Channel name
description of what it covers and why you watch it
Short videos. Reminder that no lock is impenetrable. Also, April Fool’s Day videos are very special.
Video essays. No longer in production, high-quality reviews of some cultural artifacts. He’s moved his operation to Curiosity Stream. Made me realize it’s worth it to pay creators directly for their work rather than having advertisers and platforms like YouTube. Now, if only I had money to pay these creators. Aye, there’s the rub.
Expert film analysis. If it’s not, it sure looks like it is.
Snarky educational. Fun! The best damn flag contest, best takedown of first-past the post voting, and best reflection on how to go forward after hitting YouTube fame. I still want to know if he and Roman Mars have talked flags.
Classic YouTube. 15 years ago, mans took a bunch of other YouTube videos and remixed them into each other, producing meta tracks.
Not counting music, I assume - I have a gazilion artists I love if anyone’s interested.
As for actual Content with a capital C:
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PhilosophyTube Extremely interesting, well-researched and entertaining presentation of a wide range of philosophical and sociopolitical topics. From the UK.
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Shaun Ditto, though with a different angle and a Northern accent.
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Contrapoints Ditto, but American and quite a bit more… theatrical. Quite a strong focus on gender and transgender issues; check out her video on J. K. Rowling for one of the best treatments of the topic.
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Dr. Geoff Lindsey - Linguistics and phonology stuff, deep dives into pronunciation, fascinating as fuck.
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Middle Eats Really damn good middle-eastern cooking channel, no-nonsense presentation.
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Brian Lagerstrom - Baking / cooking - good recipes, sensible treatment.
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J. Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats fame - damn good cook, nice guy.
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Tom Bates Creator of Nigel and Marmalade. Dumb, stoopid, awesome.
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Adam Millard - The Architect of Games - video essays on gaming
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Noodle - very funny animated video essays on gaming
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Ice Cream Sandwich - stoopid funny little cartoons about dumb shit.
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Jaiden Animations Animated little essays about stuff, she must be protected at all costs. See for instance Things about Relationships I wish someone told me about.
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Tom Scott has finished up his Things You Might Not Know series, but there’s like a decade of them and they’re amazing. Little investigative videos on everything from programming to wasp farming. You need to watch all of them.
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Taylor Tries Videos on juggling. I have the hugest talent-crush.
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deleted by creator
I’m surprised no one mentioned this channel yet. Previously known for making top 10 facts of everything, but has since transitioned into long form documentary of mysteries. He takes a long time between videos, but its always an instant click whenever he uploads. Does his own research, cites them, makes the background music and all of the animations for it. Honeypot for react channels too.
Motorcycle related videos. Does some motorcycle reviews, but the explanation type videos they mostly do are awesome. Even if you’re not a motor head, you can always learn/enjoy something from their videos. If not the knowledge and physics, then the excellent videography and story telling Ryan puts in there.
The Youtube Appliance guy. I kid, but he does excellent videos delving into tech in general appliances or retro stuff. One of his best videos is about dishwasher detergents, so good he had to make 2 more follow up videos about it. Seriously, go give it a watch.
RedLetterMedia
Movie reviewers that like all sorts of movies. Great production quality.
It’s not the same after Rich Evans passed away from diabetes
Those hack frauds?
The very same.
History of the Universe is exactly what it sounds like. Amazing channel!
ScienceClic English is based on the German channel original, and covers in depth science topics, narrated by a truly stellar individual.
PBS Space Time is simply stunning science coverage that’ll melt your brain.
I’m a big fan of Emily the Engineer. She’s a similar chaotic energy as early Michael Reeves but less directly focused on “offensive ideas” or “things to hurt your friends”. The creativity behind both the projects and the videos is top notch.
Brick Technology makes cool mechanisms out of Lego to solve some simple problems
Claire__ Saffitz x Dessert Person
Baker/ pastry chef that makes all sorts of tasty treats. Content is largely educational giving you tips and tricks on what she’s doing and why so you can replicate her recipe more easily.
Binging with Babish
Started out as one dude recreating food from films and shows and has expanded to having a dedicated anime food creator, doing fun food mashups for sports things, redoing episodes that he messed up on, and still doing food from films and shows.
Claire Saffitz is great.
Chef Jean-Pierre, I just adore him
They’re a group of 4 people who play games together, but aren’t the super energetic and annoying type of content creators. You know the type I’m talking about. Plus, Stumpt usually seems to play a lot more indie games or every once in a long while anymore they may go back to m!neceraft for a mod pack.
Hello fellow Stumpt fan! Huge plus one to Stumpt
Bigtime
is an awesome newer car and motorcycle channel, they split off from donut to go do their own creative stuff after donut go bought by a big soulless media company
Fortnine
is an amazing motorcycle youtube channel with absurd production quality and directing often worthy of full length documentaries
Berm peak
is a super well produced mountain biking and bikes channel
Lab Muffin Beauty Science
If you’re into science based skincare I absolutely adore her, she has a chemistry PhD and a specialization in cosmetic chemistry. She spends a lot of time debunking baseless skincare marketing which I don’t really need since everything I know about skincare I learned from her and various other science focused youtubers, but I absolutely adore her informative videos that are guides to various aspects of skincare, or an exploration of how to competently interpret research
Adam savage’s Tested
channel is a lot of fun if you like maker content, he’s just as energetic and charismatic of a character as he was back on Mythbusters
Hybrid calisthenics
is a wonderful exercise fitness and wellness channel where the guy running it is just an earnest, kind, compassionate human being who offers advice that meets people where they are and helps them progress, regardless of their current ability level. He went viral a while back for a video talking about how you can do exercise at any level, even if you’ve literally never done a pushup in your life, where he demonstrates modified versions of bodyweight exercises that make them more accessible, or even more difficult so that people can work their way up to their goals from any starting point. People fell in love with his personality and attitude of compassion.
My absolute favorites for cooking are:
Adam Ragusea
does an amazing job of making recipes realistic and approachable for home cooking, and his background as a journalist results in incredibly high quality research videos that are unbelievably informative
internet shaquille
unprotentious while focusing on technique, has a fantastic delivery style, it’s hard to describe exactly what makes him special, but the videos are phenomenal and he often gives great life advice
J Kenji Lopez alt
the goat. Super knowledgable, especially regarding the science of cooking, and is a well respected name in recipe development. His videos are him with a gopro camera strapped to his head while he prepares the food and talks about it’s origin, how he likes to make it, etc. Its like having an expert demonstrate for you in their home kitchen while casually chatting about all the knowledge they have to share about a given recipe
Chinese cooking demystified
the absolute best source for traditional chineese cooking, and food history lessons to boot. I love their delivery style, and their videos always give a ton of historical and cultural context and are a joy to watch)
Lemme know if you’d like more food youtubers, these are my absolute faves though, and all offer very different perspectives on food (sometimes disagreeing with eachother) while usually teaching at least as much about technique, how to approach cooking, and their own personal philosophy when developing recipes as they do the specific recipe itself.
Brian David Gilbert
makes a wide range of bizarre nonsense and I adore him. Comedy sketches, horror short film kinda stuff, incomprehensible fever-dreams, a guide to the united states health insurance mess that somehow manages to be as funny as it is depressing, goofy music, unironically wonderfull music, recipies. He used to make polygon’s unhinged video series called unraveled, his personal channel is even better and even more unhinged
Ben Felix - Finance, investing etc. He’s a professional working in the field, never suggests specific stocks or crypto and always refers to sources for his claims. Be very skeptical of all finance and economy suggestions.
Two Cents - Personal Finance (No suggestions for specific stocks or crypto)
Adam Something
Technology Connections
Tom Nicholas - Long form video essays
Polymatter
RedLetterMedia, the only channel I’ve continued to watch through the years. Super hilarious movie reviewers.
The ones that I get excited to see new videos from are, in no particular order:
She’s a biologist and does videos on prehistoric animals and time periods, that we know of. Entertaining videos and it turns out we studied under some of the same people.
Dr. Collier is a theoretical physicist who covers a wide arc a physics topics, and who did a pretty impressive review of Picard.
Very indepth and well researched videos about science and tech scandals and controversies
Is an Oxford Astrophysicist who covers a lot of findings about JWT and will point out upcoming things in the night sky
