We do this from time to time, and now is as good a time as any. Here are some of my favorites, arranged by category. If you have any to recommend for me or for other Dopers, let’s do so in this thread!
Language And Culture
Name Explain (English guy explains how things got their names, as if that wasn’t obvious) Don’t Trust The Rabbit (German woman with perfect English talks about differences between German and English language, sometimes culture as well) Wanted Adventure (American woman living in Germany talks about differences in German and English language, and German and American culture) Being British: Joel & Lia (two British friends (not siblings, not a couple, as they continually remind viewers) talk about differences between British culture and other cultures)
Trying And Reacting To Food
Diane Jennings (Irish woman who tries foreign foods sometimes, mostly just talks about what’s on her mind) emmymadeinjapan (Asian American woman’s cooking-and-eating show) Food Explorers (German kids trying foreign foods)
Science
colinfurze (English guy doing weird backyard science experiments) The Backyard Scientist (American guy doing weird backyard science experiments) The Action Lab (American guy doing science demonstrations) Mark Rober (American former NASA scientist does experiments and teaches science) How Ridiculous (Australian guys drop things off of a tower - it’s more fun than it sounds)
Defies Quick Categorization
Buzzfeed Video (Buzzfeed employees’ video submissions; largely hit-and-miss) Buzzfeed Blue (same) FBE (People of all age groups experience pop culture) REACT Channel (People of all age groups reacting to this or that: food, pop culture, etc.) Crazy Russian Hacker (Russian guy living in the U.S. does product reviews, some science experiments, whatever is on his mind) Bad Lip Reading (comedy channel devoted to, well, bad lip reading)
This is just a sampling. I left out my theme park channels, lest this post would run to pages and pages. I also left out my paranormal channels (I’m not a believer, but I love to see what people like to pass off as paranormal events) and my Top 5 This or Top 10 That channels.
Redlettermedia - Specifically, I recommend their Best of the Worst series.
They watch three movies, usually bad vhs movies. They discuss them and at the end, they vote for the best of the worst. They also usually destroy the worst tape in some creative way.
I recommend watching them in order. You get to know the people in the group and it just gets funnier as it goes.
It’s one of my favorite TV shows period.
Here is the first episode. Note: it gets better as the show goes on, but is still quite funny in the beginning.
Those are great suggestions. I wish I could easily find good channels. I’ve been using Youtube since its start and have a terrible time finding good channels. I have my own channel but I’m not comfortable enough to post it or even tell people who I know. I do follow quite a lot of automotive channels and some lifestyle ones, along with some vlogs. There’s this one vlog of two friends (Americans) living in Germany as expats. I can’t remember the name, but it’s fairly entertaining.
Bon Appétit has several series going on, but I especially like the one where Claire makes gourmet versions of common junk foods. They show the entire process, including the failures (and there can be a lot of failures). There’s also a series where kids try foods from different regions or different decades. Links to the individual playlists below:
Oh, and while we’re at, as far as food series go, Binging with Babish has been one of my relatively recent (within the last six months) favorites. His main schtick is (re)creating (sometimes completely fictional) dishes mentioned in films and TV series, but he’s expanded a bit beyond that with some regular cooking technique videos, as well.
I like the Primitive Technology guy, but he’s super popular, I bet all you hep cats already know about it. They’re wordless vids of an Aussie guy replicating ancient skills, getting more and more complicated. Make sure you put the captions on!
I’ve also lately enjoyed watching some Italian chefs tut over the bastardized versions of classic pasta recipes. This is aglio et olio, the same channel has a carbonara vid. They also post videos of the chefs making their more traditional versions.
In Liquid Color is a neat channel by a watercolour artist who’s into nerd culture and animals. What’s not to like? She does lots of gear reviews too, but I really like the time lapse painting vids.
A good Samaritan posts the uber-brainy BBC quiz Only Connect on this channel. It’s on hiatus right now, but there’s quite a backlog to go through to get you nicely hooked.
They’re originally TV shows,not made for the web, but the NHK World Japanology shows are on YouTube and are wonderful. Every country should have a show like this - eclectic and delightful.
But my absolute favourite channel is the Wintergatan Marble Machine X one. Some may remember the originalMarble Machine video. Martin Molin is now building a better one that can stand up to the rigours of touring, and is documenting the process.
Oh, and they’re advertising, but I liked Bourdain’s Raw Craft series.
Alec Steele seems to have recently come out of nowhere as a million subscriber blacksmith making (mostly) damascus knives and swords. But he’s just a 20 year old with the editing skills of a pro who’s experimenting with techniques he hasn’t tried before as he goes along, rather than being the life-long expert trying to show you how to do it.
Ramsey Dewey is a former MMA fighter who now teaches MMA in Shanghai. He’s pretty knowledgeable on the history of martial arts, Western and Eastern, general physical fitness, and he has a nice voice to set on and have playing in the background.
Already pretty well known, but given that the Kurzgesagt guys seem to have cloned my brain and animated it, it seems like I should share. (Why couldn’t they have asked for permission first!? )
Periodic Videos Want to learn all about any element? There’s a video for it.
Wolter’s World The guy’s been about anywhere and has a video or two or three telling you what to do or not do and what you’ll love and hate about the place.
Diane is incredibly beautiful and her makeup is always absolutely perfect. Even if she didn’t make all other women look like dogshit by comparison, her videos are fun to watch.
Thanks for that. I’ve wanted to know what Rick and Morty is about. They have a brief description on the channel page. Subscribed.
Here are a couple arts/crafts channels.
Draw with Jazza- Jazza does art challenges that are entertaining. He used to do a lot of tutorials. You can find them by going through his old stuff. He also has a vlog that’s fun. thefrugalcrafter - Lindsay started out doing a lot of diy of art supplies. Lately she’s more sponsored by companies and uses their stuff. It still has a very craftsy feel to it.
3Blue1Brown does some great math videos. I haven’t had much reason to think about linear algebra since I took it in university years ago, but his video series gave me more intuitive understanding than all the classes I took back then.
Numberphile is full of great little introductory videos on different math topics. The guy who runs the channel has a few other good channels as well.
My favorites that I don’t think I’ve seen mentioned yet…
Music stuff:
JustinGuitar Songs - Guitar instruction for all levels in a very well presented and paced format. Skip all other instruction channels before checking this one out.
Rick Beato - Music pro (producer, teacher) blogging about various music theory, production, industry stuff. Check out his “What makes this song great” series.
LickNRiff - Fingerstyle guitar instruction, my other go-to for wonderful presentation and format.
DrowningInGuitars - Guitar demos of one guy’s ludicrously vast guitar collection. Worth it just for the very skilled playing and jamming.
Science-hack stuff:
ElectroBOOM - Comedic how-to’s of how not to do
Simone Giertz - Funny bad robot builds and tech blogging
Joerg Sprave - The Slingshot Channel, wonderful homebuilds of plywood and rubber weaponry
Hah! Been there. I was butchering something and stumbled across the channel.
atomicshrimp is a fun way to spend time. If you have never been there, check it out. It is Mangetout’s channel. Many projects, walkabouts, and of course weird things in a can.
I do not wear or own a watch, but my buddy Christopher is a watch geek and puts a ton of work into his weekly shows. You may remember him from his Bitter Poet Madman days. I do.
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