This isn’t movies TV or anime sorry. But what channels would you all recommend? Feel free to plug yourself if you want lol
Jarvis Johnson: Funny Black guy who does culture videos. His recent one on “Mafia Wives” is an all-timer if you want an idea of his vibes. Also has a good podcast (Sad Boyz)
Maximillian Dood / Sajam / Diaphone for fighting game vids
Kitboga messing with scammers is always a blast
Coffeezilla exposing scammers is also always a blst
Retro Game Corps does reviews of handheld consoles and accessories. I don’t buy 98% of them but something about his voice and presentation make me watch every single one of this vids lol
WoolieVersus most closely captures the oldschool YT LP vibes with his long-form playthroughs. Matt McMuscles is also great still but he does more bite sized stuff and video essays like “Whuh Happun?” and his search to find the worst fighting game lol
Snapcube, but I don’t actually sub to Snapcube 2, her streams are way too long for me lmao
Defunctland for good essays and dry humor, same with Folding Ideas
Legal Eagle so I can keep up with my sister getting smarter than me in law school
those are my most frequents
Noah Caldwell-Gervais is one of the whitest men alive but he usually brings up pretty good points and I particularly like his travelogues. Lovely background noise.
Jeremy Parish’s ongoing regular series covering NES games in release order is a reliable standby.
Archipel used to do segments in Japan for some French variety show or something and now they do their own documentaries. Some incredible stuff here, like Ebb & Flow and their full-length doc on the Dreamcast.
Kenji Lopez-Alt does cooking videos and hits a solid cross-section in-between “professional chef who takes his work very seriously” and “regular dude who doesn’t have time for this” and generally keeps it pretty real.
I’m obligated to shout out my personal friend yotsuben, who’s currently doing an Ace Attorney podcast / let’s play (I am on the LP videos, not the podcast).
A weird pick is Curiosity Show, which was a long-running Australian kids edutainment show from 1972 to 1990. The creators reacquired the rights and tapes in 2013 and have been uploading every surviving segment.
Tim Rogers at Action Button has mastered the format of the video essay to a degree where it’s kind of fucked up. I’ve liked his writing for like 15 years but I understand it can be quite divisive.
Whenever MINMOMINMO resurfaces he tends to have pretty good videos on horror games or just whatever. Been following him since his Clock Tower 3 video.
For me, I’ve been rewatching a lot of Simpleflips lately just cause he has a lot of long VODs or challenge series (recently rewatched the Walkies challenge) and it’s just good background noise, he’s pretty entertaining.
Explosions & Fire/Extractions & Ire and Chemical Force for some good enjoyable chemistry that’s not nilered.
Dathings, the best to ever do YTPs.
Folding Ideas, Defunctland, and Jacob Geller for essays.
I usually keep an eye on whatever the hell wayneradiotv is up to.
And I gotta plug my girlfriend’s Let’s Play channel, OniLinkPlusLP, cause she’s working really hard for it and is running like 2 or 3 series at once. She’s 500 episodes into a full ffxiv let’s play and also just started sonic adventure dx.
I will avoid linking to the React channels I watch because by god, even I know that’s some extremely niche and embarrassing stuff
Saltydkdan makes a mix of Have You Heard About, videogames playthrough (most popularly the Friendlocke series), usually very humored focus videos
WoolieVS has a mix of clips from CastleSuperBeast and videogame playthroughs. I can’t handle listening to a 2+ hours podcast episode, so being able to cherry pick favorite moments like these are great
Solidjj does very short (at most 3min long) funny videos with cartoon characters
Joel Haver does (or used to do) weekly short comedic films
Jacob Geller does video essays that are not the kilometric length ones you’d usually see (around 30min long) though they are quite passionate. His first attempt was in discussing the downplaying of having a jew hero in Wolfenstein, settling instead for a portrayal of tough americanism
I am particularly fond of Every Zelda Is The Darkest Zelda, because it tackles the constant need of folks to make something ‘dark’ to make it seem mature, while ignoring that the actual content of what they’re enjoying, with a nice shoutout to Animorphs, a series of books I only read about online but which seems cool
CinemaTherapy is a mix of react an analysis, with a licensed therapist taking away mental health signs and lessons, as well as examining character’s growth and development under the lenses of a health professional
Oh boy I follow a bunch on YT but here’s a small sample size of what I watch:
2nding Jarvis Johnson as well as the podcast he cohosts Sad Boyz
And in a similar vein: Drew Gooden and Scott Cramer
5 Second Films has started updating again and I think they still got it
Studson Studio for some literal trash to treasure kit bashing
Thor High Heels video essay about video games and I dig the editing style
Dank Pods and his other channels, funny Australian reviews mostly headphones and related tech
Bandsplaining neat mini docs on obscure aspects of music, I recommend the ones on the Soviet underground rock scene
As for streams… I mostly just watch Vinesauce and Gigaboots these days
Just Background Noise for, well, background noise. He used to make Runescape videos, of which I have watched exactly none, but now does Morrowind challenge (or more accurately, gimmick) runs.
Freezai and ElectricWindGirlFriend for competitive-ish Pokemon stuff. On a related note, Reverend has a bunch of cool Pokemon Gen 1 videos. Also, Big Yellow for some combination of Gen 1 Pokemon, fighting games, Lego, and some other random shit.
Dosh Doshington for Factorio, though he has some excellent videos about other stuff too (like La-Mulana).
Angela Collier does rambling videos about physics and sometimes other stuff. Pretty nice if you’re on that exact boundary of “kind of interested” in physics, but not enough to actually learn anything.
CJ the X extremely chaotic video essays that manage to make me feel called out like little else
Tantacrul music and music software
Captain Disillusion highly-edited casual audience stuff about video editing
MandaloreGaming but specifically for his various Halloween videos
Sajam and LordKnight for fighting games
++ on Woolie, Folding Ideas, Coffeezilla, etc
Might do a second post later lol
Recently, I’ve been really into long videos that go into how technology, engineering and misc inventions work. It’s perfect to throw on and mildly zone out to in bed while still learning some neat things when I get home from work exhausted. I don’t know a lot of deep cuts though, so I’m always looking for recommendations!
Cathode Ray Dude,
Technology Connections,
Wristwatch Revival
For video games, I mainly watch supergreatfriend, who does playthroughs of usually old, indie or “bad” games. He always plays very patiently and has really calm commentary.
And this genre isn’t usually my thing otherwise, but I recently discovered Midwest Magic Cleaning. His joke commentary can be a bit eye-rolly, but he has real sympathy and understanding for his clients that he does free cleanups and DIYs for, even if he can lean a little bit armchair psychologist sometimes. He’s frequently directly responding to and refuting insensitive and ableist comments in his videos and explaining how people and homes may end up in these extreme hoarding situations, and how regardless everyone is human and deserves kindness and care. Directly shutting down toxic commenters is something I like to see in video makers and has given him a big plus in my book.
I like that “Zealand” fellow, who does scripted content about soccer and also frequently less-scripted content (including stream archives from twitch) about playing football manager. It’s fun stuff; dude actually has college-level training in communications and broadcasting, including some experience with actual game commentating, and it shows. Dude makes fake soccer more exciting than some UEFA broadcasts I’ve seen. “Zealand” is the scripted content channel; “Zealand Live” is edited livestreams, “Zealand Streams” is the unedited livestreams, and “Zealandisms” is a channel for more off-the-cuff commentary as you might find from a jokey commentator on network news. If I were CBS, I’d consider syndicating zealandisms if possible.
Stuntpegg is pretty fun as well. She has a lot more on-location soccer content due to being in Europe and able to travel more easily, and her stuff has a pretty recognizably northern-English sarcasm to it that I actually find fun most of the time – she’s very earnest in her love of the game, though, which is what makes it so compelling and helps balance out the tone.
12Tone is a great broadcaster about topics in music theory both mainstream and obscure. Does a regular series about analyzing songs, mostly in pop genres, talking about how they work and how their ideas fit together. Major inspiration.
Adam Neely does similar content to 12 Tone but is more explicitly jazz-focused and talks a lot about the history of jazz, the logistics of touring, and broader stuff like music plagiarism. Reminiscent of Technology Connections in form/tone.
Craft Computing is the IT homelab channel for those of us who can’t or don’t want to spend thousands of dollars in server hardware every month. Not to say that he doesn’t show off the occasional big rig, but his focus is more on weirder, cheaper, and more niche hardware and use cases for less-extravagant spenders. Had a long series on remote game servers that had a lot to do with setting up my own homelab (mushroomhill) which is, go figure, just an X99 motherboard in a fairly standard ATX case.
Kitten Academy is a channel that holds a 24/7 kitten livestream and also uploads occasionally more-structured content for tracking health and development of the kittens. It’s a fun channel and a fairly easy watch as they have a policy to intentionally stay away from the more maudlin content you might see on other kitten-focused channels (not that it’s a bad thing per se, it’s just less to my taste).
Also, pour one out for Wrexham Wrecaps.
This actually made me think kind of hard about my usual channels LOL
Rachel and Jun’s Adventures - These 2 are a couple who live in Fukuoka, Japan and own 4 cats. They post a lot of lifestyle stuff but also a bunch of their stuff is spoiling said 4 cats (who are cute as hell. I would die for Pichi). Alternatively, I also recommend Jun’s other channel, Jun’s Kitchen, where he cooks amazing meals while his kitties watch from the bar area.
Drawfee - Cool group of folks who do random drawing channel challenges a few times a week. They were my pillar during the pandemic LOL
Tamakid - This is a channel I recently discovered but became obsessed with in a short amount of time. Her art, style, and everything is very Y2K! The video that grabbed me was her room tour which is full of super unique toys and recently she uploaded a video about decoden, a slightly older craft. Highly recommend.
Brutalmoose - Dude who reviews stuff that can vary from a Disney Channel movie from 20 years ago to Bass Pro Shops freeze dried meals. He quite possibly has some of the best editing I’ve ever seen in all the YT channels I watch. And there’s a cute cat too!!
Leona’s Workshop - Garage kit channel that primarily works on Sailor Moon figures. She’s currently working on a really insane Eternal Sailor Moon kit that I’m dying to see finished.
Defunctland - Everyone watches Kevin Defunctland I don’t need to explain myself LOL
As for streamers, these days I mostly just watch Brutalmoose, Jerma (if he decides not to be retired that day), and Vinesauce. Sometimes the occasional Castle Superbeast podcast clip if I see it in my sub box as well. I’d include more but it’s a lot of food channels because I love watching food being made or talked about
Minimimuteman - got big for his Ancient Aliens mythbusting and truth-telling, wrote a book, did an 18 part doc on ancient indigenous cultures in the Southwestern US, went to the sister site of Gobleki Tepe that’s still being unearthed and hasn’t been documented on film by an archeologist before his trip
Been randomly into old appliance restoration channels like MrRescue (watching him restore a pizza oven now) and crafting channels like Sprage Wood Turning.
Ants Canada has been doing a cool terrarium series where he has a whole ecosystem set up with multiple ant species and different predators and crickets and all kinds of stuff. I also like SerpaDesign
FoundFlix and The Horror Mine are my current go-tos for learning about new horror movies and picking what i think I might be able to stomach and maybe even enjoy.
FlawPeacock is my new favorite game analyzer.
I also watch a lot of channels mentioned above I just wanted to shout-out some I hadn’t seen mentioned yet that I get a lot of watch time from.
I don’t watch Tasting History regularly, but every video I’ve seen from the guy has been a delight to watch, such as this recent one about the history of Ettore Boiardi
love the Friendlockes!
I only really got into youtube recently, but would recommend the following:
- Iron Pineapple used to make Soulsborne meme videos, but has pivoted to more thoughtful longform content in recent years. I particularly enjoy his series Steam Dumpster Diving - his attitude towards the games he plays in it is always so positive/constructive and I’ve discovered some real hidden gems through it.
- CallMeKevin has great relaxed vibes despite his talent for causing chaos in pretty much every game he plays.
- Any Austin - can’t really explain this one, you kind of have to just go with it.
Oh, I forgot about Any Austin in my own list. He definitely… makes videos! It’s the sort of stuff that is kind of hard to explain the appeal of, and probably only works because of the person making it.
he certainly does Make Videos. and yet I find myself glued to everything he puts out…
I’ve really enjoyed Jeremy Parish, Tasting History, Kenji Lopez-Alt and Miniminuteman from people’s suggestions here!
Some more channels I’ve thought of:
-I cant believe I forgot about Burls Art last time, he uploads pretty irregularly due to the massive amounts of time his projects take, but he’s a really cool custom guitar maker who makes guitars out of stuff like pencils and newspapers as well as making really cool unconventional patterns, his latest video is so pleasing to watch the design come together. His videos are really well-edited and chill to watch.
-DoctorSwellman is a cool speedrun info channel with a particular focus on RPG games, who covers a wide variety of different games, consults with runners for his info and doesn’t lean into clickbaity “cheating scandals” and stuff like that.
-Not Just Bikes is a very informational channel that talks about infrastructure and transportation in different parts of the world (often central Europe) and occasionally about miscellaneous vehicles and why they’re dangerous and bad or cool and good.
-I found Stefan Milo through miniminuteman who was recommended earlier in the thread. I haven’t watched a lot of his videos yet, but he seems like a cool popular science channel with pretty easily digestible information, and does interviews with both researchers and indigenous people relevant to the subject he’s covering for his videos.
Internet Shaquille is great for some good cooking tips done in a straightforward manner. Does a lot to demystify the cooking process and explain processes, and has some videos about low effort cooking. B Dylan Hollis for bite sized cooking things (We’ve made some stuff he’s covered and it usually turns out well). Food Wishes rounds out the cooking videos.
Maximilian Dood and Sajam are how I keep abreast of FGC stuff.
CarlSagan42 and Juzcook are for when I want Mario Maker or Super Mario World stuff.
Watched Accursed Farms originally for Freeman’s Mind back in the day, but stuck around for the coverage of smaller games, and the crusade against Live Service games.
Folding Ideas, HBomberGuy and Defunctland don’t need links, but they fill the video essay part. Also in that space is Munecat
Team Four Star and their side channel Four Star Bento is good, for Dragon Ball Z Abridged, and their standalone sequel series HFIL, and the Bento channel has their episode by episode commentary about the whole process of making DBZA.
For tabletop stuff, I mainly watch Zee Bashew and his animated spellbook series, and Matt Colville for some other views on running games.
Then there’s like, a half dozen basketball podcasts.
has anybody mentioned You Suck At Cooking yet? I feel like you either love this channel or hate it
+1 for Any Austin, nothing like a good eggbuster
I have some relatively real big channels or well-known ones so I’ll try to shout out the mostly smaller ones.
A Critical Hit! doesn’t upload very often, but Kate’s videos are lovely and “bite-size” compared to most videos I watch (honestly, the restraint of publishing a video that’s under fifteen minutes!) The Wild Gunman video was the first one to draw me in. (I could also swear she did a video or at least provided voice work on a deep dive into “the first video game” that talked about, like, SPACEWAR! and such, but it seems to have vanished…)
My introduction to i am error was her video on good/bad taste and it still rattles around in my head to this day. I especially enjoy the autobiographical essays she’s been doing on “the best video game she’s ever played” at key ages in her life. All-around great essayist.
Ludiscere initially pulled me in with his video on sexualization in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, but I really love the deep dives he’s been doing into each main entry in the Final Fantasy series. (Also the Hades video rocks)
The Leftist Cooks are such a divine mixture of philosophy and artistry that I’d be remiss not to point them out. They are the driving force behind me adding a bunch of philosophy to my to-read list lately.
Also I have to shout out Transparency because Kiki and Alicia have some incredible videos on video games, but I personally keep thinking about the video they did about traditions and conservatism…and it’s also about Donald Duck.