The Youtube channels I would recommend are the following:
Tech/Science
S3 - The stories of people working to change the world.
Modern Day Eratosthenes - A great STEM communicator who provides a moderate level breakdown of STEM topics. Videos are less than 12 minutes long.
Ziroth - This channel focuses on highlighting new science and engineering projects that are helping the world transition to a zero carbon future!
Speculative Science
Isaac Arthur - This channel focuses on exploring concepts in science with an emphasis on futurism and space exploration, along with a healthy dose of science fiction. While we explore many concepts and technologies that are far beyond us now, we try to keep everything inside the bounds of known science or major theories.
Analytical Tech News/Stories
TechAltar - Analytical videos about tech companies [and their products or services].
Tech Business/Economics/History Video Essays
Asianometry - One of my favorite YT channels. He does a great job producing high quality videos about tech history, tech related economics, and sometimes dives into what that latest tech is and how it might play a part in our future.
Humorous Business Journalism
Good Work - “Edge-cutting” business journalism, with a healthy dose of humor mixed in. Actually covers things that you might want to know more about in the realm of business, trading, and why the American economy is so freaking weird.
The Making of a Movie/TV Show
It Was A Sh*t Show - Making stuff is hard, especially in the entertainment world when there are millions of dollars on the line. And we are going to talk about these disastrous, never ending, and sometimes dangerous productions. With video documentaries and a companion conversational podcast, It Was A Sh*t Show is an entertaining look at some of your favorite films and tv shows, and why they were such a nightmare to make.
Frame Voyager - Mini-documentaries on films without the clickbait negativity.
Mini/Full Documentary Makers
Peter Dibble - Obscure history from the Pacific Northwest and beyond. I recommend checking out America’s First Cross-Country Auto Race.
Kirby Ferguson - He’s best known for his documentary series called, Everything is a Remix. He made an updated and extended version of it. I recommend it.
If you want to watch an Irish dude play and talk about a variety of obscure PS1 games, everyone should definitely check out Sean Seanson (currently at 44k subs). He has 2 ongoing series where a game is picked at random and he checks it out, one for western releases and another for japan exclusive PS1 games.
Majuular (166k subs) also does videos on mostly obscure or forgotten games. I really enjoyed watching his “I played every RPG on the <console>” videos, the one for the Saturn showed up some real gems.
Moon Channel (182k subs) is one of the “slow content creators”, which makes nearly every video he posts a great watch. He has great stuff like “Why do Japanese games love Brazil?” and “Gacha Games and the Korean Gender Wars” - the latter an incredible look into how and why Korean culture is the way it is today.
NeverKnowsBest (329k subs) is yet another gaming channel, focusing on very long videos. One that I do recommend to any Bethesda fan is “Lies, Hate and the story of Emil Pagliarulo” (it’s an eye opener and I am guilty of having joined the “it’s all Emil’s fault” bandwagon due in no small part to the videos he references). If you want to keep it to genres, his 2 most recent videos are “The Entire History of Japanese RPGs” and “An in-depth look at Romance in video games” - the latter shows up a number of famous dating sim games.
Basement Brothers (33k subs) is a channel devoted almost entirely to 80s and 90s Japanese computer games. So, if you were ever curious about PC-88 and PC-98 games, or the origins of franchises like Ys or Legend of Heroes, this is the place to find that.
As a bonus, SAMA Study of Antiquity and Middle Ages for history stuff. It’s very well researched stuff, often citing studies that follow DNA heritage among human groups to get an idea of when they migrated from one place to another.
Some channels that I can remember:
Archeology:
Archery:
Armin Hirmer, he does a lot of reviews of bows and equipments and I personally don’t like that type of content but the other videos are really good and I like the vibe of the videos.
History:
Fandabi Dozi is more than history that’s a lot of survival and bushcraft but I really like the channel as a whole
All this channels have a vibe of showing the stuff they talking about, recreating things and so on. For the video format is the type of content that I really like.
Bobby Fingers. I promise it’s worth the time and wait between videos.
Videos documenting restorations of exceptional vintage electronics and early computers, space hardware and the odd mechanical calculator or Teletype. It often showcases my Hewlett-Packard test equipment collection and, from time to time, my R2-D2 robot build. Things rarely work when I start, but almost always do when I end. A nerdy place for your inner engineer, to celebrate engineering exploits of our predecessors, and learn a lot from it.
I’m shocked nobody has mentioned Bobby Fingers (266k subscribers at this time). He’s a sassy Irish man with a really deep voice who makes incredibly detailed dioramas of weird moments. My favorite diorama is the one he made about Fabio Lanzoni (the sexy guy on the cover of hundreds of romance novels) getting hit in the face by a goose while riding a roller coaster: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2RIEPKEhE2s
It’s absolutely spectacular. He sculpts the faces out of clay in 1:1 scale, scans them, 3D prints them in miniature, and just goes above and beyond. The videos are funny as all fuck too, with tons of jokes with long setups. I’d highly recommend them.
I like the one when he had a single ass hair transplanted on to the top of his head.
That was the first one I saw. I have never experienced anything like the progression from “huh,” to “what,” to “WHAT,” to inchoate noises that came out of me as I watched him make that boat. The Fabio one is more accessible imo, but the Bezos head boat is just so fucking glorious.
. The leaping Lemur, Makes videos about general internet F*ckups and lolcows.
. GrahamGraydog, One of the few good commentary channels on YouTube. Now a day’s he mostly does sh*tposts.
. GmanLives, A great channel if your interested in video games and modding
.Tors Cabinet Of Curiosities, A without a doubt up and coming YouTuber who makes videos about a variety of different subjects.
Climate town: investigative journalism on various climate related stuff. He’s funny enough to offset the rage it’ll bring you.
Errant signal: art, indie and retro video game essays
Jrose11 for mostly gen 1 and 2 solo runs of pokemon games (although he covers most of the series as well)
For music fans, I highly recommend Trash Theory. Very thorough deep dives into songs and bands that leave you with a much better understanding of music history.
For commentary on modern popular music I recommend Todd in the Shadows and Mic the Snare.
Luetin09 apparently only has 901k subscribers.
SomeMoreNews is at 884k.
DoshDoshington is at an unacceptably low 309k.
Atrioc is up near 706k.
And everyone should be subscribed to YoungScrolls but sadly only 269k people are.
I only started watching atrioc because of his hitman content lmao. Always need more hitman horse
Perun does some excellent defense economics and analysis. Probably one of the channels I have learned the most from.
Jake Broe does regular updates on the Russo Ukraine war which I always find helpful.
And finally, Zeihan on Geopolitics, does, well, what the name says. I find he brings ideas I hadn’t thought of, or that are not well explained, into clarity.
danooct1 - A guy who demonstrates computer viruses on OSes like Windows and DOS.
WrestlingWithWregret (For wrestling fans) - This guy does various wrestling content but some of his best is PPV Classic reviews. Charming personality.
This is a fairly niche answer, but Noah Caldwell-Gervais.
He does very smart critical analysis of video games as a medium, often in multi-hour long retrospectives of entire franchises. They are all split into chapters, so it’s easy to watch in parts. The visuals and editing are not very flashy, pretty much just footage of the game he’s talking about, but they are so well written and thoughtful I find them extremely compelling. There’s also road trip travelogues, but I’m not as into those.
Love me some Noah
Learn Linux TV. Great educational channel for all things Linux.
Lost in the Movies - fewer than 10k subscribers, but he deserves so many more.
His work is generally on movies and TV, usually with a more art house feel.
His major piece of work though is his 30-40 part video series (and also podcast/blog) on Twin Peaks.
None of your, “Here’s the explanation of EVERYTHING,” nonsense here though.
Instead he looks at the show, its characters and its arcs with a contemplative eye, picking out interesting visual and narrative parallels, examining the show and film as a piece of art rather than as a puzzle to be ‘solved’.
It’s exceptional and it mystifies me that it’s not more well known. He’s been doing it for about ten years now I think. If you’re a Peaks fan, it’s an absolute must IMO.
