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Scrubbles @poptalk.scrubbles.tech

What's your go-to long form Youtuber?

Title essentially. Youtube's algorithm is hot garbage, so I can't search for anything anymore without a ton of AI slop and rage bait. So, who do you go to for actual good long form videos? Exposes, scandals, behind the scenes, documentaries, film, travel, transit, who do you recommend I follow?

78 comments

  • I like the Why Files, very entertaining even if they have to ruin the fun by "telling the actual story" at the end.

  • I saw a lot of tech and science channel in the comments so to balance that out, here are some of my favourite crafting channels:

    North of the border: creates a clay sculpture every week. Generally it is something nerdy or something cursed

    Enchanterium: repaint dolls, often to popular characters. They also sew their own outfits. A lot of fun even if you're not interested in dolls

    Nerdforge: create a lot of crazy projects, mostly related to nerdy stuff. (Last project was a 2m booknook)

    Wicked makers: create decorations and animatronics for Halloween

    Florian Gadsby: very talented potter with very relaxing voice and videos

    Pottery to the people: pottery videos, often trying new experiments

    Evan and Katelyn: videos on stuff that they build. Always a lot of fun (last video: how they built an ergonomic laptop)

    TL Yarn Crafts: crochet videos

    Kaypea Creations: making of art dolls (animals), either out of clay or fake fur.

    Studson Studios: creates amazing sculptures out of mostly trash. Amazing channel, one of my favourites

    Make strange things: makes strange things. Small channel but greatly appreciated

    Boylei hobby time: creates dioramas

    Lightning cosplay: creats amazing cosplays

    Transcended furniture gallery: restores vintage furniture

    Bonus: Half-Asleep Chris: videos with stop motion elements, mostly about cats and/or lego

  • I have a few to recommend:

    • SEA and Astrum. Almost interchangeable calm and chill space documentary channels. If you're like me and get a spinny mind around bedtime, these are great, they hold my attention to keep my mind from racing and are calm enough to drift to sleep while listening.
    • Bedtime Stories. Anything from urban legends to strange disappearances told in a campfire ghost story format accompanied by hand drawn illustrations. Sometimes wanders into hibbidy jibbidy but fun nonetheless. See also Wartime Stories for a similar format focusing on stories from/about the military.
    • History For Granite. I read this guy as an armchair archaeologist who is interested primarily in the pyramids and megalithic structures of ancient Egypt almost as much as he is at sniping at Zahi Hawass. Possibly a bit of a crank, though his wild ideas tend to be things like "The pyramid was designed to remain open for worshippers to routinely enter" and he often focuses on the engineering of the structures and layout of the stones.
    • Nexpo. Short for Nightmare Expo, purveyor of creepy stories.
    • Captain KRB. Video essayist, fond of minecraft, retro media, and occasional odd stories like the Voynich manuscript or the Cicada 3301 mystery.
    • Lemmino, started out as a top ten list channel, has pivoted to long form documentaries on a "when it's done" basis. Topics range from the history of the "Cool S" graffiti symbol to the Lost Colony of Roanoke.
    • Ahoy. Churns out one, maybe two videos a year on the topic of video games, primarily video game weapons. Typical format will introduce a weapon, say, the M-16 combat rifle, discuss its real world invention and service history, then its depiction in video games and possibly other media. Peppered in are other more general video game topics; his video on Polybius is particularly good.
    • This Old Tony. A dude named Tony whose got a hobby machine shop full of dad jokes in his garage.
    • Clickspring. Australian dude who makes soul-achingly beautiful videos about clockmaking and machining. Go watch him build a clock out of raw brass and tell me your life hasn't changed.
    • Tech Tangents. One of those guys who will hold an 8-bit ISA card in his hands with a look of utter rapture on his face, he repairs, restores and documents old computer and gaming equipment, and operates a capacitor wiki. He once reverse engineered an ISA adapter card to get a very early CD-ROM drive functioning...live on Twitch.

  • Abstract - break down of disasters and crimes with excellent narration and very interesting topics

    Rare Earth - highlights uncommon locations (speaking as a Westerner) and the often horrific histories that framed their civilization/cities/people

    Micerah Tewers - super talented maker that sews copies of red carpet looks and other fun custumes with some home decor. Not instructional at all, just fast paced and entertainingly wholesome

    Ask a Mortician - really fascinating deep dives into what happened to the bodies of famous people, or people who died in extreme circumstances. She has recently highlighted a few infamous shipwrecks...which brings me to

    Oceanliner designs and Part Time Explorer - both nautical history buffs that articulate the grandeur and sometimes horror of ship travel

    Miniminuteman - archeology videos featuring a lot of lesser known sites that are fascinating. Articulate dismantling of psuedo-archeology bullshit and refreshingly modern understanding of science communication

    LadyKnightthebrave - discussing the emotions that film and tv can make you feel. Honestly just cathartic if she talks about a movie you feel strongly about, like the articulate friend you wish you had to decompress with after an emotional movie

    Contrapoints - incredible everything from set design to arguments. Long form, in depth explanations about a lot of topics some people would consider taboo, or that people are close minded about.

    Atun Shei Films - known primarily for Check Mate Lincolnites which is a comedic sketch that dismantles lost cause myths from the civil war. Lots of interesting historical and film stuff.

    Lindybeige - every video feels like an eccentric history professor's impassioned tangent on a subject he deeply cares about, so it entirely derails the original subject of the lecture.

  • I haven't seen it mentioned but I enjoy channels like Solo Solo Travel - slow-TV style videos about public transportation. What food can you get on a first class flight from Tokyo to Australia? All the videos have zero commentary unless you turn on the subtitles.

    I enjoy them a lot because they're very relaxing and make me feel very cozy.

  • who do you recommend I follow?

    What I like may not be what you like at all. I mean, depends on your interests.

    And I don't "follow" any of these, watch every thing when it comes out. These are just some YouTubers for whom I've had a high proportion of their material wind up being something that I feel is worth watching.

    Montemayor

    Does military history, mostly naval. Does not put out a lot of videos, but from the ones that I do follow, has really done his research through the written material out there before putting the material out, does a good job of highlighting what's important.

    To a lesser degree, Drachinifel and The Operations Room. They're also military history, but I don't feel like they do as much research or highlight the important bits as well. Drachinifel focuses more on surface gun-era naval warfare, and The Operations Room tends to deal with newer stuff.

    The Slow Mo Guys. Not exactly deep stuff, but they do one thing: high-quality interesting slow-motion footage. Pretty popular, so you may have heard of them before. I think it might be interesting to have some sort of analogous channel that does videos of microscope stuff, pans around something with a nice microscope.

    SmarterEveryDay does, I think, a good job of explaining interesting things in our daily world from an engineering/technical standpoint; guy does a good job of researching his material. You'll probably walk away from this knowing this that you didn't.

    CGPGrey does stick-figure illustrated things that also highlight interesting stuff, often relating to legal or political or historical stuff.

    Perun does defense economics, and has had interesting and informed material on the Russo-Ukrainian War. Michael Kofman, an analyst who focuses on the Russian military, doesn't have a YouTube channel, but many YouTube channels do interview him, and while he's kind of dry, I also think that his material on Ukraine is pretty worthwhile -- he's consistently avoided alarmist stuff or cheerleading over the course of the war. Can find material with him via searching for his name.

    One of the problems I have with YouTube is a side effect of the fact that it pays content creators. I don't have any real problem with that per se -- I mean, sure, you wanna do work and get paid, that's fine. The problem is that there's no real "YouTube of articles". The result is that a lot of content creators out there are putting stuff in video form that really doesn't need to be in video form, just because they want some reasonable way to monetize it. The above videos are from people who generally take advantage of the video format (well, Michael Kofman could really do just fine on a podcast and often does, but aside from that). I've seen too many YouTube videos -- including those being submitted on the Threadiverse -- that would really be better as text and possibly image articles.

    EDIT: Oh, right. Someone else mentioned Primitive Technology, which I would definitely second. Has a guy go out in the woods with just his shorts and basically manufacture a lot of basic technology from the ground up. Does have subtitles, but no narration or speech. The practical use of what he does is probably limited, but I found it fascinating. I remember that this was very popular for a while on Reddit.

  • Nerd³ (nerd cubed) long form video game content while he talks about the game he's playing, sprinkled with commentary about life and current events

    Cold Fusion. Sort of a mini documentary on news items, one item at a time. Tech focused.

  • My recommendation for travel would be 'Bald and Bankrupt', in particular I loved his whole Russian/Ex-Soviet Union series.

    For documentaries, I do enjoy the 'Down the Rabbit Hole' documentaries. They did a great one on Terry A. Davis a few years back

    • The soviet Union series was great, but anything I watched after that was boring to be honest.

  • For stuff about films, I like 'Thomas Flight' and 'Like Stories Of Old'. LSOO has just released a video about Gladiator II that I'm going to watch in a bit (I'm hoping he hated it as much as I did!)

78 comments