Inspired by the opposite question posted recently, what YouTube creators have you watched for a long time and still find worth returning to? Alternatively, what are some new high quality channels you have been enjoying?
Driving4answers for motor vehicle engineering fun. Jonas ceika (formerly Cuck philosophy) for philosophy/media criticism/political theory.
Democracy Now, Majority Report (RIP Michael Brooks), This Old Tony
Primitive Technology: One guy, wearing only a pair of shorts, no music, no narration, just bird and forest sounds, as he creates shelters and items from the forest around him using prehistoric technology.
He started by building various types of shelters, then got into making pottery, bricks, and roof tiles, using clay from a nearby stream.
Currently, he’s working on fire technology, creating hotter and hotter fires first to fire his clay objects to make them durable, and then to smelt iton.
Where does he get the metal? He harvested “iron bacteria” from the creek, and dried it fired it, and collected the tiny iron “prills”. When he had enough, he went through a series of experiments to make his fire hot enough to melt the prills, and forge it into a tiny, rough, triangular knife.
Today, there are lots of copycats, mostly building elaborate shelters, but this guy is the OG. I mostly watch musical and political content, but Primitive Technology is the only channel I watch as soon as a new video drops. When the apocalypse arrives, I’ll be ready.
For Primitive Technology don’t forget to turn on CC as he leaves a bunch of notes there! (You might already know this but others following suggestion might not)
Outdoor boys is the only one I actually watch
In no particular order:
- Civvie11 (Video games)
- Warlockcracy (Video games, mostly CRPGs. Good humour)
- Wilburgur (Video games)
- SsethTzeentach (Hyper meme-fied game reviews)
- Historia Civilis (History)
- ymfah (Video game challenges, hyper meme-fied)
- Technology Connection (Everyday tech)
- Grim Beard (Long video game reviews)
- Noah Caldwell-Gervais (Long video game reviews)
- Frederik Knudsen (Rabbit hole stuff)
Plus more I can’t recall right now. But I can watch any old video from these guys any time and not feel bored.
time wasting crap mostly…
CyclingMikey - London cyclist who reports dangerous car driving
Kitboga, scammer payback, scammerrevolts, deeveeaar - taking revenge on scammers
USDC by rokas leo - self defence challenges
knockoutAudit, DemarcoTV - filming drunk British idiots fighting in the street
cart narcs - politely requesting shoppers return their carts
Tommy G - in depth interviews of street crime related stuff, and more
Simon Doherty - discusses popular party drugs
Reckless ben - seeks justice for weird shit
StopXam - Russians against selfish driving
Red Letter Media. Obviously I found them through their Star Wars prequel joke reviews, but they’ve just turned out to be a really solid and enjoyable semi-comedic film review channel. You get a sense of their particular interests and biases, some they share, some they don’t and that helps understand their perspective on films they review so you have an idea of if you’d like them. Plus their other series like Re;View and Best of the Worst show me discussions on movies I probably wouldn’t have ever watched otherwise.
I also just love how low-key they are as far as the YT influencer BS that’s become the norm on the platform. No sponsorships. They never ask you to “Like and subscribe and leave a comment and hit that bell!”. They have a Patreon but they don’t even advertise it in their videos, let alone dedicate a portion of the video to a stream of internet names that donated. The thumbnails and titles aren’t really clickbait. Their video descriptions are actually descriptions of the video instead of a bunch of links to their socials and sponsors. They don’t act overly hype or angry or anything. They just act like what they are: Shlubs. They occasionally get B-list celebrities as guests and rather than plaster their name and whatever projects they’re working on all over the fucking video for clickbait, they just don’t even really acknowledge they’re celebrities. They’re just some dudes who happened to stop by to hang out and be on the shows. With most of them you wouldn’t even know they were celebrities if you didn’t already know them. I had to look up a few of them, which is hard when they don’t even use their full names.
I watch pretty much all of their Half in the Bag and Re;View shows and the occasional miscellaneous video they make. I don’t watch Best of the Worst that often, but I have enjoyed it when I have watched it.
Channel5 (journalism) Cold fusion (tech news) Fads (tech news) Stuff made here (maker) Watch Wes Work (maker/mechanic) I did a thing (maker) Styropyro (maker)
Red letter media, crittervision, paulogia
PBS Space Time for science. Asmongold for lulz. Economics Explained for economy. Shoe0nhead for fun politics. LTT and Gamers Nexus for tech
This Old Tony. If you know you know. He’s sort of like Locksmithing Lawyer for machining.
Sabine Hossenfelder. Physics and shit.
Adam Savage Tested. You know.
Perkins Brothers Builders. They build houses start to finish, two shows a week that follow their current build.
Dale Philip. No BS travel vlogger. His backstory is he won $750K playing poker and decided to start a travel vlog.
Sabine Hossenfelder went weird and started doing very assertive videos on things she clearly didn’t know much about. Her physics stuff seemed great (to my layperson’s viewpoint) but when she talked about things I knew it was always a bit off. Like reading New Scientist or something, once you read an article on your special subject and see how inaccurate it is, you assume the rest is shit too.
Foresty Forest
For me, hopescolling (doomscrolling but looking for any reason to have hope) is a full time job regarding the political situation in the US. To that end, my regular resources are:
Ashley B: Ashley discuses US history, mostly black history, but not always (covering other issues such as J. Edgar Hoover, the scandals of past presidents, and black culture. She doesn’t hold back regarding the brutal details of slave history and post-bellum racial violence, and those videos can be tough to listen to.
Belle of the Ranch: The successor to Beau of the Fifth Column, Belle discusses particulars of current issues, explaining details of the economy, of the US war on Iran, and Trump telling on himself in his social media posts. While left leaning, answers a lot of comments from MAGA.
Climate Town Rollie Williams is a very watchable climatologist who covers issues of climate and government gone wrong, such as why Americans eat so much cheese, how the US doesn’t drive cars anymore (we drive Non-Passenger Work Vehicles, aka SUVs) and how the methane industry (natural gas) is the climate-killing dark horse.
Heather Cox Richardson: Richardson is a professor of American History at Boston college and does a lot of videos discussing current events and how they rhyme with past events in US history, which can be reassuring that we might actually get through this. I listen to her Letters From An American daily.
How Business Worked aka How History Works: This is the sister project to How Money Works (below). Which discusses history with a business slant. Recent topics of interest (to me) include No one wants to work anymore is a recurring theme and The Powell Memorandum and The myth of Hitler fixing the German economy. HBW is slightly longer form than HMW.
How Money Works: A (former?) finance bro talks about business and economic issues, breaking them down so that I (not a money guy) can understand them. Recent videos that are particularly edifying include why big tech now is hiring back its layoffs and how entrenched money is in US politics.
Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie: Jamelle Bouie is a NYT columnist who reads a lot of books, knows a lot about US government and has good insights into the thought processes of MAGA figures.
Completely agree with climate town. Very well sourced, and important messaging
I second Jamelle Bouie. He knows his stuff and is low key funny.
Funkyfrogbait and Drew Gooden.
I just wait until they upload a bunch of stuff so I can return.
In addition to lots of other channels already mentioned, there are:
- The Elephant Graveyard
- Bobby Fingers
- Folding Ideas
- Thought Slime
- Technology Connections
- Nutrition Facts
- Viva Longetivity
- Not Just Bikes
- Climate Town
