomer room.

I then entered one of the rooms and to generate an image, I used the ‘/imagine’ command.

Commands are used to create images, change default settings, monitor user info, and perform other helpful tasks. The commands listed by Midjourney make life a bit easier.

Once the ‘/imagine prompt’ was shown, I wrote the set of words (prompt) based on which I wanted an image. This was to help the bot understand my requirements, and variations of a unique image were created based on my input.

Most importantly, I stopped looking for the Midjourney app.😅

Let's see an example of using the Midjourney Discord server:

Choose a set of keywords based on your desired output. Suppose you want to create an image using the prompt - ‘A realistic jewelry collection made from handcuffs’.

Type the '/imagine' command and enter the above in the prompt space, wait a couple of seconds, and voila!

So I thought the Midjourney Discord server is free!

A free trial is activated when the first image is generated in the Midjourney Discord server, post which only 25 ‘jobs’ or images are offered. But uh-oh! Midjourney just discontinued their free trials. As per Midjourney CEO and founder David Holz, this is due to “extraordinary demand and trial abuse”.

Now, a subscription is required to the Midjourney Discord server to unlock complete benefits.

How to subscribe?

Use the '/subscribe' command to generate a personal link to the subscription page.

Also, you can go to Midjourney.com/account or select 'Manage Sub' from the sidebar while logged into the Midjourney website.

You can read more about this at this link.

While the Midjourney app is currently a dream for many, you can always head over to the Midjourney Discord server to unleash your creativity!

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, PBS, Shiksha, Midjourney