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.
Brick Technology makes cool mechanisms out of Lego to solve some simple problems
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.
RedLetterMedia
Movie reviewers that like all sorts of movies. Great production quality.
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
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.
Bobby Fingers
Irreverent movie prop maker who builds diorama’s with a dressing of Irish humour.
Primitive Technology
Makes houses, tools etc, starting from just his hands and natural resources. No knife. No axe. No rope. No tarps. No dialogue.
Kraut
Does videos on history and culture. Helped me understand why Russian culture is the way it is. In-depth, informative and interesting.
Primitive Technology
Makes houses, tools etc, starting from just his hands and natural resources. No knife. No axe. No rope. No tarps. No dialogue.
Make sure you turn on the captions for that one.
Chef Jean-Pierre, I just adore him
Brew
*Delves into all kids of weird circumstances and medical mysteries. Morbid and informative.
Zoe
*Up-to-date exercise and nutrition science. I’ve seriously learned a lot.
Imperfect Paintings
Shows you how to try different types of abstract art. Has been a huge inspiration in getting me to paint and experiment with art.
Garand Thumb. Excellent humor, badass historical guns, and new badass guns, too. For example he dresses up as John Wick and has a rep from the company that made the custom guns for the movie bring in the guns, and they shoot them. Seeing a 12ga magazine fed shotgun shoot ~15 rounds in like 2 seconds is terrifying and awesome.
Andy Cooks - amazing chef, easy to follow recipes (he uses metric first), but also a nice, down to earth, no-nonsense guy.
Preface: I know NOTHING about combustion engines and generally have never had the desire to.
But the “Driving 4 Answers” channel breaks down how all kinds of different engine designs work, explaining the pros and cons of each. Some have tons of apparent advantages that make you wonder why they aren’t used in production cars and trucks. He digs deep to answer that question.
Here’s a great video about the rotary vane engine.
The twin rod Avadi engine is a very different approach.
This one explains the crossplane inline 4. I had never even heard of such a thing before, but the way it’s explained is absolutely fascinating. He even demonstrates the different sounds so I feel like I could just listen to a car and know what kind of crankshaft it has.
Highly recommended.
