Ask Lemmy

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

https://www.youtube.com/@MrBallen/videos

MrBallen is a guy who retells storys in a very compelling way. Stories of murder-cases, odd occurences, sinister events, etc.

This channel is really worth listening/watching (and also binging). I discovered his channel two years ago and follow it ever since. The videos length unsually varies between 15 to 30 minutes. Although the video's thumbnails and titles appear like it is clickbait, each video is well-made and worth a watch! Almost every Sunday a new video is uploaded.

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.

Has anyone mentioned Knowing Better yet? Guy makes fantastic videos explaining a wide variety of topics. Some of his latest ones have been very in depth analyses about periods on American history, though he has covered many more subject as well. Highly suggested if you like long form content.

Another channel that I love is Captain Dissilussion. A guy dressed as a superhero breaks down the special effects behind hoaxes and viral videos, usually with a lesson in the end. Great channel even if you don't know anything about special effects, you can learn a lot about how effects are done, how to spot them and then be surprised when the guy flexes his own (better) version of the effects at the end.

• zefrank (funny 10 minute nature documentaries)
• AlphaPhoenix (highly informative science communication)

To add a few I haven't seen mentioned yet:

• jon bois
• knowing better
• folding ideas
• Todd in the shadows
• I did a thing
• legal eagle
• internet historian

And a few more which I think are great but YMMV depending on your particular interests:

• city planner plays
• historia civilis
• junkyard digs
• tech ingredients
• Scott Manley
• BobbyBroccoli
• summoning salt

tl;dr: if you only pick up one name from all these comments, let it be jon bois. He's made some of the most compelling content I've ever seen, especially the "pretty good" series. Money back guarantee, you will not be disappointed.

tl;dr for real: jon bois, climate town, electroboom.

LEMiNNO, Barely Sociable, Melody Sheep

I really enjoy Yesterworld and Expedition Theme Park.

Check out this video from Practical Engineering, a channel about teaching us about our constructed world, when it works and when it fails. https://youtu.be/jxNM4DGBRMU

there's a community for that, https://lemmy.world/c/youtubepitch

For in-depth game analysis: Joseph Anderson; Whitelight

If you're interested in a dry-humored, game-reviewing owl with an upload schedule just as fucked up as his sleep schedule, try Shammy.

For humorous but interesting, creative and well explained engineering: Stuff Made Here

For interesting gaming challenges: Ymfah is absolutely amazing

Depends on the genre you prefer, but I'll try to cover a lot of bases for anyone who might be interested. I'll break it up into 2 comments cause it's not letting me post so I might have hit the character limit lol.

Part 1

If you like let's plays, I think Letsgameitout is one of the most consistently entertaining channels. His videos are a good length, not so long that they drag out, but not so short that they feel like they're done too soon, and he uploads frequently enough to not feel like it takes ages for a new video to come out, but not so frequently that it feels like he sacrifices quality.

If you like games but not the format of most let's plays, or just like general humour and don't mind most videos being game related, then DougDoug is hilarious. He streams on twitch but edits the streams down for YouTube. Seeing him interact with his twitch chat is really entertaining, and his shenanigans involving AI are also great as well. A good entry video for his content is probably the pajama Sam video he made recently where he tries to get chatgpt to beat pajama Sam, and the ai gets more and more unhinged as the video goes on. But it is one of his longer videos so you can also try any of his other videos. Another good one would be the one where he gets two halves of his twitch chat to compete against each other in GTAV using chat controls a la twitch plays pokemon. There's also GameChamp3000, who does a lot of gaming challenges, but she doesn't upload as often sadly. But her videos are very high quality and the lengths she goes to in order to get around a road block can be pretty crazy.

If you like diy or humorous educational stuff, then electroboom is a very entertaining channel and also very informative when it comes to electricity and engineering. He's the guy who made the diy electric guitar. Basically he's an electrician who does projects where he tries to make something from scratch, and along the way he shows all the wrong ways you can do something by doing them himself and then getting hurt by it slapstick style. He's shown how he fakes a lot of the stunts to assure his audience that he's not putting himself in danger (though he has also confessed to some real near misses like the Jacob's ladder incident), but he's good at making it look really convincing which somehow adds to the humour. He's also good at telling jokes on top of the slapstick. Similar channels like his include William Osman, Michael Reeves, and I did a thing. But of the 4 of them Electroboom and I did a Thing upload the most consistently I think, though shout out to Michael Reeves for being the most insane of the 4 lol.

If you like just regular educational channels, then I've heard veritasium is good, and there's also Mark Rober though he's not just education, he also does some fun experiments and even dabble in dealing with scammers. There might be some controversy from when he made a video about autism because I heard he was promoting an autism advocacy group that was possibly tied to autism speaks (which is largely hated by the autistic community), but I'm not super informed on that and idk if he addressed it. His video about it was positive towards autistic people since his son is autistic though, so if that's a sticking point for you then you can always look into it and draw your own conclusions. It's not usually a topic of his videos though so if it's not a deal breaker then you can just watch any of his other videos and ignore that one.

If you like drama and video essays then TRO aka The Right Opinion is probably one of my favourite channels for that type of content, because he's really good at portraying every side fairly without coming across as obnoxiously neutral. He's also good at covering topics in a way that feels thorough without dragging on for too long.

Only ones I haven't seen mentioned so far:

Post Apocalyptic Inventor

German guy visits scrapyards to find tools and other items to repair out repurpose.

AudioPilz

Aka. Bad Gear. Reviews of synths and drum machines. Goes over the pros and cons, mostly cons. Does AV audio demo and 2 song demos with music videos made from retro cartoons and tons of meme content.

David Hilowitz Music

I guess I would call this mostly unusual music stuff. Lots of unusual and found or cheaply made diy instruments. He uploads sample libraries for then as well so you can make songs with them too.

Rose Anvil

Dissects shoes and boots so you can find footwear worth the cost.

My subscriptions:

• Cathode Ray Dude (placed him on top, because he deserves it. Loads of tech stuff that goes really into the nuts and bolts of it all)
• Practical Engineering
• Lazerpig (not for everyone, but check out the WW1 tank videos to see if it suits you)
• Jay Foreman / MapMen
• Tom Scott
• Kurzgesagt
• Lemmino
• Lord Hardthrasher (kind of similar to lazerpig)

The Present Past (History)

Cody’s Lab (Science)

NileRed (Chemistry)

Finematics (Cryptocurrency)

The Hated One (Privacy)

RealLifeLore (Geography & Recent History)

Tom Nicholas (Sociology & Philosophy)

PhilosophyTube (Philosophy)

Well There’s Your Problem

Drachinifel

This a the millionth comment but I found this CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED channel that fills me with glee.

Down From The Attic

Reviews old nostalgic board games and has the most lovely persona. No clickbaity over-hype YouTube persona BS. He’s absolutely wonderful.

I follow some Canadian van dwellers. I like Foresty Forest best. He just goes around Canada and sometimes the USA climbing mountains with his dog, and living in his van.

His videos are chill.

Adam Something - Mostly about civil engineering and public transportation, but also a ton of commentary on the right wing from a European leftist perspective.

Ladyknightthebrave - Film theory and criticism.

King Arthur Baking - Just solid baking videos.

Tasting History with Max Miller - Cooking show about historical foods with brief dives into the dish's history.

Oversimplified - Short animated videos on history.

F.D. Signifier - Black leftist takes on society, politics, and pop culture.

Lindsay Ellis - Now retired from YouTube due to harassment, but excellent film theory and criticism, originated the current film theory video format.

Chinese Cooking Demystified - Chinese cooking videos that focus on how it's actually done in China.

All Gas No Brakes/Channel 5 - Modern gonzo documentary news.

Breadsword - Film theory and criticism.

Contrapoints - Leftist trans commentary on philosophy, political theory, pop culture, and basically everything.

Luetin09 - Incredibly deep dives into Warhammer 40,000 lore.

PBS Space Time and Stand-up Maths are two of my favourites.

I'll skip the ones already mentioned.

Anton Petrov - Science and Space news
Postmodern Jukebox - Modern songs in different styles
Legal Eagle - A lawyers take on modern events, movies, etc
Ze Frank - I am unable to describe, just give a video a watch
Anything with Simon Whistler, he has too many channels to list
Munro Live - An engineering firms take on new cars.
nicola white mudlark - Very good if you like history.

@yousuckatcooking - entertaining cooking and legit recipes!
@fortnine - amazing quality motorbike channel. Even if you don't ride its very educational and entertaining.

I scrolled quite a ways and did not see anyone mention "Well, there's your problem". Its a podcast about engineering disasters with slides and pronouns.

Led Fridman

Numberphile, Computerphile, PBS Spacetime, PBS Infinite Series (sad they stopped), Standup Maths, 3Blue1Brown

Veritasium, high minded science made simple and easy without it seeming patronizing

And of course a plug for Simon Whistler, the man has like 8 individual channels covering a lot of information

Legit Street Cars, Primitive Technology, Ghost Town Living, Donut (their older stuff is better than newer), Colin Furze (older stuff also better than new, but newer stuff is bigger, more expensive projects as his channel has grown), Blackmail Studio and Wristwatch Revival. Those are the YT channels I'm constantly watching (along with Critical Role, but excluded due to length of episodes).

Edit: Oh and SpyroPyro does some awesome stuff with Lasers.

(I’ll edit this post continually to add more channels detail. Kind of busy at the moment)

Warlockracy

Mandalore Gaming

Civvie11

Tim Cain

Minisodes

Olden Demon

Bedtime Stories

Beware The Qu

Alt Shift X

Historia Civilis

Forgotten Weapons

Paper Skies

ConeOfArc

RedLetterMedia

Bobby Broccoli

Sam O’Nella

Can't believe nobody's recommended NileRed/NileBlue yet. His videos are awesome

Self-sufficient me is nice and relaxing

ISHITANI FURNITURE

Abroad in Japan

Girlfriend Reviews

Jeremy Fielding

Kai W

Matthias Wandel

Periodic Videos

Primitive Technology

Veritasium

GeoWizard

Why Files

Micheal MJD is a nice channel if you're interested into retro hardware

For entertainement:

Good Mythical Morning
Mythical Kitchen
Cold Ones
Girlfriend Reviews
Ididathing
William Osman
Michael Reeves
Ludwig/Mogul Mail

Podcasts:
H3 Podcast
The Yard Podcast
Trash Taste Podcast
PaymoneyWubby Stream Archive

Depends what you're into

I like:

Air Safety Institute - https://www.youtube.com/@AirSafetyInstitute - they cover recent GA crashes, all sorts of stuff related to airplanes and what not. Really interesting and well presented.

HorrorGeek - https://www.youtube.com/@TheHorrorGeek - amusing reviews of horror movies

NerdExplains - https://www.youtube.com/@NerdExplains - really snarky and mean-spirited horror movie reviews

PeriscopeFilm - https://www.youtube.com/@PeriscopeFilm - Archival film footage from through the ages, just all kinds of crazy stuff

Ill Advised Records - https://www.youtube.com/@illadvisedrecords - relaxing music

Law & Crime Network - https://www.youtube.com/@LawAndCrime - Content about crime and trials and what have you

Cryochamber - https://www.youtube.com/@cryochamberlabel - Relaxing music

There's a bunch more (the New Jersey museum guy, Drachnifel, bunch of true crime stuff) but that's what leapt to mind first

"The Infographics Show" kind of my favorite.

Also recently seen video "Tourism in Afganistan" recorded less than year ago. Interesting content I would say.

AveragePixel

Applied science

Tomatoanus

• Nino's Home - Easy desserts and snacks recipes
• Historical Italian Cooking - self-explanatory
• Tasting History with Max Miller - historical recipes recreated
• toldinstone - Historian explains common Ancient Roman questions
• JustOneCookBook - Japanese recipes
• Kommander Karl - NPC skits

Code Bullet: Australian doing stupid and entertaining programming

John Savill: if you want to know anything about the Microsoft Azure Cloud

Francis John: Irish dude playing Rimworld and Oxygen Not Included with weird settings.

Without saying what you like it is quite hard to recommend things.