• Teague
  • Teague
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Topic: YouTube Channels Worth Subscribing To

I'mma go through my YouTube subscriptions and do a blurb about the ones that are gems. Y'all reply with your own, and soon we'll all have a million new things to watch.

(Quote this post to steal my bbcode formatting. Not much to it, but it'll save you some time.)

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Channel: 3Blue1Brown
tl;dr: Very-nicely-visualized explanations of math stuff.

Channel: 12tone
tl;dr: Music theory explained via staff-paper doodles, like a less-mathy ViHart.

Channel: Adam Neely
tl;dr: This is basically Vsauce, for music concepts/history/theory/fun, with a far less-creepy host, who is better at making points.

Channel: Binging With Babish
tl;dr: Best cooking channel on YouTube I've ever come across. (Yes, Hannah, I see you. Everyone sees you. Hi.)

Channel: Bruce Yeany
tl;dr: An infectiously enthusiastic physics teacher wants to show you cool stuff.

Channel: CGP Grey
tl;dr: Must subscribe. High-quality essays, low-quality animation, thoughtful creator, complete integrity. One of the best.

Channel: Crash Course
tl;dr: Must subscribe. This project makes me want to cry, how amazing it is. They're slowly but surely putting every last scrap of educational curricula into video form, very well. The several history-based series are my personal favorites, but it's all great.

Channel: engineerguy
tl;dr: Fantastic video (and audio) essays about engineering curiosities of modern life.

Channel: Every Frame a Painting
tl;dr: Must subscribe. If DIF can be said to have a 'spiritual sequel,' it's Every Frame a Painting. All the other filmmaking channels are just ripping Tony off, as far as I've seen.

Channel: I Like to Make Stuff
tl;dr: Every week, he makes a new thing. The videos are high-quality, the projects are high-quality, the explanations are high-quality... and unlike Grant Thompson, Bob doesn't strike me as a closet psychopath.

Channel: Jacob Collier
tl;dr: Zero hyperbole: Jacob is Mozart and he's alive right now. His music and videos are fabulous; additionally, if you're a music theory person, search YouTube for 'jacob collier music theory' and prepare to grin.

Channel: Jimmy Slolina
tl;dr: This guy is a professional clown (Cirque du Soleil in Vegas) when at work; when at home, he makes videos of himself lip syncing better than I've ever seen anyone lip sync, and it's great.

Channel: Josh Turner
tl;dr: Guitar-type-instruments musician/singer/songwriter, great music, lots of guests and collaborators, lots of content. Duets with his buddy Carson for their 'lil band 'The Other Favorites' are all fantastic; 'Don't Think Twice, It's Alright,' 'Folsom Prison Blues,' and 'Take It Easy' are some of my favorites, but that's all just the one sound; other videos cover many genres.

Channel: KaptainKristian
tl;dr: Very slick pop culture video essays. Not as good as Every Frame a Painting; better than Nerdwriter. (EFAP and CGP Grey are 'musts' because of their insight more than their slickness.)

Channel: Learn Engineering
tl;dr: CGP Grey's videos are 'bad' on purpose; stick figures, etc.. These videos are 'bad' by accident (very cheap CG), but they're one of only a handful of channels I support on Patreon, 'cuz they're really informative.

Channel: Michael New
tl;dr: More music theory; better than 12tone, worse than Adam Neely. (All three are lovely and worth subscribing to, of course, I'm just rankin' 'em so you have a sense of my read.)

Channel: minutephysics
tl;dr: I'm sure everyone knows this one by now; explaining physics concepts quickly, clearly, with doodles.

Channel: Mythbusters for the Impatient
tl;dr: Cut to set-up, cut to tests, cut to results — done.

Channel: PBS Eons
tl;dr: This is a fairly new channel, but already fantastic content. (PBS Digital Studios is awesome stuff in general, I find.) Long-view history; trilobites, sabertooth tigers, dinosaurs, etc..

Channel: PBS Space Time
tl;dr: Another PBS channel, more fantastic content. This is explaining big astrophysics stuff and space history. Awesome videos.

Channel: Philosophy Tube
tl;dr: I've never found a vlog-style philosophy channel that isn't constantly dumb, except for this one. Very thoughtful, always at least a couple angles on [given topic] that I wouldn't have thought of.

Channel: Practical Engineering
tl;dr: More engineering video essays. This guy isn't super exciting, but his knowledge, videos and demonstrations are top-notch.

Channel: Primitive Technology
tl;dr: I gather Reddit has found this channel by now, so perhaps you've bumped into it before. If not... look. Nothing I write will convince you that watching a shirtless guy make huts in the woods from scratch will be interesting. You've just gotta check it out.

Channel: Real Engineering
tl;dr: Yep, another one of these. 'Learn,' 'Practical,' and now 'Real' Engineering. What can I say, I like this stuff.

Channel: RealLifeLore
tl;dr: Video essays about interesting stuff from history. Good stuff.

Channel: SciShow
tl;dr: Corollary to Crash Course. Just completely fantastic. (Massive archive, too.)

Channel: Smarter Every Day
tl;dr: Similar to the other engineer-y-explain-y channels, but unique and more popular than most. Devin (the host) is starting to grate on me a bit, but that could just be me; anyway, if you haven't seen his stuff, dig in.

Channel: standupmaths
tl;dr: A funny guy does (and explains) interesting math-y stuff.

Channel: techmoan
tl;dr: Fantastic historical-electronics video essays. (I mean, like... ultra-rare manufactured-for-one-month-in-1971 doohickeys you've never heard of, stuff like that.)

Channel: The 8-Bit Guy
tl;dr: The guy has an ever-so-slightly dopey vibe, but his historical-electronics essays are fantastic.

Channel: The Minimalist Maker
tl;dr: Another newer channel, but very (very) (very) high-quality builds, all in a 'minimalist' style.

Channel: Tom Scott
tl;dr: His general-knowledge series 'things you might not know' is an absolute treat, but even his older/longer videos about programming are all fantastically watchable. Layman audience, great explanations.

Channel: Townsends
tl;dr: This is a channel by historical reenactors, for historical reenactors, with dozens and dozens of high-quality video tutorials teaching completely-authentic 18th century recipes. It sounds esoteric as hell, but seriously, you just fall into it after a while. (Their website has a bunch of amazing trinkets for the same audience. I bought an awl and really cool antique scissors, just 'cuz they were neat and cheap.) I'm very proud to have stumbled across this channel; I'm not sure how I did it, but I'm glad I did. (It's funny, this channel doesn't 'seem Trey-ish' in any particular way, but somehow it vaguely — strongly — strikes me as being something Trey would dig.)

Channel: Vsauce
tl;dr: One of 'the original' video essay channels on YouTube. Still great stuff, but as previously mentioned, the style wanders a bit, and Michael (like Devin from Smarter Every Day) can become 'too much' fairly quickly, depending on my mood. Still. Loads of great videos.

Channel: Wendover Productions
tl;dr: Awesome industry / culture video essays. A joke about this guy is that he always talks about planes, and he does, but it's often stuff like 'how bargain airlines work'; solid videos. Watch containerization, if nothing else.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: YouTube Channels Worth Subscribing To

EPIC RAP BATTLES OF HISTORY!!! *Muffled*

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good." - Han Solo, Terminator 2: With a Vengeance

Kibouchi's Website

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  • Teague
  • Teague
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Re: YouTube Channels Worth Subscribing To

Oh, yeah. That's special.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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  • Registered: 2010-12-27
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Re: YouTube Channels Worth Subscribing To

Channel: Captain Disillusion
tl;dr: A show that deconstructs fake viral videos and how they are created with visual effects with a fun presentation.

As someone who is easily immersed in anything I see, I find this fascinating. My brain accepts pretty much anything until I start actually thinking about it (this includes movies with gigantic plot holes lol).

Fun show to binge watch :) I recommend starting with one of these.

Protection and power are overrated. I think you are very wise to choose happiness and love. -Uncle Iroh

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Re: YouTube Channels Worth Subscribing To

Channel: The Great War
tl;dr: 100 years ago, WWI was in progress. Every week, this channel posts a video about what was going on in the war that week, 100 years ago. Great host, solid production value. This is what the History Channel should be like.

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Re: YouTube Channels Worth Subscribing To

Channel: Holy Fucking Science
tl;dr: Video podcast from the folks at Complexly (Sci-Show, Crash Course, etc etc) where friends get together and share cool science stories and facts in an effort to make the others exclaim "Holy Fucking Science". If you like watching these people do other stuff, you'll probably dig this too. Fun, smart people talking about cool sciencey stuff.

Channel: Draw With Jazza
tl;dr: Admitedly one of my online role models atm, dude is a crazy talented illustrator and animator, he does a lot of really bizarre live chat inspired drawing challenges that end up with things like... "Sexy Post-Apocalyptic Ghost who wields the weapon of love." and other such delightful insanity. Jazza has a HUGE love for VR art and recently as part of his CRAZy successful kickstarter to build a new studio space has a full immersive VR setup. So he's doing some really cool stuff.

Channel: Andrew Huang
tl;dr: After starting to blow up after his song "Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing On Rainbows" went viral, he's made a name for himself as "that guy that makes songs out of everyday objects" but he also does a lot of really cool other song stuff, and does a fair bit talking music theory stuff that goes way over my head but is still entertaining.

Channel: Auralnauts
tl;dr: It's Auralnauts...I mean...if you don't know these guys yet WHAT ON EARTH are you doing with your life. Start here and just go:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSCm8yAxBr8

Channel: Barnaby Dixon
tl;dr: You might have seen the gif of the dancing finger puppet guy that went around a while back. Yeah that was this guy,
his primary character is called Dabchick... he's a bird finger puppet that vlogs. It's adorable and hilarious, and cool puppet stuff all at the same time.

Channel: Clickspring
tl;dr: Pure. Machining. Porn. He has a completed series making a brass mechanical clock from scratch, but his current project is making a full working version of the Antikythera machine, reconstructing it from 3D scans and best guess understanding of tools and techniques of the time. I love this channel so much.

Channel: Drew Lynch
tl;dr: If you're not a fan of the vlogger thing probably not for you, but Drew Lynch is stand-up comedian with a stutter and an adorable dog who makes vlogs about random things.

Channel: Malinda Kathleen Reese
tl;dr: On top of being an AMAZING singer, she has an on-going series titled "Google Translate Sings..." and it's pretty much what you'd guess, take a song, run it through a couple dozen layers of google translate, sing what comes out the other end.
Hilarious, bizarre, random and ingenious, one of those channels that really still feels like old school youtube.

Channel: Rob Scallon
tl;dr: One of the old school music guys on youtube still making fantastic stuff. This guy Djents.

Channel: Jonathan Young
tl;dr: Pop/Punk/Rock/Metal covers of a variety of music, but A LOT of Disney and Dreamworks. And it's all amazing.

Channel: Tested
tl;dr: This one's tricky, they put out a lot of stuff but thier primary host these days, Norm, is just..nooooot gooood, meaning most of the interviews and content they put is awkward to the point of cringey most of the time (YMMV, if you're interested in the specific content, and can manage to get through it, there is some really interesting stuff), HOWEVER, this channel is co-run by Adam Savage, yes, THAT Adam Savage. And he posts semi regular one day builds and projects and his Comic Con ingontio's, and watching that man at work is a thing of inexplicable majesty.

Channel: Caleb Hyles
tl;dr: Another music cover guy, does a lot of collabs with Jonathan and Malinda.

Channel: SORTEDFood
tl;dr: Easily in my top two cooking channels with Binging With Babish right now. 4 British idiots make amazing food, this is probably the closest I've ever seen to a properly executed "Cooking Show But For The Internet". On top of in studio recipes they also do trips to go find amazing food, they just finished a short series exploring Kansas City and Chicago for amazing food and last year they had a MASSIVE Lost and Hungry tour across the US exploring restaurants and food experiences.

Channel: Numberphile
tl;dr: Are you like me and get a kick out of watching crazy smart people talking about the crazy smart stuff they do, while understanding maybe 1% of it, and maybe increasing your knowledge of a thing by a small fraction of a percent by the end of the video? Then HOOOBOY is Numberphile for you. Mathematicians talking about super nerdy and interesting math stuff that nobody ever bothered to tell you in high school cause that would have made math actually interesting to learn about.

Teague stole a lot of my educational ones, but I'll double down on Binging With Babish, Crash Course/Sci Show, StandUpMaths, MinutePhysics, PBS Eons, Primitive Technology, and Tom Scott. (Also doubling down on getting squicked out by "The King of Random - Grant Thompson"...but that's beside the point.)

ZangrethorDigital.ca

BigDamnArtist's Website

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  • Boter
  • Boter
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Re: YouTube Channels Worth Subscribing To

Channel: Computerphile
tl;dr: Spinoff of Numberphile dealing with code, programming challenges, and general education on how the computing world works.

Channel: It's Okay to be Smart
tl;dr: One of the numerous PBS-produced shows on YouTube, with weekly uploads covering a range of topics from glaciers to evolution to why February only has 28 days.

Channel: The Camera Store TV
tl;dr: A couple guys who work at a store in Alberta called The Camera Store that started doing reviews of products out in the real world and more general talk about gear and tips for using it. Is now one of the biggest photography channels, up there with the likes of DigitalRevTV (and better, in my opinion). Chris is the primary host talking about still photo and Jordan is the co-host talking about video, and often the locations they use could count as a third co-star.

Boter, formerly of TF.N as Boter and DarthArjuna. I like making movies and playing games, in one order or another.

Boter's Website

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Re: YouTube Channels Worth Subscribing To

There is few I can add to this... we all seem to watch the same stuff. Then again I clicked on a vid 10 years ago  - 'Car Horn vs Boat Horn' and the ilk still pop up in my recommended list. Regardless... here is my two cents.

Channel: OxfordUnion https://www.youtube.com/user/OxfordUnion
tl;dr: Basically an Oxbridge elitist AMA with fantastic guests and craic. Stanley Tucci being a highlight of late.

Channel: Cyriac https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Ntx- … 1nQ5rTUP2g
tl;dr: A twisted After Effects animator. Fantastic art style helped by his crazy mind. Known for his fractals and bizarre.


Channel: Georg Rockall - Schmidt https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5h8y … zPnh0dG0SA
tl;dr: nothing beats a satirical brit's take on the world.

The difficult second album Regan

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Re: YouTube Channels Worth Subscribing To

Channel: Todd in the Shadows
tl;dr: Plinkett for pop songs, basically. Does really thorough, really funny fourteen-minute critiques of current hits, insanely interesting histories of what one-hit wonders did with the rest of their careers, and more. The channel is a little disorganized right now because bots keep taking his videos down and said videos are then re-uploaded out of order, but that's okay.

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  • Registered: 2010-11-12
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Re: YouTube Channels Worth Subscribing To

OH SHIT sorry for the double post but I completely forgot:

Channel: DP/30

An absolute treasure trove for cinephiles. Contains dozens and dozens of interviews with filmmakers and performers both mainstream and indie, and they're FAN. TASTIC. They're less interviews than just free-form conversations and are just insanely fascinating and engaging to watch. Usually at least half an hour per person.

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Re: YouTube Channels Worth Subscribing To

MadBadCoyote wrote:

Channel: Captain Disillusion

Good shout! I watched a load of his videos years ago and he hadn't posted anything in a while so I am glad he is back. I binged a load last night after seeing your post, which reminded me of his existence  smile

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