a place to talk Contrapoints, Lindsay Ellis, and anyone else anyone cares to recommend or complain about, prompted by the former's newfound level of popularity, but pls feel free to talk about any cool #content providers, not just politics folx
― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Tuesday, 20 November 2018 12:57 (five months ago) Permalink
thx comrade
― 🎶 in a world of pure exsanguination 🎶 (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 20 November 2018 12:59 (five months ago) Permalink
also there was some discussion on the second thoughts thread of Natalie being problematic in some way but I couldn't really follow it, so pls hash that out here if you are so inclined
I've heard good things abou hbomberguy but can't really bring myself to click on someone who uses formulations like "x is terrible and here's why", regardless of what the x is (well, maybe if it's capitalism).
hbomberguy is tight with the other two youtubers already mentioned so he tends to get lumped in as well, but my big problem with his videos is they're too damn long. if you care about the politics of gaming you could do a lot worse and he is quite funny and charming at times, but he could really take a page from Contra when it comes to concision
For anyone who's curious about Lindsay Ellis, her three-parter on the Hobbit films is a bit of a form-buster when it comes to YouTube video essays, particularly for the way it blossoms from an essay into an actual documentary partway through
― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Tuesday, 20 November 2018 13:03 (five months ago) Permalink
danielfromsl has popped up on ILG plenty but I think he potentially has mass appeal. Kind of the Nathan Fielder/Eric Andre of online gaming, reliably hilarious.
― 'Rock Me (I'm a Dais)' (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 20 November 2018 13:10 (five months ago) Permalink
Kinda wish this thread was a video game-free zone but whatever, that's just me. Carry on.
― grawlix (unperson), Tuesday, 20 November 2018 13:13 (five months ago) Permalink
I wish that too, but it's kind of an impossible wish given how everyone plays video games obsessively
Anyway, I have lots of quasi-viable options for this thread but I don't know which ones to foreground
― imago, Tuesday, 20 November 2018 13:19 (five months ago) Permalink
I'll say that Jon Bois >>>>>>>
Well, NB, the only other game-related videos I really watch are Skate 3 glitch compilations so clearly I'm mostly just in it for the lols.
― 'Rock Me (I'm a Dais)' (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 20 November 2018 13:20 (five months ago) Permalink
how did I not know that Jon Bois has an entire channel
― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Tuesday, 20 November 2018 13:24 (five months ago) Permalink
speaking of which, let's begin the actual youtubing with the best video on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK2anpoKeNM
― imago, Tuesday, 20 November 2018 14:54 (five months ago) Permalink
(although really his Pretty Good and Chart Party series are MANDATORY viewing)
― imago, Tuesday, 20 November 2018 14:57 (five months ago) Permalink
Stevem does pretty good videos about Japanese music (from Jazz to City Pop to Japanese Hip-Hop) and the more respectable end of anime (Miyazaki etc.)
Vinilteca is good if you want to get a grasp on the Brazilian music canon but it's in Portuguese.
Strictly Dumpling is my guilty pleasure food go-to. It's pretty vapid, dude doesn't have a ton of charisma and the music's terrible BUT he does seem to know his shit and has a stomach of steal, so seeing him eat prodigious amounts of grub throughout South East Asia is pretty entertaining. I'm sure accounts like that are a dime a dozen but this one's at least well edited and doesn't have too many calls to action.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 20 November 2018 15:23 (five months ago) Permalink
incidentally, since you mentioned calls to action, if anyone doesn't know what that means, the most recent Lindsay Ellis video is a meta meditation on the youtuber business model that gets into all this stuff and it's a good overview of the madnesses inherent to the platform
― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Tuesday, 20 November 2018 15:25 (five months ago) Permalink
Yeah, that's where I learned the term :)
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 20 November 2018 15:27 (five months ago) Permalink
I go back and forth on whether to just block Youtube entirely. As much as I like Contrapoints and free music, it's a site that activates my worst internet compulsions. Like she put it in the CTH interview, "Youtube forced me to watch it."
― jmm, Tuesday, 20 November 2018 15:30 (five months ago) Permalink
Not crazy about how this conflates Disney and Warner Bros but whatever, I guess both could be equally restrictive in their own ways:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8-09DbxHBU
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 28 November 2018 11:42 (four months ago) Permalink
Primitive Technology, in which a man makes all kinds of things using pretty much only what he finds in the woods:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P73REgj-3UE
You Suck at Cooking, a fine decoction of deadpan self-deprecation and sheer absurdity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHF2hDuH5HE
Michael New is a guy who teaches music theory & composition basics in a very accessible way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBhJsShMF2g
― a film with a little more emotional balls (zchyrs), Wednesday, 28 November 2018 12:08 (four months ago) Permalink
scott brown carpentry & the MRE man
― single bed mentality (||||||||), Wednesday, 28 November 2018 18:31 (four months ago) Permalink
I assume people know about Simone Giertz and her intentionally-shitty robots but if not well then there you go.
― Welcome to Gropelord, TX (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 28 November 2018 18:44 (four months ago) Permalink
Someone tried to get me into asmr videos because he thought it would totally be my thing. IT IS TOTALLY NOT MY THING.
― Yerac, Wednesday, 28 November 2018 18:46 (four months ago) Permalink
I like this funny South African woman who does car reviews that contain some great real life info and also bad singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCw6N5iNV8g (that statium is in Cape Town, by the way)
http://www.youtube.com/user/julietmcguire/videos
― StanM, Wednesday, 28 November 2018 19:22 (four months ago) Permalink
cool channel having weirdos guide you through their tiny weirdo houseshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXRJE2caPNY
in a way, it's anti-youtuber in that it's more errol morris than the "me-me-me-me i have a take on everything!" approach that youtube seems to encourage. speaking of which, I think errol morris's son has a channel where it's just him taking a bunch of drugs.
― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 28 November 2018 19:37 (four months ago) Permalink
you suck at cooking was a great call
― imago, Friday, 30 November 2018 23:10 (four months ago) Permalink
oh yeah scott brown carpentry
― micah, Wednesday, 5 December 2018 09:08 (four months ago) Permalink
kiwami japan's latest bestrides youtube like a colossus
― imago, Monday, 17 December 2018 00:00 (four months ago) Permalink
Polygon did a list of best video essays of 2018, with the usual suspects (ContraPoints, Linsday Ellis) present. The last one about a scene from Tarkovsky's Nostalgia felt to me like a bunch of interesting ideas that never really came together; now I'm in the madness of the two hour video about parasocial relationships.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 31 December 2018 19:07 (three months ago) Permalink
lol, forgot to link: https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/28/18156334/best-youtube-video-essays-2018-watch
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.
― Sanpaku, Wednesday, 2 January 2019 13:43 (three months ago) Permalink
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
― closed beta (NotEnough), Wednesday, 2 January 2019 17:43 (three months ago) Permalink
I watched some of the parasocial relationships series. V interesting but yeah crazy long.
― resident hack (Simon H.), Wednesday, 2 January 2019 17:45 (three months ago) Permalink
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.
― dyl, Wednesday, 2 January 2019 20:06 (three months ago) Permalink
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
― resident hack (Simon H.), Thursday, 3 January 2019 02:11 (three months ago) Permalink
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
― resident hack (Simon H.), Saturday, 12 January 2019 02:30 (three months ago) Permalink
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.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 January 2019 13:23 (three months ago) Permalink
learned a lot from the latest Contra video
has anyone else noticed a marked uptick in complaining about the garbage YouTube recommendations?
― resident hack (Simon H.), Friday, 18 January 2019 16:51 (three months ago) Permalink
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
― resident hack (Simon H.), Sunday, 20 January 2019 02:08 (three months ago) Permalink
Retail Archaeologyhttp://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR2LNeZSqINp0WTd_eWCIGgDead malls, zombie retail stores, etc
― calstars, Sunday, 20 January 2019 03:35 (three months ago) Permalink
Harris is still going, $133k / 33hrs
― resident hack (Simon H.), Sunday, 20 January 2019 06:38 (three months ago) Permalink
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.
― The Elvis of Nationalism and Amoral Patriotism (rushomancy), Sunday, 20 January 2019 14:00 (three months ago) Permalink
hey so @AOC HAS JOINED THE STREAM GO WATCH AND DONATE https://t.co/Fz8plugN5y— Mary Ellen (@alissacaliente) January 20, 2019
― resident hack (Simon H.), Sunday, 20 January 2019 23:23 (three months ago) Permalink
I just caught the very end. Crazy.
― jmm, Sunday, 20 January 2019 23:27 (three months ago) Permalink
I can't see it well on my phone, what's the $$ up to?
― resident hack (Simon H.), Sunday, 20 January 2019 23:29 (three months ago) Permalink
Over $221k. Since I clicked a few minutes ago they've made about five thousand.
― jmm, Sunday, 20 January 2019 23:35 (three months ago) Permalink
I don't feel old until I see how popular twitch streams are.
― Yerac, Sunday, 20 January 2019 23:36 (three months ago) Permalink
I wonder whether AOC is a gamer.
― jmm, Sunday, 20 January 2019 23:38 (three months ago) Permalink
I would say not because it is a total time suck and she seems actually really productive.
― Yerac, Sunday, 20 January 2019 23:39 (three months ago) Permalink
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
― jmm, Monday, 21 January 2019 00:56 (three months ago) Permalink
Loved the Youtube episode, Simon. You each found your way to a different circle of hell.
― jmm, Friday, 25 January 2019 02:15 (two months ago) Permalink
Ha, thanks! We suffered for your entertainment.
― resident hack (Simon H.), Friday, 25 January 2019 02:40 (two months ago) Permalink
Ash Sarkar interviewed Harris
https://novaramedia.com/2019/01/23/donkey-kong-is-beautiful-ash-meets-hbomberguy/
― resident hack (Simon H.), Friday, 25 January 2019 14:23 (two months ago) Permalink
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
― I Am Sporadicus (I M Losted), Friday, 25 January 2019 19:02 (two months ago) Permalink
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>
― p.j.b. (pj), Friday, 25 January 2019 19:30 (two months ago) Permalink
whoops
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCFZQhPawQ
― p.j.b. (pj), Friday, 25 January 2019 19:38 (two months ago) Permalink
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 want to change my display name (dan m), Monday, 28 January 2019 16:26 (two months ago) Permalink
i like those dudes a lot, pretty much the only reaction videos i've ever gotten anything out of
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Monday, 28 January 2019 16:31 (two months ago) Permalink
they've reviewed a few deftones songs where they link abe cunningham's drumming to quiet storm and it's so delightful
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Monday, 28 January 2019 16:32 (two months ago) Permalink
I've watched a few of theirs and the only thing that bothered me is that they pause the song to comment.
― jmm, Monday, 28 January 2019 16:32 (two months ago) Permalink
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.
― jmm, Monday, 28 January 2019 16:54 (two months ago) Permalink
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.
― I want to change my display name (dan m), Monday, 28 January 2019 17:02 (two months ago) Permalink
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?
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 28 January 2019 17:27 (two months ago) Permalink
10000%
― resident hack (Simon H.), Monday, 28 January 2019 17:31 (two months ago) Permalink
No more than online gaming culture in general, though.
― pomenitul, Monday, 28 January 2019 17:31 (two months ago) Permalink
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
― resident hack (Simon H.), Monday, 28 January 2019 17:33 (two months ago) Permalink
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.
― jmm, Monday, 28 January 2019 17:35 (two months ago) Permalink
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.
― I want to change my display name (dan m), Monday, 28 January 2019 17:50 (two months ago) Permalink
keep your kids off youtube at all costs imo
― marcos smart (Spottie), Monday, 28 January 2019 18:38 (two months ago) Permalink
^^^
― resident hack (Simon H.), Monday, 28 January 2019 18:49 (two months ago) Permalink
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
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 28 January 2019 19:53 (two months ago) Permalink
Lindsay Ellis now nominated for a Hugo!
― Simon H., Tuesday, 2 April 2019 16:46 (two weeks ago) Permalink
this guy is becoming an mvp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ8orIurGxw
― imago, Thursday, 11 April 2019 22:38 (one week ago) Permalink
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
― The Colour of Spring (deethelurker), Saturday, 13 April 2019 18:26 (one week ago) Permalink
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
― The Colour of Spring (deethelurker), Saturday, 13 April 2019 18:31 (one week ago) Permalink
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
― The Colour of Spring (deethelurker), Saturday, 13 April 2019 18:37 (one week ago) Permalink
(Why didn't the Langfocus link work? Hm, let me try again.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfxf4pV-zJg
― The Colour of Spring (deethelurker), Saturday, 13 April 2019 18:43 (one week ago) Permalink
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 Colour of Spring (deethelurker), Saturday, 13 April 2019 18:50 (one week ago) Permalink
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.
― Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 14 April 2019 10:14 (one week ago) Permalink
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
― anvil, Monday, 15 April 2019 13:11 (six days ago) Permalink