Title essentially. Youtube’s algorithm is hot garbage, so I can’t search for anything anymore without a ton of AI slop and rage bait. So, who do you go to for actual good long form videos? Exposes, scandals, behind the scenes, documentaries, film, travel, transit, who do you recommend I follow?
I like the Why Files, very entertaining even if they have to ruin the fun by “telling the actual story” at the end.
Technology Connections
So … Do you have any recommendations for more like technology connections? I’ve watched through every video+even the ones in the backlog). A year or so ago I stumbled on cathode ray dude (similar nerd vibes) and I’ve also seen everything from him so if anyone has a recommendation on similar channels please let me know.
So it’s not exactly the same but in my head they’re heavily related. NightHawkInLight. He’s this rural tinkerer/chemist dude that takes real science papers and patent info, then tries to reproduce and refine them with easier and more available means. He’s done really cool stuff with fire resistant paint, radiative cooling, and phase change materials. Plus, he has a similar " Midwestern" delivery style that’s low key and easy to listen to. Everytime he releases a video I’m excited to see what he’s been up to
TechMoan might be up your alley
He’s definitely similar and I’ve seen a couple of vids of his. But he didn’t quite “catch” me the same way.
The video on pinball machines was absolutely incredible
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
This Old Tony: home machinist that fixes stuff and makes other stuff in his garage, but does everything very well thought out. Humorous and good editing.
Trying not to put duplicates:
- ViceGripGrage - finds old shitty cars and gets them running and drives them home
- MightyCarMods - as the name suggests, building/fixing/modifying cars
- Savagegeese - very detailed car reviews, no bullshit
- B1M - talks about mega projects and there issues
- ItchyBoots - Badass motorcyclist that has traveled solo across the world
- shiey - Explores abandoned places, hops trains, insane lack of fear of heights
- The Proper People - also explores abandoned buildings
- Rick Beato - music producer that analyzes songs and talks about various music related topics
I don’t watch YouTube to often but I used to like to watch some content from Yes Theory.
My partner watches a few others though, I see her watching Smosh, which sometimes is good, she always watches good mythical stuff, but I am not as much of a fan of them.
I think I avoid YouTube mostly, but if Yes Theory fits your question, I like their underlying message (it started off as a saying Yes to life and taking chances and believing that people were inherently good and try to get communities and the world to come together it seems) and I was actually afraid to say it because I figured someone would come out and tell me how they are actually terrible people somehow. Hopefully not. (Fingers crossed)
This sounds like the premise behind an absolutely delightful 2008 film featuring Jim Carrey and Zooey Deschanel.
Honestly kind of, but more communal. They focus more on say traveling to Yemen, Baghdad, “the most boring city on earth” to throw a get together, or really just getting out there and challenging people to like you said, say Yes. Seek Discomfort is one of their main slogans now. Basically get out of your comfort zone, and have fun.
Say taking a 102 year old to Australia to ensure she made it to all 7 continents to encourage others that no age is to late https://youtu.be/38PwG3zGDDI
Yeah, woah, that’s really neat! I’ve added a bunch of these to my watch list. Thanks for that!
I like watching travel stuff about going to places I might be, frankly, too chicken to go to myself. Seems like he does that a lot. :D
No wonder I feel like such an outsider here. I’ve been on youtube for almost two decades and there’s not a single channel I follow mentioned here in this thread.
EDIT: Well there was one match: Primitive Technology
Na, you just found other good stuff, YouTube is actually really massive. Add some of yours here as well!
Folding Ideas is fantastic
There are two YouTubers who make videos 4+ hours long that you have to watch every minute of:
Sure but HBG is the only one who can make a viral 4 hour video.
Jenny’s last 4 hour video went more than viral, to be fair.
These two were my first thought! I’ll add that both cover a range of topics, Jenny does do a lot of videos around Star Wars, but also covers obscure films, and theme parks, wherenl HBomber runs the gamut from flat earth to vaccines to video games to plagiarism. Both are incredibly well researched and, in my opinion, offer very fair takes on the subject matter.
I love Jenny, so HBomberGuy would probably be good too
Adding a few I haven’t already seen:
- https://www.youtube.com/@NeverKnowsBest - very long form videos on video games
- https://www.youtube.com/c/SummoningSalt - documentaries on speedrunning in various games
- https://www.youtube.com/@Steve1989MRE - reviews of military rations, spanning from very old to very new
- https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes - videos on urbanism from the perspective of The Netherlands
- https://www.youtube.com/@SkipIntroYT - videos about TV shows
How long-form?
I absolutely love “More Kitboga”, videos where a fella calls scammers and uses a Roland VT3-3 voice transformer to improv. Video lengths range from a few hours to… I believe his record fucking with the same call center (like two or three specific people) is 54 hours. I put it on when I’m working from home. He is HILARIOUS. He and his team have whole fake websites, fake banks, and a fake Google Play store where he can redeem fake Google play cards into his account and it works as the actual play store would. People go insane when they see they “lost” thousands of dollars because an “old lady” redeemed the codes they wanted.
True crime: Explore With Us is a channel my partner recently found. Lots of FOIA’d videos and pictures that have never been seen before they made their videos. Very interesting.
I saw a lot of tech and science channel in the comments so to balance that out, here are some of my favourite crafting channels:
North of the border: creates a clay sculpture every week. Generally it is something nerdy or something cursed
Enchanterium: repaint dolls, often to popular characters. They also sew their own outfits. A lot of fun even if you’re not interested in dolls
Nerdforge: create a lot of crazy projects, mostly related to nerdy stuff. (Last project was a 2m booknook)
Wicked makers: create decorations and animatronics for Halloween
Florian Gadsby: very talented potter with very relaxing voice and videos
Pottery to the people: pottery videos, often trying new experiments
Evan and Katelyn: videos on stuff that they build. Always a lot of fun (last video: how they built an ergonomic laptop)
TL Yarn Crafts: crochet videos
Kaypea Creations: making of art dolls (animals), either out of clay or fake fur.
Studson Studios: creates amazing sculptures out of mostly trash. Amazing channel, one of my favourites
Make strange things: makes strange things. Small channel but greatly appreciated
Boylei hobby time: creates dioramas
Lightning cosplay: creats amazing cosplays
Transcended furniture gallery: restores vintage furniture
Bonus: Half-Asleep Chris: videos with stop motion elements, mostly about cats and/or lego
Subbed to Enchanterium 👍 thanks for the rec!
melodysheep - quality animations about universe, earth
thinmatrix - cozy, solo gamedev videos
I love melodysheep. The music is very good.
I am not normally a fan of long form videos unless I’m in the mood for it, but Philosophy Tube is my go to. Thanks to her, she (he before she transitioned) actually taught me what liberal really means, socially progressive but economically conservative.
For educative scientific YT channels I’d recommend Veritasium, The Action Lab and NileRed to name a few. They produce top quality scientific videos about really interesting phenomenas and experiments. And the best part is they make the concepts simple to understand without the need of a degree or smth lol
Adding to this, Smarter Every Day is really great – they just started a series on Nuclear Power with a walkthrough of the first Nuclear Reactor used to produce electricity.
