Title essentially. Youtube’s algorithm is hot garbage, so I can’t search for anything anymore without a ton of AI slop and rage bait. So, who do you go to for actual good long form videos? Exposes, scandals, behind the scenes, documentaries, film, travel, transit, who do you recommend I follow?
Steve Wallis - Calm Canadian dude that does stealth camping, he’ll just camp behind a McDonald’s billboard and is very chill about it
Steve is awesome. Another favorite of mine is Kent Survival. I’ve tried more than one of Andy’s camp meals, and he’s the reason I bring a cast iron dutch oven with me now.
I fuck with Steve . Solid dude living the dream I always had as a kid on a road trip: " I could build a fort and camp in the middle of that traffic circle and nobody would ever know I was there"
On the same note I really like GIFGAS. Bit of the same, just with train hopping across Europe. YouTube is apparently removing some of his videos though, but all should be on his Patreon.
deleted by creator
AvE (though I’m pretty sure he’s conservative)
You’re right. AvE went completely off the deep end during the height of Covid, and revealed that his being a scumbag isn’t just doing a bit for the camera.
Do you have a link to his undoing?
His knowledge of everything mechanical and electronic is pretty useful though. I’ve learned a TON from him but now I prefer Cutting Edge Engineering to scratch that kind of itch.
You can start with his video praising the “freedom convoy” shitshow plus ranting about the usual talking points re: vaccines, masks, etc. which kind of did it for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeYVyhhHY-Y
Honestly, I’m amazed he hasn’t deleted it from his channel by now.
Was really disappointed when that one came out… His stuff was great up to that point but now it feels… It’s got an ick now.
Good list, many hits with my list. Let me recommend “Tally Ho” and “Escape to Rural France” to you, although the latter might be too short for “long format” with 10 minutes per episode, give or take.
Great list! I would just add The Majority Report if you’re looking to learn more about politics while also trying to understand what is happening today. They do a ~2.5-hour live show every weekday which includes a quick overview of the latest headlines for today, an interview of someone with knowledge about some politics-related topic, and then an hour of mostly right wing videos that they discuss, argue with, and vent about.
I love it for how informative it is and for keeping me sane.
For educative scientific YT channels I’d recommend Veritasium, The Action Lab and NileRed to name a few. They produce top quality scientific videos about really interesting phenomenas and experiments. And the best part is they make the concepts simple to understand without the need of a degree or smth lol
Adding to this, Smarter Every Day is really great – they just started a series on Nuclear Power with a walkthrough of the first Nuclear Reactor used to produce electricity.
There are two YouTubers who make videos 4+ hours long that you have to watch every minute of:
Sure but HBG is the only one who can make a viral 4 hour video.
Jenny’s last 4 hour video went more than viral, to be fair.
These two were my first thought! I’ll add that both cover a range of topics, Jenny does do a lot of videos around Star Wars, but also covers obscure films, and theme parks, wherenl HBomber runs the gamut from flat earth to vaccines to video games to plagiarism. Both are incredibly well researched and, in my opinion, offer very fair takes on the subject matter.
A couple fun ones I haven’t seen mentioned:
Myron Cook - Think “the Bob Ross of Geology.” Basically he goes out, finds some rock formation, goes “Huh. Isn’t this cool? What do you think happened?” and walks you through everything dating back to like the formation of the planet. He’s like a teddy bear and his channel is wonderful and fascinating.
Dan Hurd - He’s a dorky gold prospector. He may have caused me to buy a gold panning set.
Jenny Nickelson does… nerd stuff? Highlights include:
“Church cinimatic universe” where she becomes a sommelier of art and walks you through a decade or so of some church in Canada’s Easter plays, which are delightfully technical and imaginative while also being a beautiful form of cringe.
And a 4+ hour documentary/review/commentary on her visit to the short lived “star wars hotel”
I’m not big into star wars or Disneyworld/land wherever it was, but I watched that whole thing.
Haven’t seen Philosophy Tube on here yet.
High quality and engaging deep dives on various philosophy-related topics. Abigail, the face of the channel is an actor and playwright (and an academic) and that very much shines through.
Seconded. Love their stuff. Also Contrapoints (who Philosophy Tube kinda ripped off, but hey ho, both great content.)
FD Signifier is good too.
Contra and Philosophytube are an excellent example of how two people with a lot of similarities can do the same concept and wind up with wildly different results even when both are excellently done.
Contrapoints is one of the youtube GOATs for a reason. High production values, thought provoking content, and a level of thought and honesty that’s powerful. Her video that’s absolutely definitely about twilight and nothing else caused days of discussion with my wife.
Folding Ideas is a documentarian with a film background. He’s most famous for his videos about NFTs and meme stocks, but all his videos are excellent. “I don’t know James Rolfe” was a youtube filmmaker descending into madness attempting to understand another one.
Philosophy Tube is a woman who got pissed that the UK was raising tuitions so she committed to giving away the knowledge she got in her philosophy degree. Sometimes she plays with clickbait, but in a very self aware way. Her content is definitely meant to make you think
Hbomberguy is a man who made a 4 hour video about youtube plagiarism so popular the Onion referenced it. He’s largely a video game critic but does some deep dives into political topics like climate denial, flat earth, and antivax
Sarah Z is a older gen z media and fandom critic who largely leans towards Tumblr oriented topics. She consistently has good takes. I really liked her video on how the internet talks about narcissists that I watched over the weekend.
Strange Aeons is probably my suggestion people are least likely to like. She’s like if Sarah Z was a lot weirder. You want someone to explain the omegaverse or Snapewives or the other bizarre outlets of fandom in a wat that’s generally respectful to them? She’s got you. In particular I like how she’s respectful towards weirdness when it’s not harmful and that she treats trolls as the performance artists they can be.
Practical engineering is youtube for the sort of people who think bridges can be interesting. He’s a civil engineer with a fair bit of charisma talking about civil engineering.
Stuff made here is for when you want impractical engineering. He’s a dork who designs and builds weird shit for its own sake.
Defunctland, listen I’m not really into amusement parks that much, but this guy makes them fascinating to hear about.
Additional creators I forgot or left out:
Lady Emily is Sarah Z’s cowriter’s channel. It’s definitely weirder but in a direction completely different from the way strange aeons is. She doesn’t care to make her content have mainstream appeal and so it winds up being an autistic woman making videos about stuff she finds interesting.
Innuendo Studios is someone I intentionally left out for two reasons: a lot of his videos are short and they’re very political. But they aren’t low effort ragebait political, they’re analyses of modern right wing rhetorical tactics. I’m including him now purely because he’s one of my favorite youtubers
Münecat is a long form video essayist who started with anti-mlm content and has moved into other topics like internet gambling and debunking evo psych.
I’ll add more comments if I think of more
Folding Ideas is a favorite of mine.
Ahoy @xboxahoy. Very well produced videos about gaming. A brief history of graphics, iconic arms, video game origins and more.
Technology Connections
So … Do you have any recommendations for more like technology connections? I’ve watched through every video+even the ones in the backlog). A year or so ago I stumbled on cathode ray dude (similar nerd vibes) and I’ve also seen everything from him so if anyone has a recommendation on similar channels please let me know.
He’s definitely similar and I’ve seen a couple of vids of his. But he didn’t quite “catch” me the same way.
So it’s not exactly the same but in my head they’re heavily related. NightHawkInLight. He’s this rural tinkerer/chemist dude that takes real science papers and patent info, then tries to reproduce and refine them with easier and more available means. He’s done really cool stuff with fire resistant paint, radiative cooling, and phase change materials. Plus, he has a similar " Midwestern" delivery style that’s low key and easy to listen to. Everytime he releases a video I’m excited to see what he’s been up to
The video on pinball machines was absolutely incredible
I made this spreadsheet a while back for easy sharing. Some have been mentioned like F.D Signifier and HBomberGuy. Also like Mr. Beat for history, Nth Review for games, Astrum for space, and Maritime Horrors for… maritime horrors.
Maritime Horrors is great, but for the same vibes as him I also watch Brick Immortar and Big Old Boats from time to time.
And if you’re into mode sky boats then Green Dot Aviation is your guy
These are channels I follow or at least like enough to look up once in a while. They’re a bit random. I apologize if any are repeats, but they’re worth repeating (and I didn’t read every reply):
Adam Savage’s tested: https://youtube.com/@tested
bigclivedotcom: https://youtube.com/@bigclivedotcom
Intelligence Squared: https://youtube.com/@intelligence-squared
MIT Open CourseWare: https://youtube.com/@mitocw
Townsends: https://youtube.com/@townsendsEntertainment:
Cirque du Soleil: https://youtube.com/@cirquedusoleilVery other:
SBSK: https://youtube.com/@specialbooksbyspecialkids
the channel features a man who goes around and interacts with/interviews disabled children and adults. I take this one in small doses. It is not long form in the traditional sense of a well researched and thoroughly laid out topic, but I find it very wholesome/heartbreaking at the same time.I actively avoid shorts so most of what I watch is long form.
- Technology Connections - A guy needing out about household tech
- Unlearning Economics - a trained economist turned public edutainer who kept learning after Econ 101, unlike others who shall remain nameless
- Behind the Bastards - Chummy laughter about the worst people ever
- RPG with DBJ - RPG talk with a focus on creativity and exploring the opportunities afforded by the space of ‘limited only by your imagination’
- We’re in Hell - A guy looking at pieces of media and the ideology infused into them by culture
- Gresham College - lectures on widely ranging topics, presented by professors but targetting the layperson
- The Morbid Zoo - A cool gal doing analysis of movies, usually horror, but sometimes others, with an eye toward ideology and culture (Hellraiser, Smile, Twilight, PotC, etc.)
- Folding Ideas - More film analysis, but with a tack toward various criticisms
- Doctor Who - the old series are all on the tubes now. Not educational, but fun.
Behind the Bastards is fucking great! If you like their stuff, you might also enjoy “Respect The Dead (A Podcast Where We Don’t).” It’s a kind of queer younger sibling to BTB and a whole lot of fun, but they only cover people who are for sure dead.
For long form,
Bobby Broccoli, ~1hr videos on science scandals https://youtube.com/@bobbybroccoli
Defunctland, 30m to 1h45m videos on defunct theme parks and rides https://youtube.com/@defunctland
Your dinosaurs are wrong, 15m to 1h45m videos on comparing toy dinosaurs to the most up to date research https://youtube.com/@yourdinosaursarewrong
2nd on Drachinifel, 7m to 1h45m videos on naval History https://youtube.com/@drachinifel
Perun, 1h videos on defense economics https://youtube.com/@perunau
Diplo Strats, 2h to 6h videos on diplomacy the board game, like risk on massive steroids https://youtube.com/@diplostrats
