thread of youtubers whomst are not terrible

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.

how did I not know that Jon Bois has an entire channel

speaking of which, let's begin the actual youtubing with the best video on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK2anpoKeNM

(although really his Pretty Good and Chart Party series are MANDATORY viewing)

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.

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

Yeah, that's where I learned the term :)

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."

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

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

scott brown carpentry & the MRE man

I assume people know about Simone Giertz and her intentionally-shitty robots but if not well then there you go.

Someone tried to get me into asmr videos because he thought it would totally be my thing. IT IS TOTALLY NOT MY THING.

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

cool channel having weirdos guide you through their tiny weirdo houses
https://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.

you suck at cooking was a great call

oh yeah scott brown carpentry

kiwami japan's latest bestrides youtube like a colossus

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.

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.

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.

your top tier is notably the ones that are the most Just Tom (ft Occasional Verity). just a weird dude fighting through gorse. perfection

Norway is Tom & Verity too, slight qualification there is that the terrain was a bit uneventful, apart from the bit where he nearly died in a peat bog of course.

There's a LOT more of her in that one, to the extent where it's virtually a duo mission. Unbelievable kayak-hauling dedication

XP to Daniel, Yeah I just watched that one yesterday, I was just being silly by calling him Herc from The Wire, but he really reminds me of him. His videos are pretty great though.

Enjoying RM Brown lately, one of the only lefty commentator types on YouTube that consistently makes me laugh.

apparently Miranda Sings / colleen ballinger is terrible and manipulative to young fan(s). I'm not positive what she did rises to the level of 'groomer' though

what percentage of youtubers whomst are not terrible turned out to be terrible?

in fairness youtube did build a system wherein success and evil are positively correlated

The raccoon whisperer has not been milkshake ducked thank god.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D_PunGp55g

what percentage of youtubers whomst are not terrible turned out to be terrible?

Surprisingly low!

Perun's channel has been good over the last year or so

latest GW two-parter absolutely one of his best imo

What is GW?

Geowizard

Yeah, I love the urban no roads ones. I think there might be another on Patreon, which I'd be tempted to sign up for.

was no waterproof footwear a rule that i missed? 🤮

the pandemic made me a fan of those good mythical morning guys. and no i am not 12. they were comforting in a weird way. i still watch them. i also started watching a competitive eater named katina on youtube and i don't know why because i am not even really a huge hot dog contest guy. BUT again for some reason her voice-overs that she would do while she played footage of herself eating 20 hamburgers or whatever was really soothing to me! you never know what will get you through a plague. i even followed her u.k. trip. so many english breakfasts and tea service challenges. i do worry about her boyfriend randy though. he looks like maybe he needs to retire from the circuit. even if he is a legend. i also stopped watching them because i couldn't help but wonder how they expelled all that food after a challenge. i'm guessing enemas. but how else do you eat 12 pounds of food and then do it all over again in a day or two? maybe food just goes right through them at this point. and no they can't throw that much food up. they would die! and have permanent laryngitis.

also, i obviously watch hot ones like everyone else but i like the mythical kitchen last meal concept just as much. even the tom hanks one was good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0sfBmVMT_Q

here is katina in ireland. i was already kinda off the bus by the time that randy and katina took their recent trip to australia and asia. those are their most recent videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWtu7V9AT0U

I too enjoy competitive eating videos occasionally. Did you ever watch Beard Meats Food (UK competitive eater and YouTuber), scott? He's the only one I do somewhat consistently follow.

I agree about Randy Santel too. It's not at all surprising that many decades of doing that kind of eating will take its toll, however much you work to manage it.

i watched a TON of charlieBo313 during the pandemic too. it occurred to me that i watched a lot of travel/driving/trains/extreme running videos during the pandemic. which all makes perfect sense now. channels that are just horrible roads around the world and channels for scary tunnels. but anything with lots of distance covered and lots of movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIw7-2jzKjE

i like beard meets food. he's nice. he's pals with randy and katina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3O6bKdPLbw

Looks negative and clickbait-y from the thumbnail but that's not the case.

did AdBlock Plus stop working on youtube ads for anyone else?

I've recommended Foresty Forest here at least once before, but I wanted to highlight this recent video of his, which I thought was particularly great. It covers a multi-day hike in the Yukon, so the van content is minimal, but the outdoors stuff and scenery is amazing, and it's lovely to see him clearly having such a fantastic time. Lots of his awesome dog Rocko in it as well.

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

A fun game, inspired by Wikirace, for people interested in recommender systems: mask your identify from Google and click on YouTube suggestions until you reach a video that _promotes_ a fascistic, authoritarian, or intolerant view. A fun twist is too start with a seemingly innocuous subject.

my sense of fun has not yet evolved to that level!

i will tell you what is fun, though, is spooky stories read in a soothing coombrian accent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC9o9Vf0G92

Things I watch a lot none of which seem listed here anyways:

Aunty Donna
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2onuBxhafg

Map Men
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYNzqgU7na4

Abroad in Japan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8G2skmYsAk

How to Cook That (misleading title really)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyhCIYjhiM0
(although she's started SEOing/clickbait titling her stuff a bit recently)

Finnerty killing it again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeJXF55HXRI

Ogmios is now doing weekly Sunday morning football videos from Hackney Marshes, they're a delight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsftE6R5dqA

I was hoping this thread got revived for that new Finnerty vid!

Ricky Finn rides again

I've been enjoying videos of this woman quietly puttering around her cabin in the Finnish forest.. very soothing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSc9H8-ArfQ

this was good if you want to watch Hainbach and Look Mum No Computer bashing out a krautrock synth EP on some weird old gear:

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

kineko video posts some interesting stuff, this one is probably the most interesting yet... a late '60s/early '70s (i'd guess early '70s based on that heavy fuzz bass track, but it could be '60s) pilot for alice in wonderland, possibly put out by mushipro, with adolf hitler as the voice of the king

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

‘Jet Lag the Game’ appeared in my recommendations a few times, every time I thought it looked awful because of the irritating thumbnails. But for some reason I ended up watching the first Tag Across Europe and it was surprisingly entertaining, and now I’ve seen every season. Hits just the right balance of a game show / travel / comedy thing. Adam and Ben are a genuinely funny duo.

Jackie & Shadow the eagles are nesting a clutch of eggs.. live 24/7
Brutal rain, wind, snow conditions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4-L2nfGcuE

are there good book youtubers?

i like Liminal Spaces for science fiction reviews

I like Sherdstube, Bookpilled, Rambling Raconteur and Outlaw Bookseller

Humor might be a bit regional but I think these videos are really funny. There are more than a few great lines on them.

https://m.youtube.com/@lilbubbychild