Lockpicking Lawyer

Short videos. Reminder that no lock is impenetrable. Also, April Fool’s Day videos are very special.

Kaptain Kristian

Video essays. No longer in production, high-quality reviews of some cultural artifacts. He’s moved his operation to Curiosity Stream. Made me realize it’s worth it to pay creators directly for their work rather than having advertisers and platforms like YouTube. Now, if only I had money to pay these creators. Aye, there’s the rub.

Every Frame a Painting

Expert film analysis. If it’s not, it sure looks like it is.

CGP Grey

Snarky educational. Fun! The best damn flag contest, best takedown of first-past the post voting, and best reflection on how to go forward after hitting YouTube fame. I still want to know if he and Roman Mars have talked flags.

Kutiman ‐ Thru You

Classic YouTube. 15 years ago, mans took a bunch of other YouTube videos and remixed them into each other, producing meta tracks.

Not counting music, I assume - I have a gazilion artists I love if anyone’s interested.

As for actual Content with a capital C:

• PhilosophyTube Extremely interesting, well-researched and entertaining presentation of a wide range of philosophical and sociopolitical topics. From the UK.

• Shaun Ditto, though with a different angle and a Northern accent.

• Contrapoints Ditto, but American and quite a bit more… theatrical. Quite a strong focus on gender and transgender issues; check out her video on J. K. Rowling for one of the best treatments of the topic.

• Dr. Geoff Lindsey - Linguistics and phonology stuff, deep dives into pronunciation, fascinating as fuck.

• Middle Eats Really damn good middle-eastern cooking channel, no-nonsense presentation.

• Brian Lagerstrom - Baking / cooking - good recipes, sensible treatment.

• J. Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats fame - damn good cook, nice guy.

• Tom Bates Creator of Nigel and Marmalade. Dumb, stoopid, awesome.

• Adam Millard - The Architect of Games - video essays on gaming

• Noodle - very funny animated video essays on gaming

• Ice Cream Sandwich - stoopid funny little cartoons about dumb shit.

• Jaiden Animations Animated little essays about stuff, she must be protected at all costs. See for instance Things about Relationships I wish someone told me about.

• Tom Scott has finished up his Things You Might Not Know series, but there’s like a decade of them and they’re amazing. Little investigative videos on everything from programming to wasp farming. You need to watch all of them.

• Taylor Tries Videos on juggling. I have the hugest talent-crush.

History of the Universe is exactly what it sounds like. Amazing channel!

ScienceClic English is based on the German channel original, and covers in depth science topics, narrated by a truly stellar individual.

PBS Space Time is simply stunning science coverage that’ll melt your brain.

deleted by creator

I’m a big fan of Emily the Engineer. She’s a similar chaotic energy as early Michael Reeves but less directly focused on “offensive ideas” or “things to hurt your friends”. The creativity behind both the projects and the videos is top notch.

Bigtime

is an awesome newer car and motorcycle channel, they split off from donut to go do their own creative stuff after donut go bought by a big soulless media company

Fortnine

is an amazing motorcycle youtube channel with absurd production quality and directing often worthy of full length documentaries

Berm peak

is a super well produced mountain biking and bikes channel

Lab Muffin Beauty Science

If you’re into science based skincare I absolutely adore her, she has a chemistry PhD and a specialization in cosmetic chemistry. She spends a lot of time debunking baseless skincare marketing which I don’t really need since everything I know about skincare I learned from her and various other science focused youtubers, but I absolutely adore her informative videos that are guides to various aspects of skincare, or an exploration of how to competently interpret research

Adam savage’s Tested

channel is a lot of fun if you like maker content, he’s just as energetic and charismatic of a character as he was back on Mythbusters

Hybrid calisthenics

is a wonderful exercise fitness and wellness channel where the guy running it is just an earnest, kind, compassionate human being who offers advice that meets people where they are and helps them progress, regardless of their current ability level. He went viral a while back for a video talking about how you can do exercise at any level, even if you’ve literally never done a pushup in your life, where he demonstrates modified versions of bodyweight exercises that make them more accessible, or even more difficult so that people can work their way up to their goals from any starting point. People fell in love with his personality and attitude of compassion.

My absolute favorites for cooking are:

Adam Ragusea

does an amazing job of making recipes realistic and approachable for home cooking, and his background as a journalist results in incredibly high quality research videos that are unbelievably informative

internet shaquille

unprotentious while focusing on technique, has a fantastic delivery style, it’s hard to describe exactly what makes him special, but the videos are phenomenal and he often gives great life advice

J Kenji Lopez alt

the goat. Super knowledgable, especially regarding the science of cooking, and is a well respected name in recipe development. His videos are him with a gopro camera strapped to his head while he prepares the food and talks about it’s origin, how he likes to make it, etc. Its like having an expert demonstrate for you in their home kitchen while casually chatting about all the knowledge they have to share about a given recipe

Chinese cooking demystified

the absolute best source for traditional chineese cooking, and food history lessons to boot. I love their delivery style, and their videos always give a ton of historical and cultural context and are a joy to watch)

Lemme know if you’d like more food youtubers, these are my absolute faves though, and all offer very different perspectives on food (sometimes disagreeing with eachother) while usually teaching at least as much about technique, how to approach cooking, and their own personal philosophy when developing recipes as they do the specific recipe itself.

Brian David Gilbert

makes a wide range of bizarre nonsense and I adore him. Comedy sketches, horror short film kinda stuff, incomprehensible fever-dreams, a guide to the united states health insurance mess that somehow manages to be as funny as it is depressing, goofy music, unironically wonderfull music, recipies. He used to make polygon’s unhinged video series called unraveled, his personal channel is even better and even more unhinged

RedLetterMedia

Movie reviewers that like all sorts of movies. Great production quality.

Lemmino

I’m surprised no one mentioned this channel yet. Previously known for making top 10 facts of everything, but has since transitioned into long form documentary of mysteries. He takes a long time between videos, but its always an instant click whenever he uploads. Does his own research, cites them, makes the background music and all of the animations for it. Honeypot for react channels too.

Fortnine

Motorcycle related videos. Does some motorcycle reviews, but the explanation type videos they mostly do are awesome. Even if you’re not a motor head, you can always learn/enjoy something from their videos. If not the knowledge and physics, then the excellent videography and story telling Ryan puts in there.

Technology Connections

The Youtube Appliance guy. I kid, but he does excellent videos delving into tech in general appliances or retro stuff. One of his best videos is about dishwasher detergents, so good he had to make 2 more follow up videos about it. Seriously, go give it a watch.

Brick Technology makes cool mechanisms out of Lego to solve some simple problems

Chef Jean-Pierre, I just adore him

Stumpt

They’re a group of 4 people who play games together, but aren’t the super energetic and annoying type of content creators. You know the type I’m talking about. Plus, Stumpt usually seems to play a lot more indie games or every once in a long while anymore they may go back to m!neceraft for a mod pack.

Bobby Fingers

Irreverent movie prop maker who builds diorama’s with a dressing of Irish humour.

Primitive Technology

Makes houses, tools etc, starting from just his hands and natural resources. No knife. No axe. No rope. No tarps. No dialogue.

Kraut

Does videos on history and culture. Helped me understand why Russian culture is the way it is. In-depth, informative and interesting.

[Map Men / Jay Foreman] (https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCbbQalJ4OaC0oQ0AqRaOJ9g) - fun, painstakingly produced educational videos about maps.

Yhara Zayd - Not too long media analysis. Especially of Horror and through BPoC lens.

Andrewism - discussions about Anarchism and organising from Trinidad.

RedLetterMedia, the only channel I’ve continued to watch through the years. Super hilarious movie reviewers.

Heres a bunch of random shit that i like. It’s not in a particular order but i did attempt to sort them by related concepts.

Stuff Made Here - Engineering projects
SmarterEveryDay - Engineering deep-dives
Practical Engineering - Civil engineering stuff explained
Steve Mould - Engineering concepts
Kyle Hill - Science communicator
PBS Spacetime - Space stuff explained
Answer in Progress - Channel looking for answers to questions?
Disrupt - Dark software explanations
Driving 4 Answers - Automobile/engine theory/explanations
Integza - Amateur rocket enthusiast/projects
Major Hardware - PC fan concept testing and misc
SuperfastMatt - Car and other projects
Vice Grip Garage - Man rescues garbage classic cars
2Stroke Stuffing - Man tries to build two stroke land speed bike
RCTestFlight - RC projects (mostly boats/planes)
Beau Miles - Aussie who runs and stuff and random stuff
VC Adventures - Vegan Cyclist bro
Rapha Films - Pro cycling team adventures
This Old Tony - Hobby machinist
Drawfee Show - Artists doing themed art challenges
Adam Neely - Jazz bassist theory/explanations
Exurbia - Uhhhhh… Story creator/philosophy enthusiast?
Gbay99 - LoL documentaries
Any Austin - Video game investigations, kinda?
Let’s Game It Out - Gaming entertainment
TomatoAnus - Speedruns explained
Joov - Skyrim challenges
EdgeOmega - Skyrim challenges
Rekrap1 - Minecraft content
Rekrap2 - Minecraft content
Evbo - Minecraft films
Ogmoe - Minecraft manhunt god
BayAreaBuggs - GTAV RP
JANTSUU - GTAV vehicle testing

This is just a sample. There is much more good shit out there that i like.