You can find my own YouTube channel, very irregularly updated with marginally interesting content, right here.
These are some YouTube channels I watch regularly and recommend. My recommendation should not be considered an endorsement of the channel's point of view or any opinion expressed by people who own these channels. I subscribe to well over 500
channels. These are my favorites.
Beer
- Gregsbeerreviews - Unpretentious but informed reviews of beer by a biker. He's got good taste.
- Ronald Theriot aka Louisiana Beer Reviews - Honest beer reviews without prejudice - macro lagers to hoity-toity microbrews. I'd drink a beer any day with Theriot.
EDC: Every Day Carry - The cult of the tool
Esotericism and the Occult
- Esoterica - Level up here. The most scholarly channel on esoteric subjects I've been able to find.
- Adam McLean - A focus on esoteric, alchemical, Hermetic, and surrealist artwork and literature.
- Chasing Gods - Videos on religious symbolism and myth.
- Foolish Fish - Videos on the occult and esoterism.
- Survive The Jive - Paganism and folk traditions.
- The Modern Hermeticist - Videos on Hermetic subjects.
- The Nemeton - Occult topics, including Kabbalah, Hermeticism, alchemy, etc.
- Weird Reads with Emily Louise - Emily Louise Church's snarky commentary on cults, UFOs, hoaxes, and the paranormal. The best channel of its kind.
Food
- Brand New Vegan - Chuck Underwood's excellent vegan health and cooking channel. His Best Damn Vegan Chili recipe lives up to the hype
and is the go-to antitode for tomato-soupy vegan chili recipes.
- emmymade - Focuses on experimental, exotic, or unusual food. I like the fact that she doesn't make stupid faces when she is making or
consuming something which is socially agreed upon to be disgusting or strange.
- Tasting History with Max Miller - Recipes made from old-to-ancient cookbooks along with a history lesson. Fun, entertaining, with educational value as well.
- NutritionFacts.org - Dr. Michael Greger's superb evidence-based channel on the vegan diet focused on emerging science, new scientific studies and metastudies, and nutrition generally. See also nutritionfacts.org.
- Wok with Tak - All you need to know about wok cooking and especially stir-frying. About 15 years ago I bought a $25 carbon steel wok, because I was a fan of Mongolian barbecue. I now use it 4-6 times per week, with stir fry as my staple "go-to" meal. Tak shows you all you need to know. If you don't cook with a wok, you should give it a try.
Humor
- Internet Comment Etiquette - Weisenheimer extraordinairre Erik Hoffstad demonstrates how to be as hilariously annoying as possible when you comment on the Internet.
- Ivan Stang - Author, publisher, and holy man of The Church of the Subgenius
- Jonathan Pie - Ranting British leftie journalist character who is always upset about everything.
- Pittsburgh Dad - Funny yet warmly nostalgic sketches and rants from your industry standard grouchy Pittsburgh Dad.
- Zebra Corner - Masshole caricature Mark (Mahk) inserts himself into commercials and ruins them in a sarcastic, entertaining way.
- Krissychula - Gold-standard, world-class irritability. Try iPhone vs. Android. Be forewarned -- if you have a strong opinion on this, you will be instructed to "eat a dick."
Man vs. Nature
- Camping With Steve (Steve Wallis) - Described as the Bob Ross of Camping, Steve camps around Western Canada, often in places other than campgrounds (like median strips and storm drains). There is a peacefulness to Steve's super-practical approach to sleeping in sometimes unconventional places, with very conventional gear. I like to crack open a Step Two on Friday nights and watch his weekly video in my recliner.
Music
- Music You Should Hear - My Playlist - While not everything on here is obscure, I include only things people tend to tell me they've never heard of. I'm a big fan of Pink Floyd, for instance, but I don't link to anything by Pink Floyd here.
- Brenna Sahatjian / Bee Sahatji - Excellent songwriter/performer from Portland Oregon. Anti-folk. More at Bee's website and Bandcamp Page.
There is something earnest, honest, pure, and organic here.
- Covet - Post-rock / Math-rock band of considerable musical prowess. Soaring atmospherics, mind-melting virtuosity. Deeply stimulating.
More at the Bandcamp page. Start with the percolating Ares.
- Evan Greer - Anthemic folk punk you'll want to sing along to. Start with I Want Something. Fantastic sense of melody and a galaxy
of heart.
- G. Bontempi - Beautifully performed American Primitive guitar
- gmcfosho - I can't tell whether this is the best music I've ever heard, or the worst, or something else entirely. In my favorite track, Silent Minority,
he battles Adolf Hitler, there's something about slavery, Power Rangers, and... But I can't stop watching. It's like that snack with a weird taste that doesn't occur even in approximate form
in nature, like Froot Loops. NSFW, unless you work for a hip hop label.
- Grace Petrie - super-melodic folk; superlative songcraft. Fans of Billy Bragg and Frank Turner (how you doin'?) will probably like this. Start with
the artist's "postcard to myself," Black Tie.
- Richard Shindell - Richard Shindell is one of the finest songwriters and performers I've ever encountered. Was introduced to his music via a concert with Dar Williams.
- 2ombieboy's VHS Vault - VHS dumps of old content, mostly from the UK.
- Culture of England - Mostly old British television and news clips.
- Kevin Sloan - Bits of old cable access stuff from Tucson. Lots of people with opinions and a good dose of crazy.
Try An Evening with 666 - Beats Ken Copeland or some shit.
- Oddity Archive - The Ben Minnotte experience. Odd media, old tech and media, and other curiosities. My favorite YouTube channel.
Religion (Mainstream)
- QuakerSpeak - I'm not a Quaker, but I really like Quakers a lot. On this channel, they shine. Wonderful videos about belief and practice, and personal stories.
- The Yeshiva (YY Jacobson) - Not Jewish either, but YY Jacobson is an insightful and fascinating lecturer on the Jewish tradition.
- Redeemed Zoomer - A fierce young Presbyterian representing a kind of
new intellectual vanguard for traditional Christianity. Superlative commentary on the different denominations of Christianity.
Society and Culture
- Arizona Public Media - Videos about Arizona
- Frontline PBS - Documentary series. Modern muckraking.
- Asian Boss - Videos in English, about Asia, including street interviews with residents of Asian countries on various subjects
- Chill Fuel - Videos on urban legends and mysterious phenomena.
- Corey Gil-Shuster (Ask Project) - Interviews of Israelis and Palestinians based on viewer-submitted questions.
- J.J. McCullough - Commentary on society, politics, and culture from a Canadian perspective.
- Life or Boris - Everyone favorite gopnik. While humorous and satirical (playing on stereotypes about Slavs), also contains videos about Slavic food and culture.
Technology
- Lazy Game Reviews - Games, yes, but with a particular focus on the retrocomputing equipment needed to play some of them. High production values.
- Al's Geek Lab - Home of Back to the BBS documentary and other videos on retrocomputing.
- Bread Box Commodore Computer Museum - Commodore computer-based retrocomputing channel. The channel owner seeks to build a brick-and-mortar Commodore museum in New Zealand
- Computerphile - Videos of surprising depth about computing topics. One of the best on YouTube. Sister channel of Numberphile.
- CuriousMarc - A focus on old technology from before the home computer/8 bit age, including computers used on spacecraft, old teletypes, terminals, etc.
- FranLab (Fran Blanche) - Circuit bending, retrotech, old audio, teardowns, and music.
- Techmoan - Fascinating reviews of current gadgets, obsolete technology, and other curiosities. Excellent production values and pacing. Often amusing, never boring. One of my top 5 YouTube channels of all time. I wish more channels were like it.
- bosnianbill - All about locks, lockpicking, and so on. Repetitive examples of how you get what you pay for when it comes to locks (a more interesting subject than you might think.)
- CelGenStudios - Canadian retrotech/retrocomputing channel. One of the craziest home labs I have ever seen. This guy goes way, way beyond picking up an old Commodore 64 to bang on.
- jpkiwigeek - Retrocomputing. Lots of minicomputer and industrial workstation stuff.
- Pixelmusement - Old DOS games, with a strangely interesting series Shovelware Diggers, where old DOS and Windows 3.1 games from a shareware CD are exhumed and played in an emulator.
- The 8-Bit Guy - Collecting and restoring 8 bit computers. What I like about this channel is its routine demonstration of hardware troubleshooting techniques (and repair) when it comes to 70s and 80s computer tech.
- Louis Rossmann - Originally a channel about low-level repair of computer equipment, Rossmann became irritable and is now at the forefront of the right-to-repair movement. One of the Internet's true Good Guys.
- Marques Brownlee - The best mobile technology reviewer on YouTube. If you're in the market for a phone or a tablet, definitely look here first.
- Mental Outlaw - Privacy, security, tech commentary and tutorials.
- MobileTechReview - Another excellent and essential mobile tech review channel.
- Moshix - All about mainframes.
- Null Bytes - Hacking and security.
- Technology Connections - One of my top 5 favorite channels of all time. Alec Watson asks questions about common technologies which surround you which you never thought to ask. As he
examines things like dishwashers, traffic lights, and hurricane lamps, you start asking yourself, "Why have I never been curious about this?" Rich with wit, production value (he has possibly the best set on YouTube), and useful information (there's
more here on dishwashing detergent you'll ever want to know), it has made me more appreciative of a lot of technologies I take for granted.
- The Hated One - Security, privacy, anonymity
- VWestlife - Retro-technology, not limited to computers. Some in-depth dives.
- Veronica Explains - Accessible yet witty educational commentary on Linux and retrocomputing topics. Strongly recommended for beginners or the Linux-curious. Also see her website.
- Macintosh Librarian - One of the most fun retrocomputing channels, whether you're a Mac user or not.
Travel and Psychogeography
- Lewis Crampton - Travels to...less traveled places, like Mauritania.
- GeoWizard - You thought you were a map geek? This guy puts map geeks to shame. Among other things, he and his partners have attempted to cross entire countries (Wales, Scotland, Norway)
in straight lines, over endless hedgerows, through farms, over mountains and bodies of water, naivgating irritable land owners and natural challenges along the way. Also lots of Geoguessr videos.
- Vagrant Holiday - This cat jams econo. Sleeps in a sleeping bag on the ground or in abandoned buildings, traveling for a few dollars a day, then wanders around far-flung areas
outside of tourist hell holes.
Miscellaneous and Uncategorizable
- Mirriam-Webster Dictionary - Surprisingly interesting channel about etymology, and grammar.
- Jim Browning - Alias of a heroic Scotsman who hunts phone scammers, sometimes down to the room they're operating in. Fascinating and satisfying look at modern fraud.
- Protopod (Steve Sutton) - The Tao, in action. Like water.
- Reshoots - Shows filming locations in the current day, side-by-side with the original movie footage.
- Weird Paul Petroskey, the Original Vlogger - The central defining feature of Paul Petroskey is he throws nothing away. Throughout the 80s he recorded
endless amounts of video of himself opining on various subjects, playing guitar, being a spaz, goofing around with his family, going on road trips, and so on. A musician in his own right and collector of pop culture artifacts,
his channel is a riot of old home video footage, thrift store hauls, outsider music, and, occasionally, conversations he has with his adolescent self, editing old and new footage together. This is the sort of thing that
would have made for excellent public access programming. If you're a fan of public access, you'll probably like this. You might as well start with his video
Peanut Butter Recall.
- This is Dan Bell - Urban exploration, modern ruins, tearing apart ratty dive hotel rooms to see what decay can be found therein. Funny, disturbing,
creepy, but fascinating, Dan Bell posts footage of abandoned malls, factories, and other buildings. Excellent production values and soundtrack makes this uniquely compelling watching. Start with
this video in which Dan and his colleague are attacked by killer bees while fimling inside an abandoned desert lodge in New Mexico.
- Tom Scott - It is difficult to describe Tom's channel, except to say that it is dedicated to fascinating stuff - interesting science, unique places,
and technology. Tom takes what might be factoids or trivia and digs deeper. Outstanding writing and production values; 20 years ago, this would have made for a compelling television program. If you like shows like
James Burke's Connections, you'll probably like this. (Also if you have not watched Connections, you should watch Connections. I mean, seriously.)