About Us
About Us
Reject the grift. Embrace the human.
Our Mission
Late Night Hot Dog Club started because we wanted a place where human-made art could just exist and get weird in public.
The tech industry has spent the last few years telling everybody that creativity is a bottleneck, and that a machine can skip you past the practice, the bad drafts, and the perspective you only get from actually living a life. We think that is a lousy trade. The only answer we have is to make more art, make it stranger, and get it into as many hands as we can.
So that is the whole plan. Everything here is 100% human made. No AI art, no AI writing, no shortcuts. Every design came out of somebody's brain and somebody's hands, and that somebody gets a majority cut of every sale.
Our Story
Joe has been making things for as long as he can remember. Writing, video, drawing, composing, animating, coding, you name it - if it scratched that creative urge he wanted to try it.
As time wore on, he kept creating but also kept finding himself in positions where he got to work towards showcasing other people’s art. Whether it was working at a literary magazine, spearheading and emceeing literary events, or the ill-fated first iteration of something similar to Late Night Hot Dog Club that was killed by the pandemic, Joe found himself chasing the kind of high you can only get from the satisfaction of helping spread the word about art that moved you.
A few years back a run of life changes, some chosen and some very much not, made the question a simple one. If you only get so many years to make stuff, what do you actually want to build? The answer had nothing to do with getting more eyes on just his own chaotic and varied work. It was a place where the work of every artist he had befriended, admired, or recently discovered could live in one spot and end up in somebody's hands in a way that helped these artists survive and thrive.
After reconnecting with the brilliant writer and sharp scientific mind Meg M. Young (previously dear childhood friend, now adored wife and co-founder of the club!) Late Night Hot Dog Club was born.
So here we are. It started small, it is still small, and it runs on the same idea it started with. Find people making incredibly rad human stuff, and ask if we can help bring it to the world.
So where did the name Late Night Hot Dog club come from? Well, it all begins where a lot of great things do: with Good Friends, late nights, a weekly Poker Game, and a Hot Dog Roller. Long story short, our crew spawned the term “Late Night Hot Dog Club” to capture that feeling of late nights spent with your favorite people in the world eating good food and having good times. There’s nothing like it. So with their blessing, that’s what we decided to name this thing. (Plus, it’s kind of a goofy name right? We’re told that’s good for branding!)
On Late Nights and Hot Dogs
The Artists
These are the people whose work makes us want to get out of bed in the morning despite the horrors. Some are old friends, some are new, but all of them are brilliant humans and we’re thrilled to be able to wake up every day knowing that we get to help bring their art to you.
Meg Young
Writer, Communications Scientist, Knower of Many ThingsMeg's work runs warmer and stranger than the rest of ours. Lover of words. Human.
Badnik
Alien Brain Parasite, Musician, Animator, IllustratorWe don’t know a ton about Badnik’s origin and for some reason we keep forgetting to ask… They’re like, an alien brain parasite of some kind that symbiotically live inside MTGJoeD’s brain and pilot him like a mech suit sometimes?
MTGJoeD
Video Essayist, Writer, Game DevVideo essayist, game developer, and at-one-time Wizards sponsored Magic the Gathering Twitch Streamer - MTGJoeD is Late Night Hot Dog Club co-founder Joe Davidson’s internet nome de plume everywhere he goes.
How we work with artists
No exclusivity, no weird contracts, no clause buried on page four. Nobody who works with us is locked down.
The Team
Right now, there are two of us. That is the entire company, so if an order takes an extra day it is because one of us was standing in line at the post office.
Meg Young
Co-founderKeeps the club upright. Whether it be wordsmithing, helping laminate stickers, or any of ten million other things, Meg is a superhero.
Joe Davidson
Co-founderStarted the club after a run of life changes made it clear the thing worth building was a home for other people's art, not just his own. Handles art, writing, shipping, and about nine other jobs.
Questions We Get A Lot
Do you really not use AI?
Correct. No AI art, no AI copy, no AI mockups, nothing. Every design here was drawn by a person and every word on this site was typed by one of us.
How do artists get paid?
Every artist gets a cut of every sale of their work. No rights grab, no exclusivity, no clause that stops them from selling the same art themselves or working with anybody else.
Can I send you my work?
Please do! We aren’t actively looking for more artists outside of our initial list of folks we’re talking to at the moment, but we wouldn’t want to miss out on something amazing. Hit the contact page and show us the weirdest thing you have made!
Where does everything get made and shipped from?
Anything that we are not currently using a POD service for gets made right in our house/studio in Boise, Idaho.
Why hot dogs?
Late night, cheap, weirdly universal, and everybody has an opinion about them. Like we said above, our crew spawned the term “Late Night Hot Dog Club” to capture that feeling of late nights spent with your favorite people in the world eating good food and having good times. There’s nothing like it. So with their blessing, that’s what we decided to name this thing.
What about veggie/vegan dogs?
Dude, hell yeah - obviously! “Hot dog” is used super loosely here - if it fits the spirit of late nights with your best friends, we’re down with it. A ton of veggie dogs get consumed in the LNHDC home base, in fact.
Want in?
Buy a shirt, join a mail club, or send us your work. All three keep a human artist paid.