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.
Technology connections
Every frame a painting
Alt shift x
Dad how do I
Food wishes
Kurzgesagt In a nutshell
Primitive technology
Kurzgesagt tends to push a lot of pseudoscience (e.g. carbon capture tech) and other stuff following the investment interests of their founders.
I like their animation style and honestly I wish they used proper data sources, however if you check the sources they mention on some of their more dubious videos they all come from some made up source.
This is particularly upsetting with everything related to parroting whatever Bill Gates is pushing (artificial meat, carbon capture, inequality is the teacher’s fault, climate change isn’t that bad, etc.)
Adding on to this; There’s a video by The Hated One who initially broke this story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjHMoNGqQTI&pp=ygUVa3Vyemdlc2FndCBwcm9wYWdhbmRh
Have you watched their response?
Ys. It didn’t feel very convincing, nor did they actually address the issue of them citing a company Bill Gates owns in order to support another one he owns.
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Seeing where the money is is a good way to see why someone says what they do. That’s disappointing. I’m mostly there for their space videos personally and so far there doesn’t seem to be any propaganda there.
Technology Connections is SO GOOD.
Kurzgesagt is great!
Climate Town - Does a decent job explaining climate-related topics and still makes them interesting.
Jay Foreman - Very funny map trivia.
JerryRigEverything - A bit too much promotion on some stuff, but really comprehensive tear downs.
MIT OpenCourseWare - learn good.
Pop Culture Detective - Deconstructive pop culture tropes that make you think a lot.
SNES drunk - retrogaming (not just SNES) but well done, 0% additives just prime content.
stacksmashing - electronics trivia and hardcore reverse engineering.
The National Gallery - If you’re into history, this is an excellent channel about art trivia. I’m not much into art and this is always top quality for me.
Tom Scott plus - Tom Scott does British telly stuff like playing board games or chasing people on the streets with an apple tag.
Voices of the Past - This is slow, exhaustive history for nerds. Worth it if you want to let the story wash all over you.
Vox - slightly left leaning great journalism, albeit sometimes too brief to explain complex topics.
Weird History - They get some stuff wrong, but it’s still entertaining.
Project Farm - Wanna buy an angle grinder? Now you do.
Insider - Had a series of “How Real Is It?” videos that let professionals describe stuff seen in movies, and it is both entertaining and a learning experience.
Corridor - Some stuff of dubious quality but if you’re interested in FX, it’s good.
LegalEagle - Law is hard, but is law fun?
brian david gilbert - Existential horror camouflaged as comedy.
PBS Space Time - Good but hard space science.
BurtBot - Orcs with normal voices.
Joel Haver - Neat if you’re into deadpan humor.
Taskmaster - Probably some of the best british television available in YT.Bonus round:
Practical Engineering - How stuff is built but explained well enough that even I can understand it.Plus, use FreeTube, not You Tube. Don’t be a slave of their terrible algorythm and all the recommendations will turn out to be of your taste.
Laura Kampf
Simone Giertz
MKBHD
Tom Scott
Mark Rober
Climate Town
Jay Foremen (Map Men)
Daily Dose of Internet
Captain Disillusion
Casually Explained
Tom Scott would be my top pick for quality YouTube not tied to a specific hobby. His videos are great.
I’ve really enjoyed Strange Parts (Also Stranger Parts for longer format) over the years. He’s been through a lot and the videos show some of that. But I think he’s doing alright again now and has interesting things frequently.
I also really enjoy Simone Giertz, she’s an excellent follow, also has gone through a lot (brain tumor for one) over the years but is still enjoyable.
Adam Savage Tested - It’s Adam Savage from mythbusters etc, but doing his own thing and being a geek about it. I really enjoy his personal content. I greatly dislike Mythbusters and most forms of TV media.
ProjectFarm - Independent testing of all kinds of things. If you need to know how tools compare to each other without worrying about sponsor money, Todd is excellent. His methods aren’t perfect, but they are good enough for what he is trying to do and for understanding somewhat practically how the various things compare.
If you are ok with a little more spasticity, Colin Furze is always up to a cheeky bit of fun.
Zach Freedman - Prototyping and 3d printing but make it fun and full of puns and sarcasm and a dash of nonsense
Mr Carlson’s Lab - If you like electronics and very long format, chat while working style content. This is a great one.
DownieLive - Has good travel videos, especially liked his Alaska series, the canal series was neat and he has multiple unique train ones that are interesting.
I’ve started to check out Alice Cappelle after watching a good video on the counter points to the 15-minute city.
Music
Lauren Babic - Metal singer, does lots of covers, has her own stuff too, but I enjoy her stuff a lot. She’s my favorite singer along with Courtney LaPlante.
Ichika Nito - Lots of really chill, intricate, technical guitar, I wish he’d do more long format stuff but he’s fun to listen to. Similar playing to Covet and Polyphia but generally solo and easier going.
Tom Scott, he has done a video every week for like 10 years. Sort of a science travel adventure nerd. His videos are generally short and interesting.
Veritasum - Science guy with some interesting topics
Donut Media - If you like cars, they do some interesting and funny things while not being complete asshats.
The Proper People - Abandoned places, nice videos and respectful exploration.
Cash Jordan - Gives tours of NYC apartments from tiny studio apartments up to multi-million dollar penthouses.
Geography Geek - A lot of interesting geography-related facts.
Knob Feel - Short and sweet reviews of various knobs.
Vice Grip Garage - If you are interested in how old cars are repaired and have lots of time, he has many ~1.5 hour videos of dragging old cars out of the bushes that haven’t ran for 20 years, getting them mostly running, and driving them home.
Polyphonic - Interesting video essays about various music and musical artists.
Vice Grip Garage is excellent long-form car stuff for sure. Much easier to watch than the length of the video suggests.
Cool DIY projects with an overall chilled vibe: https://www.youtube.com/@DIYPerks
Relaxing watch restorations with informative commentary https://www.youtube.com/@WristwatchRevival
For informative but entertaining car related stuff MCM are pretty great: https://www.youtube.com/mightycarmods
If you’re into F1, The Race has a pretty good youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/WeAreTheRace
Also Josh Revell deserves a shoutout https://www.youtube.com/@thejoshrevell
Crazy mashups - think Mr Bean in Cyberpunk: https://www.youtube.com/@eli_handle_bwav
General drunken shinanigans: https://www.youtube.com/@coldones
Chilled, nicely shot Japanese cooking videos: https://www.youtube.com/@JunsKitchen
Other generic cooking advice but also quite entertaining: https://www.youtube.com/@SortedFood
Geeky coffee related stuff: https://www.youtube.com/@jameshoffmann
Standard self plug (mostly stupid gaming stuff): https://www.youtube.com/@WoodstockYT
Some More News - a disheveled and sarcastic anchor does a deep dive into a current topic
Contrapoints - an ex-philosopher does a really deep dive into a topic (sometimes a concept or a phenomenon, sometimes a particular person or event), with incredibly high production value and costumes. Unfortunately this means she only puts out 2 videos a year, but they’re now usually 1-2 hours long.
Podcasts - some have YT channels, but often no video, so if you’re looking for something to watch, this may not be helpful
Behind the Bastards - a deep dive (often 2+ hour+ episodes) into different historical or current terrible people
5-4 - a podcast about why the Supreme Court sucks
Maintenance Phase - two journalists talk about various health, diet, and wellness scams and misconceptions
If Books Could Kill (no YT channel) - Michael Hobbes from Maintenance Phase and Peter from 5-4 talk about “airport books”–bad pop science books
You’re Wrong About - Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes (until late 2021) talk about pop culture misconceptions, everything from O.J. to the Satanic Panic to Iran-Contra and more.
Not a channel, but some resources. The addons are all open source. Also unfortunately many subreddits that had quality channel suggestions have been either banned due to being “unmoderated” or are lost to time. Please post any finds here or help archive them if you can. The Datahorders community is a great place to start!
- DeArrow - Better Titles and Thumbnails on YouTube
- Sponsorblock
- Return YouTube Dislikes
- uBlock Origin
List of resources to find more gems. Note many posts and subreddits have been lost/banned/removed. Here are the ones I found.
DIY/WOODWORKING
https://www.youtube.com/@craftedworkshop
https://www.youtube.com/@DIYPerks
https://www.youtube.com/@Fixthisbuildthat
https://www.youtube.com/@frankmakes
https://www.youtube.com/@Iliketomakestuff
https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelAlm
https://www.youtube.com/@modustrial
https://www.youtube.com/@nickzammeti
https://www.youtube.com/@PaskMakes
RETRO TECH, COMPUTERS, & GAMING
https://www.youtube.com/@ashens
https://www.youtube.com/@GamingHistorian
https://www.youtube.com/@GenXGrownUp
https://www.youtube.com/@Nostalgianerd
https://www.youtube.com/@RMCRetro
https://www.youtube.com/@Techmoan
https://www.youtube.com/@The8BitGuy
https://www.youtube.com/@DavidXNewton
D&D & TTRPG STUFF
https://www.youtube.com/@BlackMagicCraftOfficial
https://www.youtube.com/@ColColonCleaner](Col Colon Cleaner)
https://www.youtube.com/@criticalrole
https://www.youtube.com/@dimension20show
https://www.youtube.com/@DnDShorts
https://www.youtube.com/@DungeonDudes
https://www.youtube.com/@dungeonlootarmory
https://www.youtube.com/@GinnyDi
https://www.youtube.com/@marisharaygun
https://www.youtube.com/@WallyDM
https://www.youtube.com/@zeebashew
FOOD & COOKING
https://www.youtube.com/@BDylanHollis
https://www.youtube.com/@babishculinaryuniverse
https://www.youtube.com/@BrianLagerstrom
https://www.youtube.com/@howtodrink
https://www.youtube.com/@JoshuaWeissman
OTHER STUFF
https://www.youtube.com/@BrightSunFilms
https://www.youtube.com/@ComputerClan
https://www.youtube.com/@CuriosityIncorporated
https://www.youtube.com/@GeoffCastellucci
https://www.youtube.com/@kylehill
all your links are rendered as just www.YouTube.com btw
That’s strange, they all work fine for me. Just double checked and each one opens the correct channel on YouTube.
I literally just found genxgamer a week ago and love it. Ashens, 8bitguy and Techmaon I have followed for years
Wish nostalgia nerd would make more videos tho, he kinda dropped off recently.
I found GenXGamer like maybe 2 months ago, and it’s been great. Same for me with the others, been following for years. I think Nostalgia Nerd is busy with the arcade pub he’s building. But yeah I miss his content.
I really like Potholer54 - he doesn’t do any ads so youtube NEVER promotes his videos. He will read, cite, link all his sources and more importantly, will respond to misrepresentations of science in the media. He will usually explain the science behind the articles he sources and explain why the media gets it wrong.
I’ve also found Skip Intro is really good regarding copaganda. He has some great videos on a lot of the media I was exposed to growing up and its good to reexamine it with a more modern take. He also dunks on paw patrols which is fucking terrible.
there’s a community for that, https://lemmy.world/c/youtubepitch
Louis Rossman
LEMMiNO is extremely good. His older content is neat but his newer stuff is highly polished 30 min-1 hour ish long documentaries on miscellaneous mysteries like Jack the ripper or DB Cooper
Numberphile, Computerphile, PBS Spacetime, PBS Infinite Series (sad they stopped), Standup Maths, 3Blue1Brown
Alpha Phoenix too, if you like 3b1b
Neil Halloran! They produce the highest quality documentary-like videos on YT. And I bet you never heard of them! Please do give him a search
Will do! Thanks!
Awesome! Thanks for this post by the way! It has been my favorite post to go through since I don’t have a google account and can’t use their recommendation system. Plus, the recommendation system definitely doesn’t give us as high quality channels as some from this thread.
There are still hundreds if not thousands of hidden gems on YouTube. I’ll come back to this post and share some as I rediscover them.
Here is another one before I go. Astartes. Sad they stopped but glad they found employment at least for their skills.
That’s great! I was actually surprised with the amount of responses this got but it’s really opened me to a lot of great content on YouTube. I’ve been coming back to this too and trying a bunch of recommendations. 😊
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