It's peculiar to be complaining about providers who cater to the lowest common denominator and then recommend a provider that gets drunk and cooks...

I watched a couple of episodes a long time ago, she appeared as a guest on TableTop and seemed fun to watch. It's not really my thing but isn't that objectionable. I'm just a little bewildered to see it be touted as a shining light of intelligent, smart YouTube. Eye of the beholder I guess.

Re: Crash Course, John and Hank Green also do Mental Floss videos, which I usually find entertaining.

Link in the doobly-do.

I'll throw the channel I work for in the mix under the "entertainment" heading. High quality audio productions of scary stories. Think old time radio play sensibility, updated with modern production standards. Some amazingly written stuff and fantastic voice actors. And we don't barf them onto YouTube. I put in a minimal 30-40 hours per story for which I am the producer and go balls-to-the-wall cinematic in my approach.

Chilling Tales for Dark Nights

Your Monty Pythons and your South Parks travel the same ground.

Definitely love the Greens, and Mental Floss in particular, thanks for the reminder to sub that one. Two other science channels I subscribe to:

Smarter Every Day: I originally saw this from some slow-motion videos, but even then he does a great job analyzing the footage and explaining why something happens. He got a decent publicity boost lately from a video where he tied a helium balloon to the floor of his minivan and it leaned toward the direction of acceleration instead of away from it, but the first video of his I saw was his one on the Prince Rupert's Drop.

It's Okay To Be Smart: Sponsored by PBS, and entertaining. I just started following it but I enjoy what I've seen so far and plan on sitting down and watching a bunch in a row here pretty soon.

On a slightly different tack, I follow a camera review channel:

The Camera Store TV: Great camera reviews. Entertaining and funny, while still focusing on the matter at hand.

(I also considered adding lines for Lindsey Stirling and Peter Hollens but while I really enjoy their stuff, and they're certainly not dumb YouTube, I don't know that they're what you're aiming for with this thread.)

Thanks for pitching in guys, awesome to see.

And in response to the question of why My Drunk Kitchen made this list. I typed up some ridiculously long response last night that ultimately wound up going no where and achieving almost nothing, and decided, rightly, not to post it. But now having had a day to mull it over, I think I have an answer that makes some sense.

When I say "smart youtube", I'm not just referring to channels that promote intelligence, rational thinking and curiosity, although those are great and amazing things to have. But just having those would render my idea of youtube as a smart, entertainment platform, a bit null, leaving it more of an entertaining classroom than anything. So I think what I mean when I say smart youtube, is channels and content creators that are very clearly trying to go outside of the status quo of internet entertainment, go outside the first gut reaction punchline, channels that don't repackage memes and throw them at your face in a new shiny coat.

And I think all of the channels I posted do that. When you hear the name My Drunk Kitchen and I tell you it's a youtube show, your mind (probably) instantly flashes to visions of drunken frat boys around a stove pouring beer on large flanks of meat... or some such stereotypical visage of drunks and cooking. But that's not what MDK is, the drunk part of MDK is just a small aspect of the show, it's not vulgar or excessive, I mean she has some drinks, tries to cook something, makes puns, and is adorable for 10 minutes. To me that seems like something new and different, and entertaining.

Regular Ordinary Swedish Mealtime takes the idea of a cooking show, (and just to drive my point home, we'll use Epic Meal Time as a comparison here), and completely flips it over. Whereas Epic Meal Time is based on "hmm, what does the internet love? Oh bason, whiskey and douchebags....ALLTHEBACONWHISKEYANDDOUCHEBAGSTHEN", Swedish Mealtime is in a foreign... I'm assuming real..ish language, not that it actually matters, making normal food, in an extreme manner. It's something so off the wall and weird, that you have to admire the guts it took to make it, it could have just floundered and been forgotten, but they did it, and did it as damn good as they could, and it found an audience.

I mean they aren't perfect examples, and I'm sure there are better ones out there, and I'm certain my explanation is lacking, but hopefully I'm getting at least some of my point across. At the end of the day, I think a smart youtube is one where creators are pushing the boundaries, saying "Yes, I know we're an internet based show, but we can make legitimate, original, entertaining content, without relying on those push-me-and-I-giggle buttons that a certain sector of internet users rely so heavily on". Which is why I include channels like MDk and ROSWT, and decidedly don't include channels like CorridorDigital and FeddieW. And then add in all the channels using youtube as a source to spread intellectualism and scientific curiosity and all that good stuff into the definittion as well...  maybe my definition should be kind of two fold... ehhh, I'll keep working on it.

Hopefully that makes sense, and maybe gives you guys a better idea of why I see youtube and online media creation the way I do.

PS. Unfortunately this definition does sort of highlight why I have hesitation about posting music channels. Music is something altogether different, music is...well...music, I know that sounds condescending, and it's not meant to. But at the end of the day, it's very very hard to make a music chanel something truly special, such that it stands out. I think Pomplamoose does this by making fantastic and original music videos while also having spectacular music. Gunnarolla and Andrew Huang I include because they work very closely with their fans in their content creation, it is much more of a community than it is an artist producing and releasing an album. Whereas, a channel like Mike Tompkins or Peter Hollens, while they are very good musicians, and the quality of their work is very high, I just find it blending into the background in the context of this thread. Where that actual dividing line is, I don't know, and more than likely it is something decided solely on personal preference. So please by all means post artists you love who are making high quality content, I have no issue with that and would love to find new music channels, this little PS was more me talking through an issue I have with my own definition and the idea of this little concept.

I find early My Drunk Kitchen videos inspiring in ways that professional cooking shows aren't. Look! You can skip half the ingredients and make it up as you go and it can still be delicious!

I don't even drink and that's the way I cook.

Last edited by Phi (2014-05-16 15:29:19)

I don't follow a whole lot of Youtube channels, but one that I've been subscribed to for a while is Marble Hornets, aka the web-series that featured Slender Man before Slender Man was a thing. To date, it's the only treatment of the character I've seen that's genuinely scary.

THIS. FUCKING THIS. ALL OF THIS. There is no argument on this planet that could ever convince Hannah doesn't deserve to be on this list, but the complaint was specifically lodged at MDK, so that's what I was responding too.

*Ahem*

Quite.

I think that's one of things I love most about a lot of youtube people, they got attention and a following doing..something, whatever thier thing was. But then a lot of them start using that audience, and that attention to do a lot of good. I mean John And Hank, and the 50 million things they started to do over the years, the Foundation to Reduce World Suck, the Project for Awesome, bringing ALOT of attention to Kiva. And then you have Hannah doing her stuff, KurtJMac raising...what is it now? Nearly 270 thousand dollars for Childs Play, the mindcrack guys doing a massive marathon adding nearly 120 thousand of those.

And NONE of that, would have happened without Youtube, and specifically the communities that grow around these channels. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Lindy Beige: https://www.youtube.com/user/lindybeige

A rather entertaining, and educational, look in to historical combat. I find it to be rather fun, as he has a similar sense of humor to mine own, as well as some interesting information. There is a lot of historical information, as well as a few film reviews of combat, and archery, being done (poorly) in films.