What are some quality YouTube channels that you recommend?
What are some quality YouTube channels that you recommend?
Kind of tired watching trash from YT.
Edit: Thanks for all the replies. It's good to see that there are still gems in YouTube.
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Depends on the genre you prefer, but I'll try to cover a lot of bases for anyone who might be interested. I'll break it up into 2 comments cause it's not letting me post so I might have hit the character limit lol.
Part 1
If you like let's plays, I think Letsgameitout is one of the most consistently entertaining channels. His videos are a good length, not so long that they drag out, but not so short that they feel like they're done too soon, and he uploads frequently enough to not feel like it takes ages for a new video to come out, but not so frequently that it feels like he sacrifices quality.
If you like games but not the format of most let's plays, or just like general humour and don't mind most videos being game related, then DougDoug is hilarious. He streams on twitch but edits the streams down for YouTube. Seeing him interact with his twitch chat is really entertaining, and his shenanigans involving AI are also great as well. A good entry video for his content is probably the pajama Sam video he made recently where he tries to get chatgpt to beat pajama Sam, and the ai gets more and more unhinged as the video goes on. But it is one of his longer videos so you can also try any of his other videos. Another good one would be the one where he gets two halves of his twitch chat to compete against each other in GTAV using chat controls a la twitch plays pokemon. There's also GameChamp3000, who does a lot of gaming challenges, but she doesn't upload as often sadly. But her videos are very high quality and the lengths she goes to in order to get around a road block can be pretty crazy.
If you like diy or humorous educational stuff, then electroboom is a very entertaining channel and also very informative when it comes to electricity and engineering. He's the guy who made the diy electric guitar. Basically he's an electrician who does projects where he tries to make something from scratch, and along the way he shows all the wrong ways you can do something by doing them himself and then getting hurt by it slapstick style. He's shown how he fakes a lot of the stunts to assure his audience that he's not putting himself in danger (though he has also confessed to some real near misses like the Jacob's ladder incident), but he's good at making it look really convincing which somehow adds to the humour. He's also good at telling jokes on top of the slapstick. Similar channels like his include William Osman, Michael Reeves, and I did a thing. But of the 4 of them Electroboom and I did a Thing upload the most consistently I think, though shout out to Michael Reeves for being the most insane of the 4 lol.
If you like just regular educational channels, then I've heard veritasium is good, and there's also Mark Rober though he's not just education, he also does some fun experiments and even dabble in dealing with scammers. There might be some controversy from when he made a video about autism because I heard he was promoting an autism advocacy group that was possibly tied to autism speaks (which is largely hated by the autistic community), but I'm not super informed on that and idk if he addressed it. His video about it was positive towards autistic people since his son is autistic though, so if that's a sticking point for you then you can always look into it and draw your own conclusions. It's not usually a topic of his videos though so if it's not a deal breaker then you can just watch any of his other videos and ignore that one.
If you like drama and video essays then TRO aka The Right Opinion is probably one of my favourite channels for that type of content, because he's really good at portraying every side fairly without coming across as obnoxiously neutral. He's also good at covering topics in a way that feels thorough without dragging on for too long.
Part 2
If you like video essays that aren't specifically about tea, or like social justice topics, then some good channels for that are Contrapoints, Shaun_vids, and SomeMoreNews. Their styles are quite different from each other but they cover a lot of the same or similar topics related to current events. Shaun_vids is the type to do a lot of in depth research about the groups he's talking about. He's more clinical, but also very thorough. Contrapoints comes in from a more emotional standpoint, not in the "feelings trump facts" way though, it's more like Hbomberguy is logically intelligent and tackles topics from that angle, while contrapoints is very emotionally intelligent, and tackles topics from that angle, addressing why different groups might feel a certain way and how they developed that mindset or how it influences their behaviour. Her video on incels is a great example of this, and is a really interesting video about those communities and the mindsets of the people who join them. I also really like her theatrical presentation, and she's very good at giving the other side of things a fair overview while not compromising her own views or being too gentle/forgiving with assholes or bigots. SomeMoreNews is the most confrontational out of the three. They also do a lot of research on the topics, but their style is very much like John Oliver, but with more of a news anchor theme rather than a talk show theme, and the host has more of a defined character that he plays rather than just playing "himself", though his personality does come through a lot too.
Come to think of it, John Oliver is another good channel in that genre since I think most episodes of Last Week Tonight have been uploaded on YouTube. He's very comedy focused but of these 4 his show has the most resources and as a result his show is possibly the most backed up by research on every topic he covers. Not that the others are lacking on that end by any means. But if you want actual on-screen citations from papers and studies, then his probably comes in first, followed by SomeMoreNews in second, and Shaun_vids (also known as just Shaun) in 3rd. Contrapoints comes in last but mostly just because the stuff she generally tries to tackle is the emotional side of things more than the statistical side of things (which can be just as, if not more valuable when tackling these topics. She has a reputation for deradicalizing a lot of alt right people for a reason), but that doesn't mean she doesn't cite her sources. She has an academic background and it shows. So it's not a criticism by any means, more a sliding scale of what each channel focuses on. So depends on where your preferences lie if that style of video appeals to you.
If you don't want to watch stuff about politics or social justice but still like video essays, then obviously VSauce is a good channel to binge, but if you want a channel that uploads more often and is currently uploading, then I guess it depends on what kind of topics you like. My tastes are really varies in this genre so I'd probably need more specifics if this is what you're looking for. Music? Movies? Theme parks? A little bit of everything? Debunking videos? Tv shows? Behind the scenes stuff? Archaeology? Space? True crime? Anime? Video games (as in it's an essay about the games, not a lets play or gaming challenge)? Let me know if you're interested in any specific recs in this genre or if you're up for a little bit of everything. The only channel that comes to mind that covers a wider range of topics is Folding Ideas, which is a great channel. But everyone else I tend to watch is usually more niche to some degree.
If you like more casual reaction content with funny people riffing off stuff they see online, then there's Chad Chad, Danny Gonzales, Drew Gooden, Cody Ko, and people in that general circle. They tend to reference other similar channels a lot so watching them can expose you to others if you like that genre. I only recently discovered Chad Chad who is really funny imo.
If you like less casual reaction content, as in movie/show reviewers, I have a lot, so if you're specifically interested in that let me know and I'll make it a separate post.
Some more random recs that didn't really fit into any particular category:
Any Austin. He does video game stuff, but not like any other channel, he does stuff like determining the unemployment rate of video game cities, or reviewing all the inns and restaurants in Skyrim, or talking about weird locations in video games that people don't usually notice or think about. One video series he has is seeing which video game characters in various franchises take the longest to drown. The topics he chooses are often very oddball but his delivery is so entertaining he manages to make the most mundane topics fun to think about. He takes the unemployment videos so seriously to the point of comedy, talking like he's a legitimate auditor and even printing out the reports and having a presentation at the end like he's at a meeting. He's good at making this so absurd that it's comical, but in a very deadpan kinda way.
DNSL. I'm not really sure how to describe him other than as a very successful troll who messes with people in online games. He doesn't go too far and most of his targets are assholes, so it doesn't feel too mean, more absurdist lol.
Sushi Ramen. He's like if a Japanese game show was a person. His vids are in Japanese, but with subtitles on most of his videos. He's very funny and has done some wacky things. It's hard to describe what he does exactly, kinda like Jackass mixed with a prank show mixed with some of the comedic diy style channels.
Scary Interesting. Stories about various disasters and tragedies. There are lots of channels like this, but scary interesting is the only one that I stuck with. I like the variety of stories, they way they're told, na how there aren't any bells and whistles, just some imagery put on screen to match whatever's happening or the setting, or from the event if available, and the guy telling the story. He tells them well without drawing them out too much or being sensational or over dramatic, while still including enough information to understand what's going on. Does lots of cave diving stories or mountain climbing stories, but also dabble in murders and disappearances and other various topics. Morbid but fascinating, and not all his stories have bad endings so it's not all depressing.
That's not all I have by a long shot but I tried to pick out the ones that stood out to me the most without getting bogged down in specifics, but if anyone wants more specific recs then let me know and I can elaborate or add on to what I've mentioned already.