thread of youtubers whomst are not terrible

Noah Caldwell-Gervais deserves a mention.

Ostensibly long, literate and humane retrospective reviews of video games by someone who toiled in pizza delivery, but he's also adopted a vagabond lifestyle out of a restored VW bus with his new wife, and his video essays on their journeys through the US West put the rest of his work in perspective.

Todd in the Shadows reviews pop music, and recently, 1 hit wonders. Wouldn't be surprised in the slightest to find he lurks here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwl9xmM3IuQ&t=758s

I watched some of the parasocial relationships series. V interesting but yeah crazy long.

todd in the shadows does lurk here or at least has before. one of his videos directly cited an ilm thread in the description (a compilation of songs that actually stop when the singer says stop, like the ilm thread on the same subject).

found the parasocial relationship video basically unwatchable. it was heavily rt'd by that whole circle of #content creators (a comically large proportion of ppl on that list are friends and frequent collaborators -- the fellow who wrote the list might as well have had it served up to him by algorithmically generated recommendations) so i tried to watch it around the time it came out. her intro video on the subject was good/interesting but the rest was just tediously extended to an absurd degree not at all justified by the insight provided in the commentary or the ridiculous number of clips of bo burnham. i don't think i would have even found it necessary if i were stoned.

anyway that circle of creators is sometimes informally referred to as 'leftube' or similar by its audience due to i guess being leftists and/or critical of the worryingly visible far-right factions of the site. i am personally very unimpressed by this collective's obvious awareness of, and apparent lack of interest in directly addressing, a phenomenon that any leftist viewing them will have noticed: virtually all of these creators are white, and given that most if not all of them rely heavily on cultural touchstones and memes to illustrate their broader theses, the narrowness of the cultural literacy that's evident in their work (this includes both lindsay ellis and todd in the shadows btw) will serve as a significant handicap to creating a space on youtube representing their political leanings that does not also reproduce racial separation and hierarchy. contemporary online meme culture is spawned in enormous part within black culture, so their utter cluelessness about, say, the work of any currently active black musician who isn't favorably covered on pitchfork and explicitly 'political' enough to make sense to them, coupled with their inability to include anyone who does have this level of cultural literacy in their frequent collaborative efforts is disappointing to say the least.

when this obvious phenomenon was brought up on twitter, the response from these creators was merely to retweet contrapoints's quote-tweet of a user's list of left-leaning creators of color along with the message "let's make leftube more representative!" or somesuch. meanwhile i am not especially hopeful that they won't continue to collaborate exclusively with one another, continue to congregate only with one another at fan meet-and-greets, #content creator conferences and the like, etc. etc. maybe one of them will retweet kat blaque or the1janitor once every month or something.

i have unsubscribed from both of the 'leftube' creators to whom i'd previously subscribed (contrapoints and hbomberguy). while i will probably continue to enjoy their work when i do come across it, i would rather spend whatever time i use actively seeking out content looking for creators who are not creating networks (because these creators are not just creating content, but networks of content!) that are so insular.

that's a fair criticism. I would hope that in time the network becomes less insular but at the same time I'm happy to throw some $$ at anyone fighting the RW content machine and doing so in a way that's engaging

this has 1.1k *replies* so far

Have my videos helped to change your viewpoint (about the Alt-Right, trans issues, whatever else)? Are you willing to talk to a journalist about it? Respond to this tweet if so! 🙏🙏🙏

— Natalie Wynn 🦋 (@ContraPoints) January 10, 2019

I'm a bit less fond of Hbomber because I think he makes less effort to be approachable to the opposition, very different from Contra and Shaun the skull.

learned a lot from the latest Contra video

has anyone else noticed a marked uptick in complaining about the garbage YouTube recommendations?

and speaking of Hbomberguy, he's currently like 27 hours into a Twitch charity stream for Mermaids and is up to $100k, so I think it's safe to say the community is growing

Retail Archaeology
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR2LNeZSqINp0WTd_eWCIGg

Dead malls, zombie retail stores, etc

Harris is still going, $133k / 33hrs

youtube's sidebar recommendations are inexcusably shit and compromised and i feel guilty about continuing to use youtube knowing sidebar recs still exist but honestly i find youtube too useful to seriously consider quitting.

hey so @AOC HAS JOINED THE STREAM GO WATCH AND DONATE https://t.co/Fz8plugN5y

— Mary Ellen (@alissacaliente) January 20, 2019

I just caught the very end. Crazy.

I can't see it well on my phone, what's the $$ up to?

Over $221k. Since I clicked a few minutes ago they've made about five thousand.

I don't feel old until I see how popular twitch streams are.

I wonder whether AOC is a gamer.

I would say not because it is a total time suck and she seems actually really productive.

Good enough for me.

Here’s @aoc talking about how Nintendo 64 was the best system. She’s on @twitch helping to raise money for trans kids. pic.twitter.com/cJIfUif1mv

— New Super Blood Wolf Moon Bros. U Deluxe (@GenePark) January 20, 2019

Loved the Youtube episode, Simon. You each found your way to a different circle of hell.

Ha, thanks! We suffered for your entertainment.

Ash Sarkar interviewed Harris

https://novaramedia.com/2019/01/23/donkey-kong-is-beautiful-ash-meets-hbomberguy/

I like The Ushanka Show, about life in the Soviet Union. This video is about Soviet TV in the early 80's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9NhsDoZPsU

rants about bad meals
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LLCFZQhPawQ"; frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

whoops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCFZQhPawQ

I enjoy Lost in Vegas reaction/review videos quite a bit. Just a couple of guys who love music and are trying to expand their horizons from r&b/hip-hop into metal, country, and elsewhere. Occasionally a little corny but always genuine and often hilarious.

Their reaction to War Pigs is what got me hooked:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6osfNi1HcY

i like those dudes a lot, pretty much the only reaction videos i've ever gotten anything out of

they've reviewed a few deftones songs where they link abe cunningham's drumming to quiet storm and it's so delightful

I've watched a few of theirs and the only thing that bothered me is that they pause the song to comment.

Music reaction channels are a funny ecosystem. An awful lot of them seem to be about validating classic rock and metal. I also wonder just how genuine many of the 'first time' reactions are, especially for huge songs like Bohemian Rhapsody.

I definitely think the rock and metal videos are the money-makers (?) for Lost in Vegas, but their hip hop reviews/reactions are great too and have introduced me to new stuff I likely wouldn't have heard otherwise.

Tons of kids in my son's middle school watch PewDiePie and there is even a concerted "get PewDiePie the most followers" campaign there. Do I have to specifically keep my kid off PewDiePie? Am I right in understanding it's a potential vector for him to be exposed to racist YouTube?

10000%

No more than online gaming culture in general, though.

I mean, there are good pockets of culture in the gaming world (see a few posts ago) but imo PDP is particularly awful and v likely to link out to even more obviously horrible things

That campaign is much wider than his school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PewDiePie_vs_T-Series

PewDiePie's already basically racist Youtube, so stay away if you can. But it's hard to completely escape that side of Youtube no matter what you do. Simon H. just did a really funny podcast episode on how quickly you can get from innocuous Thomas the Tank Engine videos to the alt-right just by following recommendations.

I watched a few Bill Burr stand-up clips and that's all it took for Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson to start showing up in recommendations.

keep your kids off youtube at all costs imo

^^^

yikes ok, i talked to him about it, he seems to think that being really into YouTube is "stupid" (he thinks that about a lot of things) so for the moment I think I'm OK, there is not really a context at home where he'd be seeing YouTube without me knowing but obv. I can't control what he sees at school

Lindsay Ellis now nominated for a Hugo!

this guy is becoming an mvp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ8orIurGxw

I'm stoked someone else has already mentioned The Ushanka Show! That's one of the YT channels I subscribe to.

Another great channel I've gotten into is about linguistics and is called Langfocus. This video taught me why French is such a different type of language to the other Romance languages:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfxf4pV-zJg&t=727s

Then there's List25, which is an educational AND entertainment channel. This is one of their more recent serious/educational videos, though they'll also make more lighthearted videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgBec0KfJkg

On a much lighter note (vs. the last video), there are The Try Guys, which features a Ned! (Except this Ned is a Yale grad and would probably not be BFFs with Dan the Harvard man.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwLxTWzvSkw

(Why didn't the Langfocus link work? Hm, let me try again.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfxf4pV-zJg

Then there's this fascinating channel called the After Prison Show, which has been an eye-opening insight into what it's like to be imprisoned (a reality I had zero idea about) (caution: this guy gets a little shouty, so you might want to lower the volume if you're listening through headphones):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUdOyz8EsAk

the ridiculous number of clips of bo burnham

From way upthread: I can now say that, having watched Burnham's special, the clips excerpted in the parasocial video are literally the only parts worth bothering with.

Yeah, the After Prison Show is good, there's a few similar channels of that type, he's definitely engaging. I thought what was most striking about his content is the feeling of inevitability of prison time, just accepted as a fact of life. Its almost too banal for him to even raise as a topic, its just there all the time

Thread of one YouTuber who is terrible?

Jon Bois & co still rule and probably do not hate immigrants but the general MIDI background music is grating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHNwUiu_8Eg

Travel YTuber, seemingly fearless Norwegian lady on a motorbike, travels far and wide, currently in Afghanistan, astoundingly scenic footage at times.

http://www.youtube.com/@ItchyBoots

Cambrian Chronicles has been mentioned here before, but their most reason episode about welsh werewolf legends is a hoot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cyu8ph4lsHo

gorgeous wildlife cam footage from the wilderness of northern Minnesota

http://www.youtube.com/@VoyageursWolfProject

the fantastical-looking thumbnail of this one caught my eye but "One year on a game trail in Northern Minnesota” is a good place to start, too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z3qeeTkoNk

I like this guy and I'll probably like this video but sometimes a moment like this make me pause and ponder if the genre as a whole is indeed not terrible
https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/1084fe6de155.png

http://www.youtube.com/@premodernist_history

YES! i love his Advice for time traveling to medieval Europe video

tor is a weirdo zoomer whomst is not terrible, i look forward to his videos each week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNpZvJ4YIB4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPsq5nqvhxg

Lotta youtube channels just going about their business, some kind of consciously neutral or unwilling to be openly political (even if the people behind them def. have opinions), so I was impressed that the MinnMax game channel actually dedicated an entire episode to the state of things in Minnesota:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY6ZPb2NHO8

New Ember Green video, a critical analysis of how autism is presented in The Big Bang Theory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Ay6Rf0uCs

Raccoon guy is going strong but Youtube is pushing an Istanbul stray cat guy on me now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YGT-H6Lh88

Objectivity, guy visits various libraries and archives looking at scientific equipment and ephemera and talks about the stories behind them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz6zN_9Sllc

My YT algo looked at the recent revive of the Masculinity & Maleness thread and decided I needed to start watching The Iron Snail. I like this guy so far! He might get me out of some of my menswear ruts.

Does anyone know the best channels for dog and cat videos? I never see any particular channels coming out on top and these videos are pretty much always compilations of stuff swiped from other users. Makes youtube a lot less grim.

https://youtube.com/@thegoldenbreakfastclub
Original content, often comedy gold imho.

https://youtube.com/@dailydoseofinternetcats
The only compilation channel I'm subscribed to.

feeling really gutted these past two weeks after the revelation that one of the Storror guys was booked for CSAM stuff; their whole channel and universe are now (obviously) imploding

I'd wondered about posting about that here too. Awful news - for the victims and all those more directly involved.

I wasn't a particularly devoted fan, but I have been watching their videos off and on for several years now. Not that it means anything much, but from a personal perspective it was a total shock to me.

I've probably said this before but Casual Geographic might be the best Youtuber let alone the best zoology Youtuber

https://bsky.app/profile/caenhillcc.bsky.social/post/3mjofo7pw2k2v
they have a youtube channel too but I liked some of the bluesky posts more, they have a bunch of cats too

I'm currently in a deep hole watching endless videos of Limmy auditing 3-2-1 and Family Fortunes.

it's so great

recently discovered grant harting, a licensed pharmacist in 4 states (in good standing): http://www.youtube.com/@grant_harting

he reviews and oftentimes ingests sketchy gas station pills among more generally informative videos. he has a real subtle sense of humor and a whole lot of heart

I've been enjoying Patrick the Pack Rat, who mostly interviews punk-adjacent record collectors about their collections, and also recently put out a 45-minute guide to power pop that breaks the genre down into four categories (classic rock, new wave, punk, and "wimpy") with a litany of examples from the super-famous to the super-obscure. http://www.youtube.com/@patrick_thepackrat