What Youtube channel has maintained high quality standards over the years?
Inspired by this post but the other way around. Which channels (any subject) do you think have stayed true to their beginnings and are still worth watching today?
My pick would be Gamers Nexus.
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But he stopped making videos. I'd say that's a significant drop in quality.
He placed the main channel on hold, but has still continued to produce content. He has an extraordinary game show in podcast format that shares very unique trivia called Lateral. He is also in the post-production phase of a new run of videos featuring a big road-trip, according to his newsletter. He also occasionally still makes new series of Technical difficulties.
Or simplify taking a stand that he wasn't willing to go down the click bait path the algorithm pushes for. I haven't found another comment for a channel I agree with here yet
Actually, 3Blue1brown and PBS science videos (minus space) are pretty great too
what about pbs space time?
Yeah, good question. I can't remember why I went off it. There is definitely some good content. I think for a while he was just really excited about the multiverse and that's just a bit too strong an interpretation in my mind to go push that hard. It might have been something else. Its been a while
Seriously wtf space time
pbs spacetime, discusses astrophysics, and discovery on the universe, if you a nerd for physics that is.
No I used to watch it, I just didn't think k it was very high quality compared to the other PBS projects. So much speculation!
oh yea, and it would be more prudent to use an actual physicist, astronomer, astrophysicist on the show it would improve the quality.
Ayoo. Another Tom Scott fan. Rad!
Love his videos. Each one had so much passion and thought put into them
Captain Disillusion - Does videos about fake videos and pictures and about video editing in a humorous way. He has had same high quality over 18 years now.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEOXxzW2vU0P-0THehuIIeg
CD is the GOAT
I also really like the Corridor Crew for VFX content but it’s not the same tier.
Very high quality.
If anything keeps upping the ante that's why it takes him so long
One of the best ever
I'm amazed by the fact that it remains such high quality even when you go so far back to the early videos. It's crazy. Dude is a genius.
Primitive technology. There are many imitators, but the original is a man on his own in Australia. His videos focus on building structures in the woods. Starting with river mud, he will make a furnace in order to make bricks in order to make a building to sleep in in order to use it for kiln drying for larger structures etc.....
Be sure to watch with subtitles to read his explanation of things!
Edit to fix: he is based in Australia, not new Zealand.
All true, except he’s in Queensland, Australia.
I'm still amazed he's alive after all this time working in the Australian jungle
Also needs to be said that he's been creating for a decade and every video is consistently as good as the last one. The man single handedly spawned an entire genre and he just kept doing his own thing, algorithms and influencer culture be damned.
This was also the first channel I thought of when looking at the question. Shame that it created so many low effort imitations that are obviously fake though.
Is there anyone out there that is even vaguely similar without being fake?
Very glad to see this mentioned, yet somewhat miffed you think he's in, I assume "Tropical" New Zealand?
His videos, and those of Lemmino, are the only ones where I'll set aside a time of day so I can watch them alone and happy.
You can blame this all on me for my ignorance. As someone from the US, I can't say I am very familiar with the details on Australian versus New Zealand geography. No miffing was intentional, I assure you!
Isn't he in Northern Qld, Australia. In only ever watched part of 1 episode and he was there then (I am Australian)
I get the idea he's around Kuranda ? maybe Tully (i lived up there many yeaes ago)
I watched this channel for at least 5 years before I knew to turn on the captions!
The various PBS YouTube channels almost never miss.
Some of the best science content on the internet and explains everything in layman's terms.
For higher level science:
https://www.youtube.com/c/TheInstituteOfArtAndIdeas
Puts up conferences and interviews of some of the top scientific minds on the planet.
PBS is awesome and I donate to them whenever I can. So should everyone.
I love arte for francophone stuff, public broadcasting is the best
I think that’s NPR, but still 👍
PBS spacetime is the only channel I watch at 1x
And even that's too fast sometimes :D
Practical Engineering
Even his no effort November videos are high quality.
I thought no effort november was technology connections thing?
Oh yeah, wrong channel.
I know bps space did one as well XD
Tasting History with Max Miller.
His quality had definitely fallen around the time he made his site. He would just upload videos of shitting on bad locks and using his own tools. I unsubscribed shortly after. I don't know if it's any better now, but originally he would upload a video when the video had something worthwhile to show.
Nah still the same, pushing his tools hard in every video.
Only the April Fool's videos are worth watching now.
As someone who owns a couple lock picks and plays around with em, let me tell you, knowing how to do it does not make it easy. Info about how to pick locks is easily obtained elsewhere, and honestly his videos aren't exactly helpful in an instructional way. I really doubt he's had a large effect on criminals using lockpicks, especially when it's so much easier to most to cut them with bolt cutters. What I would say he has had more of an impact on is people using more secure locks than masterlocks. I suspect he's had a net benefit on security. I dunno, not like I know the statistics or anything, I think it's a fair estimate though.
Yeah I do sort of wonder what the point of his channel is. Every now and then one of his videos will be recommended and I'll watch it, but I've learnt that there is absolutely no point because they're all exactly the same. He always picks every lock within about 4 seconds.
I'm not really interested in knowing which locks I shouldn't buy. I want to know which locks I should.
All the lock picking channels are like that though, I think they feel that if they upload video where they can't get into a lock, that means that in some way they've failed. So they don't do it.
This is the LockPickingLawyer, and today we have a-
lock spontaneously performs an impression of the bluesmobile at Daley Plaza
...in any case, that's all I have for you today...
My Mechanics is fantastic. His current restoration of the 240z is excellent, he even supplied parts to Ronald Finger for his 280z.
FortNine: both the content and the video quality are top notch.
TechnologyConnections is the only channel where you'll waste an hour nerding out on washing machines, even if you don't own one.
Louis Rossmann has been instrumental in the fight for right to repair in the US.
Yeah i could list many more but you asked for one (and i already overran that), plus these are the ones that stand out to me.
Some of these channels have changed over the years, expanding and adding hosts and things, but they consistently make good content and have either improved or maintained that quality.
Wendover and Half As Interesting
Real Engineering
Mustard
Legal Eagle
Mentour Pilot
Not a channel, but a creator: Yahtzee Croshaw (was Zero Punctuation/Extra Punctuation on The Escapist, is now Fully Ramblomatic/Semi Ramblomatic on Second Wind.
CGP Grey
SciShow (and many of the other projects from the vlogbrothers, including Crash Course and vlogbrothers itself)
Technology Connections
Shaun
HBomberGuy
ElectroBOOM
Videogamedunkey
+1 for Wendover, Half As Interesting, Real Engineering, Mustard, and Mentour Pilot.
Love those channels. Can somehow keep me engaged enough to watch a few hours of content on some random stuff. :)
I like the way Legal Eagle has branched out and invited other attorneys to help keep tabs on ... gestures broadly.
https://youtube.com/@explainingcomputers
+
https://youtube.com/@christopherbarnatt
DOT COM
https://youtube.com/@mothersbasement
I only listen to this one guy for anime reccomendations.
https://youtube.com/@colinfurze
Never has a lull, always good.
https://youtube.com/@chemicalforce
Pretty toxic chemistry
https://youtube.com/@weirdexplorer
If you don't really care about exotic fruit adventures, at least watch his feature length Nutmeg documentary it's most excellent.
https://youtube.com/@civvie11
Boomer shooter comedic...retrospectives? I like him.
https://youtube.com/@mrcarlsonslab
He repairs very old electronics and is soothing to listen to.
https://youtube.com/@fortnine
I don't even really care about motorcycles, but their video editing skills are incredible.
https://youtube.com/@lowbuckgarage
Accurate, he will do everything possible to avoid spending money on a project.
https://youtube.com/@styropyro
Mad scientist.
https://youtube.com/@casuallyexplained
His sense of humor doesn't get old for me.
https://youtube.com/@thecodyreeder
Mad scientist.
https://youtube.com/@robwords
Taught me more about language than any teacher in my life ever did.
https://youtube.com/@st1ka
I find a lot of obscure old games to play via this guy and his videos are high effort.
https://youtube.com/@posymusic
Every video is a work of art. It doesn't matter what the subject is, you'll be entranced.
https://youtube.com/@techtangents
Bitrot necromancy enthusiast.
https://youtube.com/@littlevmills
A Canadian who makes high effort metal music covers.
https://youtube.com/@joel-haver
He just likes to make movies. I like his movies. A lot.
https://youtube.com/@theslowmoguys
It's in the name!
https://youtube.com/@integza
Mad scientist.
https://youtube.com/@evenflow2907
High effort vehicular brainrot.
https://youtube.com/@labeast
Have a good day!
https://youtube.com/@umami
A lovely weird Canadian artist I adore.
Still waiting for him to connect the secret tunnel to his bloody bunker though. THAT WAS THE BLOODY POINT OF IT. But nooo, he got too into the idea of an underground garage. Which is, in fairness, very cool.
Im pretty sure its all connected to the house now
The garage, workshop, and house are connected, but he hasn't finished going from the workshop to the bunker. His ADHD ass got distracted by something more interesting to him, meanwhile it's killing me that he still can't get to his cool bunker through the tunnel.
Ups for styropyro. Man just gets more unhinged by the year, it's beautiful.
You know things are getting insane when he's starts bragging about breaking Photonicinduction records.
Right? Imagine the shit he'd get up to with the UK's 240V lines. They should do a collab.
I swear I can hear his voice. "Explaining computers... dot com."
That's a long list. Glad to see FortNine made it, because I was going to mention them if someone else didn't already do it. I am into motorcycles, and no one else in that space has better camera work or editing. Usually good info too, although some of Ryan's takes get controversial
I'll hop on the Technology Connections train and add
Styropyro
CathodeRayDude
Civvie11
Northernlion
O hey cancer mouse.
He just put out a new Blood video that was under 10 minutes. I didn't think something so short was possible for him.
I LOVE TC, NL, and Styropyro. I’ll have to check out CRD and Civvie11!
Primitive Technology. He started the whole "build a shelter in the woods" genre that has become so dumb, but his videos are still just as great as ever. No narration or music, other than the sounds of the birds and insects, just interesting experiments into basic technology like shelters, fire, charcoal, kilns, pottery, small machines, bricks, roof tiles, etc., all using only the most primitive stone age tools, created from materials found in the forest and stream around his camp.
Even his attire is as spare as his videos, just a pair of khaki shorts.
Currently, he's working through a series of experiments to make fire hot enough to smelt metal.
I've been watching him since he started, and he's the only channel that I stop everything to watch when a new video drops.
Map Men. It's always educational, interesting, and they have amazing Monty Pythonish gags and jokes.
Seconded! They changed channel name to Jay and Mark now though, but it's the same great content.
‘Map Men’ was always sort of a series on Jay Foreman's channel. He also has other content, namely various urbanistics trivia about London, and humorous songs performed live.
Map Men / Jay Foreman
Interesting and genuinely amusing for about 15 years at this point.
Cross-instance linking is a mess. You linked to an ad for your mobile app, which links to a kbin instance, which links back to lemmy.world... The app page devotes most of its space to download links while kbin demands the viewer log in before it will show them anything.
Technology Connections are great, but this doesn't feel very connected.
Trying to get a correct URL to change it but I literally can't. Any idea? :/
Edit: Changed Voyager settings and now I can share the original. Please let me know if it's ok now
Worked for me
Op should have used threadiverse.link, or the home instance of the content, both of which are options in Voyager. The voyager link is primarily for sending to non-lemmy users.
My Voyager app only seems to offer the vger.to link. It's a recent change I'm not happy about.
Ah shit really?! Mine still has all the options. I get Voyager from F-Droid, not sure if that makes any difference, maybe my version is slightly out of date? Either way, seems like a shitty change, which will probably end up getting reversed.
Mine is version 2.41.0, obtained from F-Droid.
To be fair, it could be some kind of user error -- maybe the option does exist, but I'm not seeing it for some reason -- but I don't really think so.
Edit: Ah! It's a setting! Settings →General → Other → Share Links. Mine is set to "Voyager App (vger.to)", but there are also the other options you mentioned, as well as "ask" (which is presumably what yours is set to).
I'm pretty sure vger.to is the default (perhaps for new installs -- I changed phones relatively recently), which is unfortunate, since I definitely didn't change that setting.
Brill, thanks for figuring this out.
Thank you for sharing, I had no idea this was a setting! That makes it a lot easier to get the other links.
The most ridiculous thing about ‘vger.to’ links is that Voyager itself can't open them.
What do you mean?
Just doesn't open them, does nothing and shows an error message. Despite having created those links.
That sounds like a bug. Please let me know next time, a screen recording would be very helpful! 🙏
By the way, because of how your username is highlighted, I thought I was talking to the thread's OP.
I guess it was a glitch somewhere: here's a comment that didn't work for me, but does now. The error overlay appearing back then wasn't informative, it just said ‘can't open the link’ immediately, so it looked like Voyager just couldn't deal with it.
This one guy Richard Astley. Banging tunes and the smoothest moves.
But really: Technology Connections
I'd say Alec of Technology Connections has increased in quality. Started good and got better.
Numberphile and any other channel by Brady Haran.
Computerphile as well.
videogamedunkey
Been watching his videos for ~10 years now
I haven't checked out dunkey in years! I should see what he's been up to lately.
He's really slick these days.
He has a real Knack for making videos entertaining.
No captain disillusion?!
What’s no captain disillusion all about?
The prompt was a question for you lol. You should have just written “captain disillusion” as the reply.
He's the best. I'm just sad he publishes one video a year
ZeFrank. After a long gap in videos he's back even better
That is how the insert animal name do
Project Farm
we're gonna test that!
Honestly I have begun to question whether Project Farm staying exactly the same is good or not for me as a viewer.
I used to watch every video, even if it was for a tool I'd never need myself. Now on a lot of them, I just tend to watch just the beginning to see the initial assessment of the competing products and the final summary, since I know what the whole middle is going to be.
I'm sure that's not the healthiest thing for the channel, as it cuts "engagement time" and I'd like to see a heat map to see if I'm not the only one doing this.
I just trust the guy maybe too much at this point, plus since most products I don't need, I'm not that invested in the minutia show by the main segment of the videos.
None of this is a knock on the channel or his videos, but as the question was about what has stayed good and you are still watching, that made me think how PF was still as good as ever, but that has somewhat reduced my watching of it.
I'm in the same boat. I subscribed to the lowest tier of his Patreon to stop feeling guilty : https://www.patreon.com/projectfarm
That's a very good way to compensate! Some of the products and testing things he buys aren't cheap, and he often tests to failure, so helping recoup that money is likely very beneficial.
The pacing is a little grating too, he speeds up his voice-over these days in post. Just compare how he sounds in older videos to the newer ones.
Huh now that you say that, I had felt they seemed "rushed" but I thought maybe he was just testing more brands at once and trying to keep the videos the same length.
My wife absolutely hates his voice, even at standard speed, to the point she leaves the room. 😄
In a Nutshell - Kurzgesagt
In a Nutshell is often too simplified. They often present fringe hypothesis as widely accepted scientific theories.
Then again, they've always done that, so their quality has stayed the same.
I think the main issue with Kurtzgesagt is that it is an entrance to a deep science YouTube rabbit hole that will make you unable to enjoy Kurtzgesagt anymore...
Their videos all have clickbait titles nowadays, really annoying. Wish they would actually write what the video is about on them
I think they've really started to go downhill lately. Mostly clickbait and miscorrelation in their recent stuff.
Hbomberguy has been getting nothing but better.
Foldingideas also has fantastic long form video essays that I really enjoy.
Yeah Folding Ideas is one of the few youtubers I often make a point to watch with my wife as an event. As is Hbomberguy
Similarly, I know controversy follows her everywhere, but contrapoints maintains very good content, and while some of her videos have their issues they tend towards high quality and extremely well thought out, even when I don't entirely agree with all of the takes she has in them.
Smarter Everyday (space, slow mo, manufacturing), PBS Space Time (space, quantum physics, astrophysics...), Xisumavoid (Minecraft Let's Play), Magnus Midtbø (Climber), Asianometry (technology, manufacturing, science history)
Smarter Everyday has only gotten better and better as he has grown in notoriety. Fantastic content, and not beholden to sponsors.
Except for all the American Armed Forces stuff
except him spouting more and more religious shit
Absolutely, he's getting access to places and hardware that keep pushing the envelope, but still remains that very humble human being he always was. He's so kind to everybody working in the factory tours. Absolutely recommend. The only thing i'm not a big fan of is the content he produces with weapons, but that's a cultural thing, i get it.
you may enjoy Steve Mould. British guy also doing sciency stuff. while he does do sponsorships it's usually like kiwico.
I do, as well as Matt Parker (and Tom Scott but he doesn't qualify for this thread anymore, unfortunately)
We seem to have a large overlap in our Venn Diagrams ^^
ooh I don't know Matt Parker. I'll look them up after work!
he's adjacent to Numberphile (also an excellent channel), Hannah Fry, James Grime, very good educators
Almost all of the smarter everyday videos I wish were 1/10 of the size, or two videos (learning vs something glittery that he's distracted by). I'm glad that he's there for people that enjoy that though
Some ones I haven't seen yet:
Edit: fixed formatting error
Going to be checking some of these out for sure. Nice list!
You and I have very similar viewing tastes. Nice list.
Funny enough, you're not the first one who's also noticed this. A couple years ago, me and a colleague (in helpdesk) shared our YouTube subscriptions and found 80% of them matched, and he introduced me to such channels like Usagi Electric.
I do otherwise tend to notice comments on one channel's videos make references to other channels I also watch (outside of the usual Bringus Studios and DankPods references), so I tend to think I'm part of a larger niche of Gen Z / Millenial computer geeks.
Oh no, my PKCell!
Kent Survival is another relaxing, casual camping channel. Not quite like Steve.
Budget Builds kind of inspired me to fix up this Dell Precision 690 I rescued from the trash.
Polymatt's video on LGR's laptop was positively incredible. So good. So impressive.
Ever watch Brick Immortar? Mostly maritime tragedies, and much more dry than plainly difficult. But I kind of feel they are in the same sphere. I fall asleep to them sometimes.
Man, Usagi Electric's homebrew project is insane.
I could go on and on. So few people I know are interested in this stuff.
Big Old Boats? Hyce? How about Atomic Shrimp? I'm interested in other channels we might share.
I think a whole lot of "maker" type channels have all stayed pretty solid, off the top of my head
This Old Tony
Adam Savage
Xyla Foxlin
Clickspring
Blondihacks
Colin Furze
Inheritance Machining (though compared to some of the others he's relatively new)
Stuff Made Here
Jeremy Fielding
Branching out a bit
How to drink
Caitlin Doughty (ask a mortician)
LockpickingLawyer
NileRed (and NileBlue)
Tasting History
Townsends
Useful Charts
EDIT: Almost forgot Technology Connections
Some of them have changed their format a bit over the years, I don't think that's been a negative for any of them. Also due to how YouTube revenue works these days a lot of them have had to rely more heavily on sponsors, patron, merch etc. don't hate the player for that, hate the game.
Colin is a blast lol
I watched Colin Furze for the first time in some time, recently. I was surprised by how much more calm and measured he seemed. And then I realized it was likely because he was a little older, had more people in his life to be careful for, and probably moving a little slower in general. And then I felt old. And sad. And surprisingly irrelevant.
Clickspring is absolute gold. The guy is crazy talented and to be fair most of the time I don't know what he's talking about, I just enjoy watching a master at work.
Practical Engineering. His videos are about all the infrastructure that makes the modern world function.
Tom Scott for sure kept video quality high and standard over the years. I miss him.
Agreed, but he decided to bow out when it started getting too big. So good on him.
Starting getting too big? I thought he said he needed a break. That's not necessarily the same, or has he said more since then?
He went on a ‘sabbatical’ from youtube. He didn’t quit making content, his game show podcast Lateral and newsletter are still running.
Sorry "a break (from YouTube)". That's still not to me "getting too big". It could be, it just seems like an inference
Also, didn't Lateral start about the same time he stopped YouTube?
Testing history with Max Miller and How to Drink.
This Old Tony started posting sporadically again!
Goofy dad joke making hobby machinist with a sprinkling of fun cuts, and literally just a voice and hands working on things. One of my favorite channels.
Agreed!
There's a single video with his face, btw
Lemmino, Ahoy and kurzgesagt
Kurzgesat became highly biased after a partnership with the Gates Foundation. They were independent beforehand.
Can you clarify?
I haven't spotted anything too obvious.
Add NileRed and that would be my list as well.
Ahoy. video game documentarian. Makes 1 or 2 very high quality videos a year and has done so for years.
Techmoan, if you are interested in old or weird tech.
Stefan Milo - real archaeology, not ancient aliens
Cool Worlds - real astrophysics, not aliens
PBS Space Time - it's never aliens
twoodford - Zen and the Art of Guitar Repair
PBS Space Time is routinely over my head and I love it.
Brick Technology (link)
There's no voiceover, no clickbait, no intro or outro, just an engineer building absurd Lego machines to overcome set challenges. The quality and entertainment are top tier.
Project Farm is still a go to for me. It's not perfect but he does more than enough for me most of the time
Tested got me through covid
RedLetterMedia
They used to do the Mr. Plinkett reviews and still publish a bunch of videos of reviewing movies that are very, very good (and entertaining) and other movie related content. While there are no more Mr. Plinkett reviews, they have maintained the same high quality of the channel for the last 15+ years. They just don’t publish content as often. It’s down to once or twice a week now.
They're hack frauds! But they've always been consistent hack frauds, so it's all good 😁
To be honest, the score is based on how hot Jay still is after all these years. Even after the Uggo Jay stage. I’d marry that dude.
Fair enough, but you keep your no good hands off Rich Evans, y'hear? 😁
Somehow, Rich has actually become more attractive as well. Maybe it’s just me…
Hands off, tho. Jay is still mine, lol.
😁
Didn’t Mr Plinkett review andor a few months ago?
Its a German channel, but I would throw Simplicissimus into the ring. They always had high quality content, and the quality of their videos is constantly rising.
They also have an English channel
Mustard Stories about Planes, Trains and Ships with amazing animation
Calum Scottsman on an Island talking about History and Arctic Exploration Vehicles.
Phil DeFranco is better than he used to be by a long shot. He's getting senators and journalists in interviews for all manner of new related content. And he stopped with the enlightened centrism angle he had for a bit. Much more mature and level-headed.
Forgotten Weapons
My feelings on Ian himself have become a little strained, but he is doing the same or better quality than ever now that he gets invited around the world to show off so many rare items. I could not name a better source anywhere for weapons history and being able to see the actual weapons and often their entire disassembly.
While modern life has made me less interested in gun culture, their mechanics, development, and how they have shaped history and society I still find very interesting.
Love Ian!
Huh. Reddit used to allow VPN users to access images they host even if they didn’t let them browse the platform anonymously. Guess they “fixed” that.
The USCSB has a channel with breakdowns of chemical disasters
It's got a pretty fun cult following and it posted within the last week XD
I love those videos. They've done more for safety awareness than any ad campaign ever will
And they just recently posted!
Benn Jordan
https://youtube.com/@bennjordan
If you are into sequencers and drum machines then for sure Captain Pikant
https://youtube.com/@captainpikant
Starsky Carr, Woody's Piano Shack, and David Hilowitz are great as well!
I definitely second David Hillowitz.
https://youtube.com/@davidhilowitzmusic
Not only is he semi-local so I get to see landmarks I recognize, but he's so calming when many creators try to be 90s levels of extreeeeeme these days. Also lots of his repair/resto/DIY stuff is affordable, he gave us Decent Sampler, and the weird and homemade instruments he often uses are actually musical, not the weird ambient beeps, boops, and screeches many channels feature.
If you like reviews/comparisons check out Project Farm.
Bad Obsession Motorsport ! I've been watching them build a Mini rally car for 12 years. They keep getting distracted by perfectionism and I'm very here for it.
Overly Sarcastic Productions, consistently producing animated essays about history, mythology, and story tropes
Hard for me to say because over the years I've lost interest in most channels I watched years ago.
BobbyBroccoli, NightHawkInLight and Technology Connections are three that I always watch every time I notice a new video.
Techmoan is one of those that I watch from time to time.
And Nerdwriter1 is one that I haven't watch in some time but it is hard for me to imagine it having a decline in quality.
BobbyBroccoli is the GOAT
Mighty Car Mods are a pair of Australian blokes who have been doing car-based videos for 15+ years. Everything they've done has been high quality and entertaining.
I honestly don't know how they do it.
100%. While some of their builds don’t interest me the quality is always right up there and has a perfect balance of detail and entertainment.
I echo a lot of the sentiments here. Two I'm not really seeing are Project Farm and Eric the Car Guy. Eric is just coming back from a hiatus of sorts.
A few others I like
CNC Kitchen
Rob Dahm
Low-Buck Garage
Zach Freedman
SuperfastMatt
StrangeParts
Driving4Answers
CrackerMilk
PixelPete
Andy Didorsi (not as old a channel though)
Mr Carlson's Lab
Heather Cox Richardson
And of course, Technology Connections and Gamer's Nexus.
Bonus item because I like what they are doing, Edison Motors.
Music bonus item because she's remained consistently excellent for years, Lauren Babic.
Joe Pera, comedian started around 14 years ago
nobody, musical mixes/tracklists, really good at setting moods and introduced me to a bunch of artists and songs 4 years of mixes
Townsends, classic pioneers time guy, mostly food I don't know how long but he's been around forever
Jeff Gerstmann, video games journalist
Townsends has really interesting content, but I find one of the hosts to be a bit rambly.
Michael Reeves. One video a year, making the dumbest most hilarious shit you can think of.
some of my faves:
k&j lumber
project kamp
martjin doolard
m. bjornstroem
technology connections
this old tony
wesley treat
pask makes
frank howarth
chest’er
four eyes furniture
shawn boyd made this
Nice to see Frank Howarth there. Those video are pure relaxation. Setting YouTube to Wellness-Mode even. And technology connections of course.
if you’re into the relaxation, check out that martjin doolard. calming as fuck, yo.
Glad to see Martijn in a post here. His videos are of a consistently superb quality and I never miss one. Here's the link to the channel: https://youtube.com/@martijndoolaard
For gaming content, I've been following CallMeKevin for several years. His stuff is always a good time.
Good time? More like bore ragnarok.
TheSpiffingBrit is similar
And if you’re in to chess, Kevin’s partner, Anna Rudolf used to have some of the best educational chess content online. Her and Daniel Naroditsky (RIP). She stepped back from producing much content for personal reasons and now mostly works behind the scenes on Kevin’s channel, but she’s getting back into commentating and is excellent at that.
If you haven’t seen yet Give us a visit
Vlogbrothers ftw
Patrick H Wiiems does amazing film commentary, but don't call it content.
James Hoffman, it even keeps getting better with time. The prophet for the coffee fans
Veritasium.
Curious about the downvotes here.
Might have to do with how Derek Muller sold the channel to private equity a while back.
Could be. That’s not uncommon these days, and makes a lot of sense financially for Derek. But yeah, somewhat disappointing. Mentor Pilot did, too. Likely why both channels have added additional hosts, according to Micro.
Captain dissolution
Corridor crew
Gaming Historian comes to mind. (Caveat: he's no longer doing YT full time, so the uploads are a lot less frequent.) Anyway, he started out as the kind of prototypical kid with Youtube videos, doing a pretty well with the history angle. But over time evolved into a serious documentarion doing top-notch work. Along the same line, DidYouKnowGaming went from an ok channel that repackaged pretty common trivia into interesting but almost click-bait videos, into now being an investigative journalist kinda thing, where they semi-regularly share previously unknown information about old or cancelled games. Still on the games side, Electric Playground has been going for like a quarter-century, since back when it had to be on cable TV instead of Youtube, and Victor Lucas still doesn't suck.
3Blue1brown and Ben Eater make great technical educational videos that, as far as I'm aware, haven't really degraded.
3Blue1brown is amazing!
Dank Pods! The content has only gotten better over the years, plus their expansion into car stuff and gaming. Started from iPods, now a bunch of different type of content. 🇦🇺
I always preferred Garbage Time, his car channel. Dude's hilarious.
Some more news is still as it ever was
Accursed Farms, twoodfrd, Rummy's Corner, Grimbeard, RedLetterMedia, Summoning Salt, Zaric Zhacaron, OneShortEye.
Workshop Companion is great for beginner-friendly woodworking, and I've been really liking HomeRenoVision DIY for home renovation content.
fixing furniture is pretty solid too. “wooden it be nice” lolz
Here's a range:
Sebastian Lague - game dev and software dev exploration
Pitch Meeting - film summary in short satire comedy form
Sick Animation - fucked up animations
Will McDaniel - comedy sketches using practical effects, puppets and fx makeup
DefendTheHouse - gaming myth busters and community content
FunWithGuru - showcasing easter eggs in games
Pitch Meeting started strong and continuously improved over the years, but recently he has been doing reposts because that is super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Seriously though, home he overcomes the burnout or focuses more attention on pitch meetings as I don't watch his other bits.
He's recently been less active due to an illness and then death in the family. He talked about it in a community post. Either way, I'm glad he found a pace that better fits him.
His father died, and he's Canadian, so he has actual bereavement leave.
Oh that sucks!
Crash Course
Post10.
11 years of posting videos. No politics, no ads, no culture war bullshit. Just camping videos and unclogging culverts.
Post10 is so wholesome. His enthusiasm for everything he sees and does always makes me feel calm and happy.
I feel like Ethoslab deserves a mention. He’s basically making the exact same great fun Minecraft videos as I, a grown ass man, remember from my literal childhood!
Yep, came here to mention Etho. I literally have memories of getting home from school 12 years ago excited to watch Etho.
Now I get home from work excited to watch Etho.
I've been watching TheCrafsMan explain DIY techniques for almost a decade now.
The topics and explanations have always made for great videos but the effort put into videography and music has definitely skyrocketed as the channel grew. He's never strayed from the wholesome, zen-like tone or given clues about his real identity.
I adore the Crafsman. His name is your host!
YouTube used to be filled with people creating things for the sake of it. Now it's mostly sales people and propagandists.
Crafsman is one of the old guard just out there steady craftin' this whole time
science based channels(research, discoveries), although you have to correct the info from time to time, so it doesnt sound like misinformation, occurs quite frequently with biology, phylogenitcs. influencer channels however degrade/decline over time, especially when they become annoyingly political.
i watch pbs eons, deep look, have to comment on them making mistake about species, phylogeny accuracy from to time. one time i commented on the "acoelomorph" video, and said they are unrelated to flatworms.
Vice Grip Garage
RRC Restorations
Martijn Doolard
These are my happy places
Very similar to Martijn Doolaard, and in the same general area of northern Italy, is Stories from the Cascina. It's a Belgian-Dutch couple renovating an old farm who film in roughly the same way as Martijn, with very little talking and absolutely beautiful photography. I came across them when people in the comments of a Martijn video were talking about how they were there because they saw a Martijn video playing on a laptop in a Stories from the Cascina video, and they'd never seen him before.
The only downside is that Stories from the Cascina did start taking sponsorships this year out of necessity, but it's lowkey and I find them inoffensive. There have been a couple I didn't even know were sponsorships until I kept seeing the product again in the same video, lol.
Well There's Your Problem, a podcast about engineering disasters with slides.
The Majority Report
Redlettermedia, Internet Comment Etiquette, Minute Physics and Crash Course.
If u have any interest in cars or engineering:
-Driving 4 answers -engineering explained -superfast matt
Esoterica is really one of those channels that seems to gain in quality over the years. This summer's seminar on Merkabah literature was just bonkers ! If you like religious history the whole channel is a must watch.
This is a great channel!
Red Letter Media. I've grown bored of the content though but that's a me problem.
Majuular. He makes long form retrospectives of old games, his Ultima retros are amazing. Just keeps getting better and better.
The Wonky Angle for IDM/electronic music coverage
Gtrippin for trip sims
Badempanada for anti-status-quo takes
Jacob Geller for video game content with a touch of breadtube
I'll add some that haven't been mentioned.
Tech Ingredients - various experiments and builds. Everything on how to make rum to good novel speakers.
Erik Brandal - makes sound sculptures
/noclip - video game dev documentaries
This old Tony - Machining while being funny
Posy - Quirky beautiful retro HiFi/Tech
Edit: have to add Posy
https://youtube.com/@allecjoshuaibay
Air crash reconstructions using flight sim software, with real ATC or CVR audio where available, but no stupid dramatic acting or filling time. Amazing content, hundreds and hundreds of videos
He passed away from a car accident a few months ago.
Cathode Ray Dude
Red Letter Media
Grimbeard, puts out well researched and highly entertaining game retrospectives.
BobbyFingers creates dioramas of famous events with insane tangents while documenting their creation. One video even has a choreographed song.
Lawerence systems covers a lot of self hosted tech with articulate and concise instructions. Really like his method of teaching.
GreenX has some amazing retrospective videos about games, they’re a bit newer of a channel. Every upload has been fantastic though. Insanely funny, highly recommend watching their STALKER video.
Facefullofeyes, same as above but has a very inconsistent upload schedule. Much less humor than greenx but very insightful analysis. Highly recommend the SWAT 4 video.
Smooth McGroove - acapella game themes: https://www.youtube.com/@SmoothMcGroove/videos
Okoii
Ssethtzeentach
VaatiVidya
Ymfah
Sitting With Dogs (Rocky Kanaka)
Some More News
History Marche
Fairbairn Films
Don't Tell Comedy
Granted it’s only 3 years old, there’s a channel called Little Chinese Everywhere. It’s a travel vlog of a Chinese woman and her German boyfriend. I like the channel for three reasons:
They are currently traveling the ancient silk road and retracing Marco Polo’s travels along Central Asia. The area is fascinating and they’re going to places I’ve never seen before or even thought about.
Their vlog format is great because they use forward-facing, POV style filming, and gorgeous drone shots. I hate videos that focus on travel and sights but 80% of the time the camera is on the vlogger’s face.
They actually research the history of the places they go to, and they’ve studied enough languages to be able to get by. So their videos are not the “out-of-place foreign person visits xx country” style.
Good Mythical Morning/Mythical Kitchen.
They've maintained their high quality since even before YouTube and they hosted their own content.
Same with Cinemassacre (James Rolfe aka The Angry Video Game Nerd's channel). Er... If you can consider purposely being low-quality for B-movie nostalgia as actually high quality 🤔
Cracking the Cryptic would be my top addition to the list. Daily solves of quality human-set variant sudoku puzzles and weekly cryptic crossword solves.
I always tune in for Simon's daily Wordle attempt.
Regular Car Reviews for sure
Andrew Camarata
I bet this guy gets sponsorship offer after another and he refuses all of them. He has multiple videos in progress all the time. Some take years to finish. He might do a job and then at the end of the video he revisits the site half year later or for example waits for a rainy day to shoot video of how the new drainage ditch works. I challenge anyone to find a more authetic YouTuber.
Ashens. Released a video the other day about microwavable burgers that I couldn't immediately tell whether it was brand new or 10 years old.
The crime that was his hotdog bun cut will never be forgotten!
Abroad in Japan, Gigguk, CdawgVA, Julien Bam. 2BoredGuys, Fern.
DC Rainmaker
Bernadette Banner does historical (largely Victorian) sewing techniques and patterns but sometimes branches out into health and beauty recipes as well.
Abby Cox does historical fashion on a broader scale and sometimes has content about other historical trends or myths that she encounters in her research.
I have subscribed to a few skateboard channels that I have followed for a long time. Not because of the tricks, because quite frankly, these guys are not the best skaters, but they make good content for old skaters like myself who don't care much about the latest tricks.
Ben Degros. Perhaps better known for his other channel The Vancouver Carpenter. Well, he's also a skateboard product connoisseur, who can smell the difference between different presses of deck concave and wheel sizes.
Jon Bishop. An old fart from UK who started skating at an old age and walks through all the basics and thoughs of beginner and intermediate tricks.
And obviously: The Skate Nomad. Mike Boisvert. A (relatively) young Canadian dude who quit everything and set out to live the dream of skateboarding in every country in the world, while couch crashing at locals the entire way. It's interesting to see the differences and similarities in cultures world wide from this perspective.
A channel that's missing here which I personally really like is TimeGhost history and their other channels World War Two and The Korean War. Their coverage of world war two in real time (which they finished already) was especially great. I'm not necessarily the biggest history nerd, but there's something quite enjoyable about following history "live" this way.
David erick ramos, ocarina musician
Everything by Jupiter Broadcasting. Not really a YouTube channel, but they stream there.
Jacob Geller has put out consistently amazing videos for years on end.
Myron Cook - A very hands on and educational geology channel
USCSB - US Chemical Safety Board that recreates incident investigations and gives recommendations.
SBPlaysGames, super tiny lets play channel, but has been consistently uploading for 10 years and she picks some really good indie games (as well as board games) that i would otherwise never would have heard of. Plus pretty good analysis of the games, though of course the lets play format means it's pretty spread out across episodes. And by analysis i don't mean reviews, but more like movie analysis level. Though I'd love it if she'd lean into that part a bit more.
and i specifically picked her because it's one thing to consistently produce good content when you have millions of views (and dollars?), but doing so with 28k subs and maybe 100-200 views, for over 10 years, that takes real dedication.
Oh and on the topic of video game channels, AnyAustin is amazing. Fucking weird but amazing. He also does video game analysis but not how you'd think…
One I haven't seen mentioned yet is Marius Hornberger. Awesomely talented young German maker.
https://youtube.com/@mariushornberger
no slow mo guys mentioned in this entire thing? always been entertaining and decently interesting to me
Northernlion is very consistent
Brutalmoose!
I love his VHS and mall videos, but his food videos are definitely his most popular. His semi-recent Mary Kate+Ashley vid was excellent, too.
Legit Street Cars - just great high quality and extremely consistent.
Dawid does tech stuff - guys just funny as shit.
Red dead restorations - absolutely amazing how consistent he's restorations are truly talented.
Chrisfix
Glock9 if you like gaming
Cambrian Chronicles. Obscure Welsh history documentaries with occasional whiplashes of dry humour. Not a super old channel but a marked increase in quality over time. Medieval Laws for Your Medieval Cat is a personal favourite.
Puts out videos super rarely, because they're often upwards of 10 hours long, but Tim Rogers/Action Button makes amazing videos
A 10 hour video is too much imo. These people need to learn how to edit
Not his videos... He takes years to make them. His most recent video was 7 months ago, and the one before that was 4 years.
They're not always that long, I was specifically thinking of his CP2077 review, which is split into several videos, where you're supposed to choose in a way that's similar to choosing your path in the game.
He worked at Sony Japan in the 90s, so he speaks fluent Japanese and also knows a shit ton about how games were made and translated back then so he has really unique insights. He's also very funny.
I recommend his review of Boko no Natsuyasumi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=779coR-XPTw
The Tokimeki Memorial video is also great.
And I'm someone who is decidedly not a weeb.
Alright, fair enough. Not for me but if he's putting in that much effort maybe he did make 10 hours of useful video essay content.
Many A True Nerd for gaming, History Buffs for historical accuracy in movies and timmmm, a small channel of which I'm still surprised it's so small because his videos are really well produced.
https://www.youtube.com/@shugemery
Whoooo buddy! Hammocking, camping and occasional circus antics since good Lord knows when.
Smosh Philip Defranco Markiplier
Paleo analysis-just straight academic dinosaur content.
Language Jones-academic etymology breakdown of various slang, patoiss, and memes
Matthewmatosis.
I've been watching Yahtzee Croshaw for ~5 years now, but he's been around for more like 15. He did change channels, but the style of videos he made stayed the same, and the quality, if anything, has only gotten better
Tom Grossi. I'm not an NFL fanatic but his videos are well written and very entertaining. No sponsors or mid-video ads.
Ailaughatmyownjokes. Silvia wanted to name her channel "I laugh at my own jokes" but someone else had it, so she just added an "a" to the front. Very funny stuff. Lots of shorts if you're attention span is dead. Like mine.
Adam Savage and Xyla Faolin have been mentioned and I agree. The PBS channels also.
pReview'd. They do movie/TV reactions and just started producing a travel show. Two besties watching stuff and having a good time.
Coy Jandreau. Total comic book nerd.
https://youtube.com/@alphaphoenixchannel
https://youtube.com/@rctestflight
Tips From a Shipwright
FPV Flying - Josh Bardwell
https://www.youtube.com/@JoshuaBardwell
3D Printing - Thomas Sanladerer's
https://www.youtube.com/@MadeWithLayers
Machine Shop Related Stuff - Cutting Edge Engineering
https://www.youtube.com/@CuttingEdgeEngineering
PC Related Stuff, I like the more laid back Paul's Hardware
https://www.youtube.com/@paulshardware
Catholic Priests and America Youth.
Pretty cool antimaga shit
People have already mentioned most of the maker and DIY channels that I enjoy
so I'll mention a new to me channel — Hunter Direction
if you already like most of the machinist and maker channels, and you like cars, then you will probably love this channel. seems like it's a guy just making videos about his project cars, which expanded into making videos about his projects (home ownership stuff). but his latest stuff is scripted and shot and edited so damn well, it's art. I would highly recommend watching his last couple videos. they're not short but god damn are they quality
oh, and Mujin. I didn't see anybody mention him. another dry humor DIY type channel. love it.
@Raycevick
He makes great in depth analysies about games. I would gladly sacrifice every single ign, gamespot, polygon etc etc articles just to have well tought content like his released biweekly.
Rick Beato. His channel banner says "Everything Music" and it's not a misnomer. I am not a musician, don't know a Dorian from a pentatonic, but every time he throws something up I drop everything and sit and listen to it. It's just that interesting.
You should know that he plugs his own music training courses (probably worth it) but has never once taken an outside sponsorship. He covers all genres and all fields of talent in music, and regularly pulls in younger unknowns for interviews as well as household names. He has nothing but praise for effort and talent, but no time for hacks. It is incredibly refreshing.
Even if you are only a listener and not a player, just getting the pro-level views on what things should sound like and even how to listen will take your own music listening up multiple notches. Be sure to look for his "What Makes This Song Great" videos, because they are not reactions, they are dissections: you will hear and learn things about songs you've heard a million times that you never noticed before.
Can't say enough good about this channel. When life sucks, I go listen to some Rick Beato.
That's funny, when life sucks, I go watch one of Pat Finnerty's What Makes This Song Stink videos, a direct (and similarly detailed) parody of Beato's videos
Holy shit. Never saw that before. Watching Dani California right now:
Well, he's not actually wrong, though I never expected anyone to bring all the receipts for it, much less to enjoy hearing them trotted out like I am right now. This is a legit song review and not just a parody. Thanks!
RobWords. If you like etymology, he's your man.
One that I don't expect to see here is biz barclay. If a 3 hour video of a woman with ADHD getting drunk and doing literary analysis sounds even remotely enjoyable you'll love her content. A good starter video is her video on attempts to subvert the manic pixie dream girl trope, and why she doesn't believe it's possible to succeed at.
Good Mythical Morning!
I've known about them and watched off and on for years, but my wife and I have been on a GMM binge lately and I really enjoy those guys.
While we're on the subject, which of the turds that came out of my asshole this month smelled the best?