Ask Lemmy

• Cutting Edge Engineering (heavy machinery repair done incredibly well…addictive to watch)
• Martijn Doolaard (restoring cabins in the Italian Dolomites)
• AvE (though I’m pretty sure he’s conservative)
• Primitive Technology (an anthropologist that recreates primitive technologies like kilns and huts)
• Watcheyes (amazing ASMR watch repair)
• Clickspring (ambitious machinist projects)
• 3Blue1Brown (beautiful info graphics to explain concept topics)
• The Signal Path (a pro electrical engineer talking about and repairing advanced electronics)
• Democracy Now (leftist news)
• Tech Ingredients (a professor and his students inventing tech gadgets and sharing their work)
• Applied Science (one of the most advanced and ambitious YouTube scientist inventors out there)
• Cody’s Lab (a brilliant guy who lives on a ranch doing science and metallurgical experiments)
• NileRed (excellent YouTube chemistry channel with incredibly ambitious projects)
• Fireship (articulate infographic explainer of tech news)
• Mental Outlaw (news and leftism)
• Behind the Bastards (podcast about the worst people in history)
• Two Minute Papers (an AI researcher reacts to new research papers)
• bigclivedotcom (a brilliant electrical engineer’s musings)
• Hackaday (a podcast that talks about news stories on Hackaday which is a feed of impressive electronic maker projects)
• The Amp Hour (pro electrical engineers chatting)
• Andreas Spiess (an IOT maker sharing his work)
• Tsoding (a brilliant Russian software engineer screencasts his wizardry)
• Tsoding Daily (a brilliant Russian software engineer screencasts his wizardry)
• No Boilerplate (BEAUTIFUL explanations of the features of different programming languages)
• CinemaStix (REALLY solid documentaries about films and filmmakers)
• Pitching Ninja (the smartest pitching analyst by a mile)
• Jeff Geerling (super thorough computer hardware and software reviews, builds, experiments, and musings)
• Strange Loop Conference (YouTube channel for this really good conference with tons of brilliant talks from software engineers and language authors)
• Impure Pics (a really helpful channel for Haskellers and Purescript people)
• Psionic Audio (an amp repair guy that doesn’t bring his fucked up life into his channel and alienate all of us like Uncle Doug)
• Computerphile (really solid explanations of complex topics by researchers and professors in all fields of computer science)
• Abom79 (a really solid machinist that does a good job walking you through everything he does)
• Tweag (a brilliant software engineering company’s channel)
• Serokell (a brilliant software engineering company’s channel)
• NixCon (all things Nix/NixOS)
• IOG Academy (a brilliant software engineering company’s channel)
• Mend It Mark (an electronics repair guy with the kindest disposition)
• Man Carrying Thing (politics and satire)
• Vimjoyer (excellent infographics and walkthroughs of technologies)
• HasanAbi (politics) 🇵🇸✊🏽

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 don't know why I get suggestions for flat earth and anti-evolution videos but I like watching them because I learn a lot. My guess is that because of my interest in comedy videos I discovered "Patti Reviews Exotic Animals". From there I got" Clint's Reptiles". He is a a theist that accepts and explains evolution. I never doubted it but never took the time to learn what it was all about.

Then I get "Professor Dave Explains". He's fantastic. So many good science videos. So many videos where he puts an end to the dumbest ideas I've never even heard of. Do I need to learn how to argue with a creationist? No, but now I know how.

"Gutsick Gibbon" is awesome. Hers are on the larger side so I haven't seen them all but she's got great science education.

The last one I'll mention is "Lindsay Nikole" because she's my second favorite. If you want to know about the history of life on Earth then she's the best. Why isn't she my first favorite? It's because I don't have a favorite and I want her name to stick in you mind when you go to search youtube for things to watch. You'll notice she has guitars on her wall and I someday I hope to get her on a music project. I write songs about bugs and need her to get on at least one of them in some way. That would be cool as fuck.

Red letter media

I love Star Trek, but don't want to watch the modern Alex kurtzman garbage, so they take the bullet for me.

I'm also not a movie guy, so watching their reviews/analysis while playing Minecraft is more entertaining than the movies they talk about.

Best of the worst is them watching B and direct to video movies that i wouldn't otherwise know about.

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.

Folding Ideas is a favorite of mine.

My #1 go to is probably Cathode Ray Dude. He makes videos mostly on old tech which is what I'm very interested in.

If you're more looking for exposing scandals there's always Coffeezilla/Voidzill.

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.

I'm hooked on Corridor Crew. They review and explain good and bad cgi/vfx in shows and movies.

If you're interested or curious about music theory (even if you don't know much about it), I recommend Charles Cornell. Here's one of him talking about Pure Imagination.

I like Dime Store Adventures for history trivia and exploration, mostly USA focused.

For videogame essays, my two faves are Jacob Geller and Powerpak

I watch a few different channels regularly. Here are a few of my favorites

Cecilia Blomdahl lives in the Arctic Circle/northern Norway and has lots of adventures and videos her day to day life in a really interesting way.

Also some Brits who have been renovating abandoned chateaus in France called Escape the Dream and a new one called Mucky Mansion are great escapism

Brain Pilot makes some good videos recapping a few shows i enjoy

I have a few classic youtubers I still watch from back in the day Safiya Nygard and Grace Helbig, for some beauty/crazy fashion/cooking stuff

If you want a sane political/comedy channel, Trae Crowder, the Liberal Redneck is fantastic. In that same vein, Some More News does fantastic deep dives in lots of political and social issues focused mostly on the US

Living big in a tiny house is really interesting seeing cool tiny homes around the world

Takis shelter is a channel from an amazing man who runs a sanctuary for animals in Crete and is a literal saint

I really enjoy Calum's work on obscure vehicles, shipping containers, and stuff like that: https://www.youtube.com/@CalumRaasay

Mustard has other fun vehicles, often with a focus on aircraft: https://www.youtube.com/@MustardChannel

David Hilowitz does fun stuff with musical instruments (finding them, sampling them, stuff like that): https://www.youtube.com/@DavidHilowitzMusic

I love wargaming miniatures and basically the only channel I watch on the subject is Eric's Hobby Workshop: https://www.youtube.com/@EricsHobbyWorkshop

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.

Hakim, Mental Outlaw, Second Though , Alice Capelle, The Hated One

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

Do yourself a favour and watch Ed Pratt Unicycle around the world. This is one of my favourite things on YouTube, watching him go from just a kid with a weird dream to a great filmmaker and experienced traveler in such an authentic way. Highly recommended

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!)

Hochelaga, Horses, Real Science, ContraPoints, Knowing better

For history, I really like Premodernist. It's just a history professor telling you history. It's great because he's a good storyteller and he actually knows the subject.

Vice grip garage.

I enjoy efap which is probably the longest form, especially Mauler, the others are generally better in a mixed crowd. It's movies and Internet drama for the most part.

MLiG