askchapo

I really enjoy Exurb1a

Farya Faraji! He got really popular with his video on Orientalist music vs actual Middle Eastern music: https://youtu.be/LR511iAedYU

Really funny, clever, passionate, dedicated to his craft (the intersection of music and anthropology). I almost never like video essays but his are actually good and actually engaging. His music is great too and i love just he includes detailed descriptions about them.

Man's channel deserves more love.

F.D Signifier is really cool but not exactly a hidden gem by now. He kind of blew up huh

I dont really care much for comdey on youtube but I do like "Man Carrying Thing". Skits that are usually just like a minute or so.

Big cooking video person here

J Kenji Lopez Alt is my muse. I will not hear anything against him.

Chef John/Food Wishes - He makes some great old school recipe videos, just no bullshit 8-10 minute videos walking you through the recipe steps. Also has great puns.

America's Test Kitchen Has a bunch of filler videos, but I really like What's Eating Dan and Techniquely with Lan Lam, just very knowledgeable chefs.

I'm amazed it's not been mentioned here yet - Luna oil! is a very cool socialist Vietnamese channel. Her videos are both fun and informative, and good for getting a non-western take on so many things.

GoodBadFlicks

Just seems to love movies and enjoys talking about them and I have gotten some great recommendations from them like "Snow Sharks"

Random ones I like:
HubNut - Reviews and vlogs about old cars.
JaredAF - Videos about pistols and shooting sport without tacticool nonsense.
Tony Zaret - Weird comedy skits parodying internet culture.

T90 for competitive aoe2 videos and just aoe 2 in general

Jimothy cool for mostly gen 3 OU pokemon videos

Wolfeyvgc for his pokemon vgc tournament videos that are always fun

Solid jj for funny videos

I like Scaredy Cats. It's Thought Slime's other channel focused mostly on horror movies, from the high art ones to the cheesy, B horror ones. In fact, I'd probably say there's more of the latter than the former.

They try to keep is non-political, but every now and then anti-capitalist themes slip in to their movie reviews, which I'm just fine with.

My oshi, Haruka Karibu has finally returned to streaming after a long mental health hiatus.

She's also gotten two new chibi avatars!

Ææugh!

• a people's history of rome, that sort of stuff. i get the feeling they're marxists keeping it on the down-low, but who knows. - https://www.youtube.com/@tribunateSPQR
• some cool geology lectures about the west coast of north america - https://www.youtube.com/@GeologyNick
• she visits interesting houses - https://www.youtube.com/@kirstendirksen
• japanese man builds houses - https://www.youtube.com/@ShoyanJapaneseCarpenter
• history stuff, i think he's not bad - https://www.youtube.com/@premodernist_history
• they build houses in western north carolina (they're probably enormous chuds but they mostly keep it out of the videos. mostly) - https://www.youtube.com/@PerkinsBuilderBrothers
• various linguistics-related videos - https://www.youtube.com/@DrGeoffLindsey
• civil engineering stuff, with hand-built models and demostrations - https://www.youtube.com/@PracticalEngineeringChannel

I like Nimi Nightmare, she’s nice and chill, , and just some comfy vibes.

Nyanners - she’s a gremlin, not awful, just a cringe streamer.

Trey The Explainer - good quality highly informational videos about anthropology, archaeology, and paleontology.

f4micom makes cool videos about niche topics in consumer tech and gaming. lately she's also been getting into maker/DIY things

I like introvertedmadness for making rant videos about his life that are often relatable to me. he also makes videos with social commentary sometimes; these are more entertaining and suitable for general audiences, and though he can come off as a clueless lib, he has the right spirit

If I try to restrict to the smaller channels (some of these are quite big anyhow, but whatever):

Kaze Emanuar

Mario 64 modding focus, with coding deep dives

https://www.youtube.com/@KazeN64

Decino

Classic Doom content, with coding deep dives

https://www.youtube.com/@decino

Timbah.On.Toast

Music and culture focused video essays

https://www.youtube.com/@TimbahOnToast

José

Musings on historical sitcoms and conservative media

https://www.youtube.com/@JoseBird

Cass Eris

Scathing book reviews of pop psychology

https://www.youtube.com/@CassEris

Dr. Fatima

Astrophysics, Space, and Politics

https://www.youtube.com/@dr.fatima

Simon Roper

Linguistics and other stuff

https://www.youtube.com/@simonroper9218

Clickspring

Precision hand manufacturing

https://www.youtube.com/@Clickspring

Acorn to Arabella

Wooden sailboat build, and now sailing

https://www.youtube.com/@AcornToArabella

Benjamin Magnus, a streamer who plays both some niche games and popular ones. Some games I don't see many other people play. Xenonauts 2, Rule the Waves 3, Ultimate General: Civil War, and Hearts of Iron 3 being my favorite to watch. He also does Rimworld, Project Zomboid, and other games, but the games mentioned are my favorite to watch.

It's a livestream (on Twitch but restreamed over to YT too), so it's longform content and requires some attention span to watch.

Smight is mostly a twitch streamer, but he posts all his stuff to YouTube. He's the creator of the Arcade Pit, a internet gameshow where contestants play old games answer trivia and generally have fun with games.

Super friendly to the trans community, the pit crew recently hosted a marathon to raise money for trans causes, and many of the guests on the show are often trans as well, with the co-host being Emily Aster an awesome trans lady.

So tune in every Sunday evening at 8pm EST for the arcade pit live. Smight has not missed a show in over 15 years or something insane. His channel is twitch.tv/smight

LGR and Angela Collier. I hardly use youtube except to watch jerma vods

I would imagine many people here who watch Youtube are already familiar with Folding Ideas, at least from his video about NFTs. He is imo the best video essayist by a wide mile.

Then there's Jenny Nicholson, her videos are hit or miss in the sense that I really don't care about most topics she talks about, but I find even those videos engaging and when she does talk about an interesting topic it's an all-timer for me.

I still, unsurprisingly, like the kids in hololive and holostars. They're all a bunch of bright and talented, essentially, theater kids.

I also like false edge hema and dequitem because it's fun watching large adult children beat the shit out of each other with metal sticks fancily.

I also enjoy natural habitat, under studio hub, fire department chronicles, and some others

Ancient Americas is a really good channel that covers pre Columbian cultures in the Americas

Cathode Ray Dude- mentioned elsewhere as well, generally cool dude

Tech Tangents - haven’t seen mentioned, another old tech guy that stays in his lane politically and makes cool content

Technology Connections - my favorite “well technically” nerd

VWestlife - a gem of youtube, untarnished by advertisers or thr algorithm

Dr. Angela Collier - Smart Science Dr who makes cool commie adjacent videos

Ethoslab - my one parasocial relationship is this reclusive canadian minecrafter who uploads once a month and I mostly catch on other peoples server streams

Robot Cantina - old dude that’s making diesel electric batter vehicles out of his garage for cheap, really cool electrical and mechanical engineering going on with just one dude, fabrication as well.

I like the singer Scarlet Slaadek.

Crime Pays, Botany Doesn't for sweary, amusing, but very informative stuff about nature and plants in particular. Always with lots of working class solidarity.

EVNautilus for submarine shenanigans and cool footage of rarely seen marine life, especially cute octopus.

LUXE37 hasn't uploaded in almost a decade but they made cool Japanese car chase movies with stop-motion, toy cars, and amazingly detailed models.

OgmiosZen does relaxed, zen-like commentary over his dashcam footage of having to drive around London for his job. Often amusing. The channel has grown a lot and now he's narrating other driving videos which I don't like as much.

People Make Games isn't specifically leftist or anything, but it's the only place I've found putting out actual investigative journalism into things like workers rights, bad industry practices, exploitative outsourcing to the 'developing world' and more in the video game industry. They also do some fun videos on more niche or elaborate non-video-game gaming like elaborate LARPs or tournaments of competitive Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet solving.

The Craft Beer Channel makes interesting videos and documentary series about beer - from ingredients growing to breweries to pubs - with lots of focus on history and the current actual people behind beer production.

YouSuckAtCooking makes slightly amusing little recipe videos with some willfully silly editing jokes, but without any pretension. Good for basic recipes, done in the most basic kitchen with very available ingredients. Also includes little songs and pets at the end of each video.

Tom 7. Posts very infrequently but generally makes videos that complement his SIGBOVIK submissions which are the intersection of theory and impracticality. Example.