Youtube Channels I Watch

[telophase]

This is about 3/4 of my Youtube playlist, ones that I thought yhlee might not hate, coming out of a conversation elsewhere.

How do I handle having such a giant playlist? I don't actually watch every video they post. :) Also, I put stuff on it and take stuff off it with some regularity.



(I was talking direct to yhlee when making this list, before I realized it was too big for comment spaces and decided to post it here. I didn't bother to edit it to be talking to non-Yoons.)

Here is a curated list from my YouTube subscriptions. :)

NATURE:

Monterey Bay Aquarium. What it says on the tin
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnM5iMGiKsZg-iOlIO2ZkdQ

Paul Dinning. Restful videos of birds eating seed.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPJXfmxMYAoH02CFudZxmgg

AntsCanada. Filipino guy obsessed with ants, making videos about the colonies he keeps, and his other critters. Dude got me to CARE about a COLONY OF FIRE ANTS.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCONd1SNf3_QqjzjCVsURNuA


FOOD:

Barry Lewis. Tends to be high-energy, but he's pretty authentic about it, so it doesn't rub me the wrong way. I especially like his gadget reviews, and I really like that he makes sure to say that the gadgets sometimes are meant to help people with disabilities (like the one-handed egg cracker which, IIRC, doesn't work that well).
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAzyupPG4vdo8jd9nJ13LAw

SORTED. A group of 5 UK guys who do food-related content: contests between each other, gadget reviews, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfyehHM_eo4g5JUyWmms2LA

Emmymadeinjapan. Tests recipes.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzqbfYjQmf9nLQPMxVgPhiA

Binging with Babish. I'd be surprised if you havne't come across him yet. Recreates recipes from TV shows and movies on Tuesdays, posts basic cooking tutorials on Thursdays.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJHA_jMfCvEnv-3kRjTCQXw

Jun's Kitchen. Japanese man cooking, usually accompanied by his cats, occasionally by his wife. Another competence porn video guy--the cats are well-trained, the knifework is precise. Lovely to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRxAgfYexGLlu1WHGIMUDqw

Jun Yoshizuki. Another channel he has, this one mostly about his garden.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX3g2Y_w3Fp4QA7VuTa0YUA


ART, MUSIC and OTHER CREATIVITY:

Jazza. Australian guy who does crazy art challenges. Another high-energy person who doesn't rub me the wrong way AND I DON'T KNOW WHY BECAUSE HE OUGHT TO.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHu2KNu6TtJ0p4hpSW7Yv7Q

Team Bradley. Yup, Noah and Rachel Bradley, the artist couple who are just so PERFECT and just so NICE that you can't hate them for it, which is surprisingly IRRITATING.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYu89Q_krburzkoDSpm5xjw

Bernadette Banner. Historical sewist, with an amazingly soooooooooothing manner. Competence porn: if you love watching people who are good at what they do doing things, this is a channel for you. Vry low-energy, in a good way. She lives in downtown New York City: I am desperate to know how she affords her apartment.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSHtaUm-FjUps090S7crO4Q

Black Magic Craft. Competence porn about building RPG terrain.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Rlv-ug-mtnXuMwlpcqFgg

David Bennett Piano. Dude giving short music theory lessons that you probably already know about, bit which I find fascinating.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz2iUx-Imr6HgDC3zAFpjOw

Mike Boyd. Scot who learns things. Each video he sets himself a new thing to learn--nothing big, like "art" but single things like "a kick flip on my skateboard" or "breaking a wineglass with my voice" and persists until he can do it.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIRiWCPZoUyZDbydIqitHtQ

Angela Clayton. Vintage and historical costuming.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChyWv5fy8utAWVhRPVV85XQ

Vinheteiro. Brazilian pianist whose schtick is playing while STARING YOU DEAD IN THE SOUL. I cannot really describe his video topics, and I don't know how you'll like or hate them, given how much of a musician you are. :)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSE6yilNScIz1SLTNQvrXMw

Terrible Writing Advice. How not to write.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3ogrx6d9oohf6D42G44j1A

KyleKallgrenBHH. Commentary on CINEMAH and THEA-TAH. With tongue in cheek, but it is actual good commentary on films and how they fit into culture, etc. I recommend his "These Are My Good Videos Watch These" playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0KaZd_ki4l2EUc1GY9u5Ew

Marco Bucci. Short videos on art stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsDxB-CSMQ0Vu_hTag7-2UQ

MoZART group TV. MozART group is a string quartet from Poland (I think) who do funny classical music stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVgvS7VUBt5JHxCEgI6LhgA

Adorea Olomouc. Historic fight choreographer. Only a few videos, but hey.
https://www.youtube.com/user/adoreaolomouc/videos



TRAVEL and BUSHCRAFT:

Jay Foreman. Brit who gives you interesting and funny short videos about the UK, maps, and other subjects.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbbQalJ4OaC0oQ0AqRaOJ9g

The Tim Traveller. Brit guy who travels to dull locations and somehow makes them really interesting. He's got that dry British humor (sorry humour) to a T.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2LVhJH_9cT2XKp0VAfsKOQ

TA Outdoors. Brit guy who does bushcraft. Has a competence porn playlist of he and a bud or two building ancient houses, like a Celtic roundhouse, a Viking house, etc. He and his wife bought a house and discovered a WWII bunker in the back yard, so a recent playlist is about that and cleaning it out.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNzul4dnciIlDg8BAcn5-cQ

JeffHK. A guy who works on commercial ships, and makes videos about working on commercial ships. Watch his 30 Days Timpelapse At Sea video even if you watch NOTHING else I have listed here.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGpdSarF_FdCygiA1tOl6Cg

Prowalk Tours. A guy who lives in Italy and makes walking videos: he holds (or mounts) a small camera and just...walks in an area and films it. Very soothing. Turn on the closed captions for interesting history and other facts about the areas. No video of himself talking, no music overlaid. Just walking, with the occasional drone flight. View the Amalfi and Sermoneta videos for an idea of what I had in mind with Belnesse. :)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNzul4dnciIlDg8BAcn5-cQ



HISTORY

Tod's Workshop. Medieval and Renaissance weapon recreations! Look up the latchet crossbow and the rondel and bollock daggers to see what I armed Burn with. ;)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWnlQMQ-ACfhpD68yWRsnJw

Fandabi Dozi. I almost put him under Travel, because he does bushcraft stuff, but what I follow him for is his series where he tries to learn how to camp and travel like a 17th century Highlander would, so history it is.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnniUmgeeFG6Bcir8ootwRQ

Vintage Egyptologist. Exactly what it says on the tin. Lessons in Egpytology from a FABULOUSLY dressed married pair of Egyptologists. Fairly new channel.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3PrBNQ3sqbHKXYgZX7aN4Q

Invicta. Random short history videos, primarily Roman, but other areas of the world as well.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwO-UgquohXwoe7f0e6lMnw

Townsends. 18th century US history: cooking, bushcraft, living, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxr2d4As312LulcajAkKJYw

Royal Armouries. Video from the UK's armoury museums.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsMX-XuiEkBi4-GDrYuniWg

English Heritage. Food, historic lifestyle, and history from English Heritage.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHwNa3lAjzbxRR2pbbZUE2A

The British Museum. What it says on the tin.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvpQ-l09fCVxJd3urZbxzHg

Silvousplaits. Historical hairstyles.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4xXyid5JEhjuJWpIWXhszQ

TerraGermania. German guy who metal-detects. Surprisingly soothing. Also charmingly hilarious when this tall, stiff German guy who looks so stern makes a find and turns into an excited 12-year-old.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY5khWMz1Stm4wTl0gaJo3A



LIFESTYLE (Youtube's catchall category for beauty, clothing, and other random stuff):

Loepsie. Dutch woman who talks about tea, her rats, clothes, and hair. I especially recommend her "Following Historical Beauty Tutorials" series where she follows hair and makeup tutorials from period sources, including an 18th century one. If you want to hear her natter about tea and rats, pick through the "Life & Slow Living" or "Tea Time" playlists.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrvCswr4x5LH3-Z8GTCKXw

Simply Nailogical. Ostensibly a nail art channel. Mostly a "Cristine does silly stuff including testing children's nail art toys and whatever" channel.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGCVyTWogzQ4D170BLy2Arw

Jessica Kellgren-Fozard. Woman with vintage style and multiple disabilities who vlogs about vintage style, disability rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and more. Wonderful voice of the sort I could fall asleep to.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDdi0yUyGW1PKzYXaIACnuA

Rachel and Jun's Adventures. Lifestyle videos from Jun of Jun's Kitchen above and his wife. I recommend the videos about their cats.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSzHO_V894KyTDw3UgZS7gg

Rachel and Jun. The fourth channel in the Rachel and Jun empire. Go for the cat videos.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4yqcgz49APdbgj0OMv7jpA



RANDOM INTERESTING STUFF

Tom Scott. Does short videos on stuff you probably didn't know about. Tends to have a mild technical bent, but more in the realm of systems than, say, engineering specifics.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBa659QWEk1AI4Tg--mrJ2A

Techmoan. Soothing voice, reviews tech gadgets and talks about little-known A/V gadgets. Surprisingly interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5I2hjZYiW9gZPVkvzM8_Cw

Mike Jeavons. Brit who does funny videos reviewing gadgets and testing weeks on various diets. I recommend his "Infomercialism" series for the funny gadget testing.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0Jkqm37e5cmDZCp7y6BDDA

Life of Boris. Mystery Slav (always in ushanka and balaclava) making fun of gopniks--Slavic rednecks, basically. But you can tell it comes from a place of love and deep familiarity, being one himself. Also cooking and doing things like vodka cooling his computer.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS5tt2z_DFvG7-39J3aE-bQ

Ashens. Brit who makes funny videos. If you watch him and other Brit comedy YouTubers, you'll realize they all know each other and show up in each other's videos. Anyway, I recommend his "Wish.com Random Gubbins" playlist in which he pops words generated randomly into Wish and buys the first thing that shows up within his budget.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxt9Pvye-9x_AIcb1UtmF1Q

Captain Disillusion. VFX guy who debunks viral videos in the persona the alien Captain Disillusion. Occasionally guest stars in his own videos as "Alan the intern."
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEOXxzW2vU0P-0THehuIIeg

Airforceproud95. Pilot who gets on Microsoft Flight Simulator and trolls other players, basically by pretending to take being a pilot and being an air traffic controller dead seriously. (He's been doing it so long he has to edit out a lot of "Aren't you Airforceproud95??" comments, since almost everyone on MFS knows of his existence.)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfoK9LI9vmQQ36zqsFZtNJQ


VIDEO GAMES

Girlfriend Reviews. Reviews that aren't about video games: they're about living with someone who plays the video games.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2eEGT06FrWFU6VBnPOR9lg

The three big video game humor and news channels:
Polygon: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuVxaQDraOja6xKidcmoufA
Outside XBox: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjf6YzmyaKi8880IXMJ5kGA
Eurogamer: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi2k9fBoIfqAhXQVc0KHYHhBjAQFjAAegQIAhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fchannel%2FUCciKycgzURdymx-GRSY2_dA&usg=AOvVaw0ejp5BfeQyzm7QwqQev0f3

These three are more-or-less the same: creative gamers getting paid to make funny videos about video games. For the most part, Polygon's videos are a bit more rewarding if you're familiar with the games, unless they're by Brian David Gilbert who does the REALLY WACKY ones. OXBox and Eurogamer are mostly the same: listicles of the "5 [blah] In Video Games" sort which are usually pretty funny. Pick a title that appeals to you and dive in.

Specific playlists I recommend:

Polygon
Unraveled: Brian David Gilbert being BDG and doing things like finding out which Dark Souls boss is the best manager.

Monster Factory. Griffin and Justin McElroy breaking video game character creators. (Future installments will be on their own channel, but they remind you of that at the end of every video for the past year.)

Video Game Theatre, where they dress in black and lip-sync video game cut scenes while acting them out, pretending they're Vry Srs Drama Students.

Outside Xbox:
Lists, Glorious Lists. All their listicles.

Eurogamer:
Chiodini's Kitchen - video game recipes made real. Pretty far down on the Playlists page since they haven't done one in a while, but there's a lot there to go through.

Comments

[affreca]

Thanks for sharing. While I've got access to other streaming, I've found myself watching a lot of youtube for low key nonfiction. Of the ones you mentioned, I watch Bernadette Banner (I first watched her critiquing a rip off of her medieval gown) and Black Magic Crafts (I think from an earlier recommendation by you).

Others I watch and recommend are:
Lofty Pursuits - hard candy making. Sometimes his random history patter is random. I like how he thinks through making his designs, and love of old machines.

Slo Mo Guys - Things (usually some sort of destruction) filmed in pretty slow motion. Some of the videos have some sort of attempt at science instruction, but main draw is things breaking.

Bon Appetit - Cooking. I originally started with the Gourmet Makes series, in which a trained pastry chef tries to recreate snack foods in a fancy way. There's many other videos with a variety of other chefs. There's currently drama as the lead editor resigned due to blackface and one of the chefs pointing out pay/race issues. I'm currently not watching their stuff until there's resolution of the pay issues. On the other hand, the focaccia episode with Samin Nosrat (author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat) lead me to the best focacia recipe.

And I've finally fallen for Time Team.

[telophase]

I've been addicted to Time Team for YEARS. I used to ahem them early on, and then friends of ours acquired seasons 10-16 for me a few years back. Once it occurred to me that people have been uploading them on YouTube, I made playlists for 17-20 and have been parceling them out very slowly, to stretch the unwatched ones out as long as possible. XD

[genarti]

Oh man, this post added so many channels to my subscription list!

Other ones I follow that seem as if they might be of interest to yhlee (this basically means I'm weeding out the sewing ones, though I can put them back on if anyone wants):

NativLang: linguist talks about languages, historical and living! Often about obscure ones, or linguistic family trees, or phonetic reconstructions of dead languages, or "here's an unusual thing that only a few languages do."

Moth Light Media: a recent follow, all about extinct animals, or the ancestors and taxonomic cousins of living ones.

Extra Credits: they have various subdivisions -- Extra History, Extra Mythology, Extra Gaming -- that all seem to be under the same account. Extra History is the one I'm by far the most interested in, and the only one I try to keep up with. It uses little cartoon-animated videos to talk about historical people or events; the cartoons are fun, and they do a pretty good job of covering lots of eras and places. Plus at the end of each little mini-series about a topic (anywhere from 1 to 5 or 6 videos, and each video is usually about 10 minutes), they do a "lies" video, where one of the writers talk about stuff they got wrong, oversimplified, or cut for space.

[yhlee]

plz tell me about sewing yt! i want to learn to use my sewing machine after i turn my book in.

[yhlee]

thk you!!!

that airplane sim one is solid gold. i played one today for joe and we couldn't breathe for laughing.

[telophase]

The very first vid of his we watched—I wish I could remember which one it was—had him as an ATC demanding a pilot return to the terminal because they had the wrong type of cookies on board or something like that. We about died laughing at that and other things in it.