What's your go-to long form Youtuber?

Define long form? Under an hour is about all I can take.

Jerma Long Edits, Skye4 and dumptruck make good ones

used to be a bunch asain tubers, but they turn shitheel after misdirecting thier channels declines towards thier own female employees(resulting in a unprofessional firing), apparently they continued thier mysogyny against thier past female employees, and yes they are full MAGATs now. also had unchecked racism allowed to fester on the channel which drove most if not all AA influencers away.

Steve Wallis - Calm Canadian dude that does stealth camping, he'll just camp behind a McDonald's billboard and is very chill about it

Steve is awesome. Another favorite of mine is Kent Survival. I've tried more than one of Andy's camp meals, and he's the reason I bring a cast iron dutch oven with me now.

I actively avoid shorts so most of what I watch is long form.

Technology Connections - A guy needing out about household tech
Unlearning Economics - a trained economist turned public edutainer who kept learning after Econ 101, unlike others who shall remain nameless
Behind the Bastards - Chummy laughter about the worst people ever
RPG with DBJ - RPG talk with a focus on creativity and exploring the opportunities afforded by the space of 'limited only by your imagination'
We're in Hell - A guy looking at pieces of media and the ideology infused into them by culture
Gresham College - lectures on widely ranging topics, presented by professors but targetting the layperson
The Morbid Zoo - A cool gal doing analysis of movies, usually horror, but sometimes others, with an eye toward ideology and culture (Hellraiser, Smile, Twilight, PotC, etc.)
Folding Ideas - More film analysis, but with a tack toward various criticisms
Doctor Who - the old series are all on the tubes now. Not educational, but fun.

One I haven't seen mentioned yet that I think needs more exposure is miniminuteman: https://m.youtube.com/@miniminuteman773/

He does a mix of long form archeology videos and short form pseudo-archeology debunking. Some of it should be dry content but his delivery bridges the gap every time. He has a side channel where he posts about his side projects like his solo motorcycle trips that's also interesting.

Peter Santanello

Dime Store Adventures

Moon

SomeOrdinaryGamers

SamONella

There's probably more, but these are the ones I recall

Technology Connections

It might be worth adding that some people might find him (and similar long form content) verbose if they are not into the topics. I watch probably most of his episodes, but some people in my life don’t vibe with his those. The same people did not appreciate the 7 color e-ink display I had been tinkering around with until I made it display a dog pic, so it’s also about how the topic relates to what you already like.

Jeff Gerstmann, video game journalist

Lindsay Nikole, paleontology pop sci

Gutsick Gibbon, prehistoric anthropology pop sci and some academic stuff

Spacetime and SEA, cosmology pop sci sometimes leaning more academic

Rifftrax/mst3k, comedians that add audio tracks over bad mostly public domain movies, there's a ton of them

Ben G Thomas, prehistoric biology pop sci

A Catholic socialist, a Jewish anarchist, and a Muslim communist walk into a bar, and they make a podcast about engineering disasters: Well There's Your Problem. It's great for that intersection of people for whom the phrase "crimes against TERFs aren't crimes" resonates and like listening to an engineer complain about low quality as-builts 2 hours into a 3 hour episode about 9/11

I was sold on the show when I found out that the episode about the Titanic was split into two parts, totaling around 5 and 1/2 hours. That's partially because they spend a lot of time bullshitting, and partially because they go really in-depth about how and why structures fail

Their episode about Y2K hooked me.

I made this spreadsheet a while back for easy sharing. Some have been mentioned like F.D Signifier and HBomberGuy. Also like Mr. Beat for history, Nth Review for games, Astrum for space, and Maritime Horrors for... maritime horrors.

Sarcasmitron is a lesser known, but really good history youtuber, with a pragmatic but leftist analysis. A lot of his earlier work was focused on critiquing right wing YouTube, but more recently he had been focused on historical events rather than responding to a specific video.

Well ... My go-to is still Hbomberguy. Eben if I don't know/care about the topic I know every vid of bis will be interesting and worth the time investment. The jokes are really funny (even on rewatches) and I've learned a lot. I watch old Hbomb videos to Fall asleep to almost every night.

Main issue: there's one video every 1-2 years ... However if you've never seen one you'll have the back log to get through.

Brick immortar- probably the single most technical long form YT channel in the engineering disasters category

NNKH - fixing things that probably shouldn't be bothered with.

Green dot aviation - air disasters and near disasters

Pilot debrief - light aviation crash analysis

Andrew camarata - long, long form time lapse videos of running backhoes and dozers to cut roads and things, nice to relax to.

The great war - I watch on nebula but I think they are on YT too.

Hoog - explainers

Bald and bankrupt - I've heard mixed things about the guy as a person but his videos are entertaining, in the "travel to unusual places" genre

Integza - another one on nebula but I think also on YT. Building rocket engines with 3d printers, etc

Driving 4 answers - probably the single best automotive focused engineering channel

Looooooove Brick Immortar. Check out Maritime Horrors if you haven't already.

Steve Wallis is my comfort creator. Genuine dude from Canada who does loads of camping from simple in the woods stuff to hiding in a roundabout overnight. He's had a rough go these last few years as he lost his wife, mother, and best friend all within a year and a half. This is a man just enjoying what mother nature has to offer.

Not as long form as they usually max out around an hour. Good enough for walking dogs.

New Rock Stars.

Dark Net Diaries.

Star Talk.

Beyond Trust has a podcost interviewing tech people.

Weird Fruit Explorer
Tasting History

Well There's Your Problem - Engineering disaster podcast, with slides! And the hosts vary from left, to very left.

JunkyardDigs/PoleBarnGarage - Two separate channels. Love them both for just fucking around with old cars/farm equipment/vintage snowmobiles

Check out NNKH. More of a Philadelphia vibe but enjoyable the same

Bill simmons podcast. Mainly sports but a lot of just in general topics too. Famous guests athletes and not.

I am not normally a fan of long form videos unless I'm in the mood for it, but Philosophy Tube is my go to. Thanks to her, she (he before she transitioned) actually taught me what liberal really means, socially progressive but economically conservative.

Along with Technology Connections, Philosophy Tube, and Primitive Technology, here are my "must watch" subs

Climate Town - Excellent videos about climate change and environmental impact that are insightful and funny

Contrapoints - Well written and meticulous deconstructions of philosophical concepts in media, pop culture and society with a dry wit

Every Frame a Painting - Amazing content on film-making. No longer active, but if you haven't seen it yet, lucky you, enjoy.

Pop Culture Detective - Interesting meta analyses of popular tropes in pop culture

Because I'm into historical clothing and fashion, Bernadette Banner and Abby Cox both do great videos on costuming, history and creating cool stuff

Love climate town. I hate that someone needs to waste their time disproving lies from the oil, gas, politicians and the like, but it does give me hope in the future that there are people like that out there.
Every Frame a Painting came back to life one year ago! He uploaded some new videos :)
- Yes! It was such a pleasant surprise on my feed. Unfortunately they said they won't be continuing because of Youtube's enforcement policies around copyrighted material so those videos were meant to be a limited series.

Jenny Nickelson does.. nerd stuff? Highlights include:

"Church cinimatic universe" where she becomes a sommelier of art and walks you through a decade or so of some church in Canada's Easter plays, which are delightfully technical and imaginative while also being a beautiful form of cringe.

And a 4+ hour documentary/review/commentary on her visit to the short lived "star wars hotel"

I'm not big into star wars or Disneyworld/land wherever it was, but I watched that whole thing.

I love Jenny, she has some of the best long forms!

Science and futurism with Isaac Arthur.

Drain Addict.

He's a weird plumber. From Australia. He unclogs drains. When he walks, he moves his arms like a player character in an FPS. He has a toy rat and crocodile that help him. Sometimes it's hard to tell what's a sound effect and what's a real sound.

It seems like it shouldn't work but somehow it does.

Potholer54, does very good scientific debunking videos

PBS spacetime, physics that you'll understand for 60% yet it keeps being super interesting

Thunderf00t, does good debunking videos. Has a bit of an attitude but so far always is right on piint. already has been bashing musk since a decade ago

Thunderf00t is smart about physics, I liked his science videos, but I really stopped paying attention to him when he started doing gamergate stuff. Is he still whining about feminists, or has he gotten better?
- He still hates Anita Sarkeesian and Rebecca Watson.

Bobby Fingers

Clay sculpting with humorous narration.

Watch 30 seconds to get the feel. One of the best.

How long-form?

I absolutely love “More Kitboga”, videos where a fella calls scammers and uses a Roland VT3-3 voice transformer to improv. Video lengths range from a few hours to… I believe his record fucking with the same call center (like two or three specific people) is 54 hours. I put it on when I’m working from home. He is HILARIOUS. He and his team have whole fake websites, fake banks, and a fake Google Play store where he can redeem fake Google play cards into his account and it works as the actual play store would. People go insane when they see they “lost” thousands of dollars because an “old lady” redeemed the codes they wanted.

True crime: Explore With Us is a channel my partner recently found. Lots of FOIA’d videos and pictures that have never been seen before they made their videos. Very interesting.

"Stuff made here" is an excellent channel about crazy fun engineering projects, such as a pool cuestick that always pockets the ball and so on.

Trying not to put duplicates:

ViceGripGrage - finds old shitty cars and gets them running and drives them home
MightyCarMods - as the name suggests, building/fixing/modifying cars
Savagegeese - very detailed car reviews, no bullshit
B1M - talks about mega projects and there issues
ItchyBoots - Badass motorcyclist that has traveled solo across the world
shiey - Explores abandoned places, hops trains, insane lack of fear of heights
The Proper People - also explores abandoned buildings
Rick Beato - music producer that analyzes songs and talks about various music related topics

in addition to a lot of others already mentioned (there's a lot of overlap)

History:

Step Back History

culture/politics:

writing/education:

Zoe Bee

media/ect:

Tale Foundry (technically about writing fiction, but they also discuss media in general along with its themes, character archetypes, ect. it's more interesting than it sounds)
Pop Culture Detective
Jacob Geller (mostly video games)
My Little Thought Tree (also psychology)
Broey Deschanel

Props to Broey their videos are so good
I was trying to see if someone else was going to mention F. D.

Shame for yours to be at the bottom; this is a good list of choices, in general. Excellent taste.

I love Technology Connections for an easy, interesting watch. He just explains how appliances work lol

Have you seen his latest? It's all about algorithms and a societal shift in what people expect from computers and media.
Yes, I also love it! But sometimes he's a bit repetitive. I usually watch his videos at 1.2x speed

I really like my weekly hour long defense/economics powerpoint from Perun.

This Old Tony: home machinist that fixes stuff and makes other stuff in his garage, but does everything very well thought out. Humorous and good editing.

Hoovies Garage for some car comedy. The guy buys dump cars that need repairs and he let the local mechanic fix them. He makes dumb choices for entertainment.

For educative scientific YT channels I'd recommend Veritasium, The Action Lab and NileRed to name a few. They produce top quality scientific videos about really interesting phenomenas and experiments. And the best part is they make the concepts simple to understand without the need of a degree or smth lol

Adding to this, Smarter Every Day is really great -- they just started a series on Nuclear Power with a walkthrough of the first Nuclear Reactor used to produce electricity.

I've recently caught up on About Oliver's second season of Minecraft streams. He's an astrophysicist who never played Minecraft before 2022 and documented his entire blind playthrough. No reading chat, no googling etc. He only knew that he could get to credits somehow, but didn't even know how.

I highly recommend the entire playthrough, but there is a 6 hour Compilation of season 1 if you want to catch up to current day. Season 2 is about 40 episodes in, with about 4-5h per episode.

I'm sure I have a bunch but two I haven't seen here:

OrdinaryThings - has shifted to MUCH longer form current-events / documentarian content. Humorous and pundit-y but also informative about world news I likely missed. His yearly "The ___ Business of 20__" videos are great recaps.

Harke - Found this channel basically by accident and fell in love with it. Admittedly pretty niche about a VERY specific kind of retro, but it's stuff I grew up with so I'm all about it. Retro adventure games and music and that kind of thing. Super underrated!

I like longer form sailing channels that avoid the more obvious place or lack basic sailing skills and are frankly dangerous. I don't get to sail as much as I like so this is a good look and what I would rather be doing.

Maddison Boat Works their recent videos are of their epic tour of the Pacific Ocean, the road less travelled. Beautifully shot and narrated.

NBJS single-handed sailing in the North Sea, often in bad weather.

Alluring Arctic depending what time period you pick there is a wide range of mostly arctic sailing. They recently did the North West passage and are currently over wintering in Greenland.

Depends on my mood, and some creators have come and go from my rotation, some random ones: Krystal Kyle and Friends (left leaning politics podcast) Warfronts (more medium form, but I think it's a good balance) The Right Opinion (long form documentaries, generally around controversial internet figures) Jim Can't Swim (JCS Criminal Psychology) Fredrick Knudsen (down the rabbit hole series) Karl Jobst (speed running documentaries essentially) Radking (Fallout lore stuff) SmoughTown (Elden Ring lore stuff) Ymfah (ridiculous video game challenges with humorous editing)

There's tons more ofc

Haven’t seen Philosophy Tube on here yet.

High quality and engaging deep dives on various philosophy-related topics. Abigail, the face of the channel is an actor and playwright (and an academic) and that very much shines through.

Seconded. Love their stuff. Also Contrapoints (who Philosophy Tube kinda ripped off, but hey ho, both great content.)

FD Signifier is good too.

I don't watch YouTube to often but I used to like to watch some content from Yes Theory.

My partner watches a few others though, I see her watching Smosh, which sometimes is good, she always watches good mythical stuff, but I am not as much of a fan of them.

I think I avoid YouTube mostly, but if Yes Theory fits your question, I like their underlying message (it started off as a saying Yes to life and taking chances and believing that people were inherently good and try to get communities and the world to come together it seems) and I was actually afraid to say it because I figured someone would come out and tell me how they are actually terrible people somehow. Hopefully not. (Fingers crossed)

This sounds like the premise behind an absolutely delightful 2008 film featuring Jim Carrey and Zooey Deschanel.
- Honestly kind of, but more communal. They focus more on say traveling to Yemen, Baghdad, "the most boring city on earth" to throw a get together, or really just getting out there and challenging people to like you said, say Yes. Seek Discomfort is one of their main slogans now. Basically get out of your comfort zone, and have fun.
  
  Say taking a 102 year old to Australia to ensure she made it to all 7 continents to encourage others that no age is to late https://youtu.be/38PwG3zGDDI

melodysheep - quality animations about universe, earth

thinmatrix - cozy, solo gamedev videos

I love melodysheep. The music is very good.

Technology Connections

So ... Do you have any recommendations for more like technology connections? I've watched through every video+even the ones in the backlog). A year or so ago I stumbled on cathode ray dude (similar nerd vibes) and I've also seen everything from him so if anyone has a recommendation on similar channels please let me know.
- TechMoan might be up your alley
The video on pinball machines was absolutely incredible

A couple fun ones I haven't seen mentioned:

Myron Cook - Think "the Bob Ross of Geology." Basically he goes out, finds some rock formation, goes "Huh. Isn't this cool? What do you think happened?" and walks you through everything dating back to like the formation of the planet. He's like a teddy bear and his channel is wonderful and fascinating.

Dan Hurd - He's a dorky gold prospector. He may have caused me to buy a gold panning set.

Folding Ideas is fantastic

Asmongold

Because I manually download videos to watch on the bus or train (thanks Grayjay & NewPipe), most of my subscriptions are for long-form content:

Retro Tech: Techmoan, Technology Connections, Posy, Janus Cycle, CRD, Ben Eater, DiodeGoneWild, pannenkoek2012, videolabguy, Adrian's Digital Basement,The Science Elf, previously LGR and 8-Bit Guy/Keys

Science: Kuvina Saydaki, BobbyBroccoli, Numberphile, Computerphile, carykh

Tech News & Discussion (not always long-form): Louis Rossmann, Mental Outlaw, Brodie Robertson, SomeOrdinaryGamers, Asianometry, Atomic Shrimp, previously Thunderf00t

Urbanism: Not Just Bikes, Adam Something, Alan Fisher, Tramly, BritMonkey

D&D Story Narration: CritCrab, Puffin Forest

Bold channels are most underrated imo

Let me lead with this: I'm taking recommendations for spooky channels.

Okay, first of all, how the fuck has nobody mentioned Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't? [https://youtube.com/@crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt](Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't)

You get to hear the angriest man alive nerd out about plants.

Someone else mentioned Tasting History with Max Miller and I must second that recommendation, it's a really good channel if you appreciate Cooking, History, and especially both.

For spooky stuff, I recommend Midnight Broadcast. They basically take 4chan/reddit creepypasta threads, clean it up a bit for the YouTube algo, feed it to an AI reader, and publish them as 20-30 minute videos. There's also a now dead channel called "Chass" that did the same thing, mixed in a bit of its own lore, and also did a couple of specials like the Epic of MonkeyHumper (11/10 story, possibly the best creepypasta ever published, cannot recommend enough). Though, Chass kept a bit more of the raw 4chan elements than MB does, so be ye warned.

Overanalyzing Avatar does that good 20-min long videos where he just really goes maximum nerd on Avatar The Last Airbender and Korra. It's passionate, funny, and interesting, and if you even kind of like the cartoons, I highly recommend giving him a try.

I'll add some more if I think of them

BizarreBub - 20 mins scary compilations (better than Chills, Nuke5s,Top5s,Dark5 combined imo)

Chilling Scares - spooky stories, videos

Both guys go straight to the point with no intros and sponsor blocks.
- I know bizarrebub, I have to agree with the recommendation, though some of the clips (especially when they involve little kids) can be real stinkers. Will check out chilling scares! Thanks!

Ahoy @xboxahoy. Very well produced videos about gaming. A brief history of graphics, iconic arms, video game origins and more.

I love the style of Ahoy's videos so much

There are two YouTubers who make videos 4+ hours long that you have to watch every minute of:

Jenny Nicholson

HBomberGuy

My same two!
Sure but HBG is the only one who can make a viral 4 hour video.
- Jenny's last 4 hour video went more than viral, to be fair.
These two were my first thought! I'll add that both cover a range of topics, Jenny does do a lot of videos around Star Wars, but also covers obscure films, and theme parks, wherenl HBomber runs the gamut from flat earth to vaccines to video games to plagiarism. Both are incredibly well researched and, in my opinion, offer very fair takes on the subject matter.
I love Jenny, so HBomberGuy would probably be good too

Peter Dibble has some great documentaries on historical curiosities around the Pacific Northwest, and beyond.

Technology Connections does deep dives into topics of technology, specific devices and appliances, and generally is very entertaining and informative.

RedLetterMedia for film critiques, so bad it’s good reviews, and comedy.

Defunctland does documentaries around theme parks.

Tasting History with Max Miller is a very educational historical food dishes show. Not super long form.

Matt Baume does great “LGBTQ+ in TV, historically” type of content. And wrote a book about it which is great too.

Stand-up Maths does great math content. Yeah, it’s math, but it’s fun. Bonus is he also wrote a great book relating to his content about engineering and maths mistakes in real life on large scales.

LGR- retro computer tech

Techmoan- retro audio tech

For Drfunctland, who doesn't want to watch an over hour long video on the design of FastPass?

I only really subscribe to two channels that focus on 20-30 minute videos and post on a pretty regular basis:

Technology Connections

Internet Comment Etiquette with Erik

Pineapple Erik needs a comeback!
Seconding Technology Connections. Great long form content
- The longest videos I watch on YouTube, and I enjoy every minute of them.
Seconding Internet Comment Etiquette. Information as art.
- Do your research sheeple 8========D aaaand post!
I love Technology Connections, but i do have watch at 1.75X or else it’s too long form for me.

Buckin Billy Ray - interesting videos about cutting trees down and servicing chainsaws. A little bit unchained (excuse the pun) in a wholesome way as he seems to randomly intersperse his videos with positive affirmations like 'be kind' 'love your friends' which is kind of wholesome

Way out west - an older English guy living in the West of Ireland making things like a railway for transporting garlic

I did a thing - a hilariously unhinged aussie bloke

James Hoffman - for coffee. And hames joffman also

Karl Rock - travels around India/Pakistan exploring the places

Mike okay - travels to really off the beaten track places like Iraq.

Maximus ironthumper - many videos, the project kermit series is him rebuilding a land rover defender from scratch

Still it - distilling and making spirits

You might be interested in Stillworks and Brewing, he's kinda amateur but a lot less click-baity than Still It.
- Nice, thanks for the suggestion! Distilling is illegal where I live and goodness knows I don't need yet another hobby right now but I love learning about it!

Depends how long is long form for you, if you mean like multi hour videos I have less to give. But for like 25 to 40 minutes videos:

Practical engineering - educational videos about civil engineering.

Dr. Becky - space/astronomy news from an astrophysicist.

Plainly difficult - civil disaster documentaries

Joseph Anderson - gaming essays (multi hour)

Raycevick - gaming essays (around 30min)

The sphere hunter - game essays, mainly classic horror

Jay Foreman - British comedy.

LGR - retro tech deep dives, and tech oddware.

Joe Scott - Did you know, style investigations.

Plus some already mentioned. There is probably more, but keeping this shorter.

Jay Foreman - definitely British, definitely funny, but its much more than that. Their series Unfinished London talks about infrastructure over the last hundred years and how it's affected the layout of the city. Really interesting and pretty funny.
I don’t know what changed but I don’t like Anderson as much these days

Angela Collier for commentary on physics. She has a lot of good commentary on the field itself (see her recent Feynman video), but also good science videos... that I usually lose track of about 3/4 of the way through, but I enjoy nonetheless.

My favorite video title of all time is still "alkaline water ...with lemon"
She did Feynman dirty.
Really loved her video on new Star Trek too, she has very similar vibes to Jenny Nicholson but has a lot of great science material too
I second Angela, informative, chill and kinda funny

I saw a lot of tech and science channel in the comments so to balance that out, here are some of my favourite crafting channels:

North of the border: creates a clay sculpture every week. Generally it is something nerdy or something cursed

Enchanterium: repaint dolls, often to popular characters. They also sew their own outfits. A lot of fun even if you're not interested in dolls

Nerdforge: create a lot of crazy projects, mostly related to nerdy stuff. (Last project was a 2m booknook)

Wicked makers: create decorations and animatronics for Halloween

Florian Gadsby: very talented potter with very relaxing voice and videos

Pottery to the people: pottery videos, often trying new experiments

Evan and Katelyn: videos on stuff that they build. Always a lot of fun (last video: how they built an ergonomic laptop)

TL Yarn Crafts: crochet videos

Kaypea Creations: making of art dolls (animals), either out of clay or fake fur.

Studson Studios: creates amazing sculptures out of mostly trash. Amazing channel, one of my favourites

Make strange things: makes strange things. Small channel but greatly appreciated

Boylei hobby time: creates dioramas

Lightning cosplay: creats amazing cosplays

Transcended furniture gallery: restores vintage furniture

Bonus: Half-Asleep Chris: videos with stop motion elements, mostly about cats and/or lego

Subbed to Enchanterium 👍 thanks for the rec!

These are channels I follow or at least like enough to look up once in a while. They're a bit random. I apologize if any are repeats, but they're worth repeating (and I didn't read every reply):

Adam Savage's tested: https://youtube.com/@tested
bigclivedotcom: https://youtube.com/@bigclivedotcom
Intelligence Squared: https://youtube.com/@intelligence-squared
MIT Open CourseWare: https://youtube.com/@mitocw
Townsends: https://youtube.com/@townsends

Entertainment:
Cirque du Soleil: https://youtube.com/@cirquedusoleil

Very other:
SBSK: https://youtube.com/@specialbooksbyspecialkids
the channel features a man who goes around and interacts with/interviews disabled children and adults. I take this one in small doses. It is not long form in the traditional sense of a well researched and thoroughly laid out topic, but I find it very wholesome/heartbreaking at the same time.

"Oki's Weird Stories" is so very good.

Also "Shaun" and very much "Shanspeare" are great, if you're looking for long-form content.

I keep thinking of more, so I'm just going to list them here:

AustinMcConnell, BobbyBroccoli, Dime Store Adventures, Fredrick Knudsen, Jenny Nicholson (already mentioned here many times!), Ahoy, Kid Leaves Stoop, Lady Emily, Sarah Z, Moon Channel, Paper Will, Soup Emporium.

Coffeezilla for crypto exposes

Crime related:

Disaster related:

Weird medical stories: https://www.youtube.com/@chubbyemu

Interesting economic vids: https://www.youtube.com/coldfusion/

Business and economics: https://www.youtube.com/c/Wendoverproductions/

Geopolitics explainer vids: https://www.youtube.com/@CaspianReport/

Theme park history: https://www.youtube.com/@Defunctland/

Interesting historical themed vids: https://www.youtube.com/@YoreHistory/

awesome comment! saved for later
above and beyond, thank you!
We have similar taste in youtubers! If you enjoy those disaster related videos, I recommend Abstract (formerly Real Horror). Great production value and storytelling. She does all her own work as far as I know, so she doesn't have a huge playlist to watch sadly. But the narration and setup really add a gravitas to the disasters that I feel the other youtubers are missing.

https://m.youtube.com/@Abstract
- Has 9 videos and 0.5M subs, I feel they might be worth looking at!
I guess I should have expected it, but I was hoping they were videos on how to do crime... ☹️
- Lol. The Lockpicking Lawyer springs to mind 😁
If you’re into true crime, I highly recommend https://youtube.com/@thatchapter

Mike is a good storyteller and makes videos that aren’t just stock footage and images spliced together.

Black Dragon Tavern

Storytelling about Celtic, Gaelic, and Norse mythology, history, and lore.

Warning: AI pictures are used to compliment the stories.

No wonder I feel like such an outsider here. I've been on youtube for almost two decades and there's not a single channel I follow mentioned here in this thread.

EDIT: Well there was one match: Primitive Technology

Na, you just found other good stuff, YouTube is actually really massive. Add some of yours here as well!
- Andrew Camarata (heavy machinery), Advoko Makes (bushcraft), Blacktail Studios (woodworking), Foreyes Furniture (woodworking), Foresty Forest (van life & hiking), Alec Steele (blacksmithing), Animagraphs (3D models of how stuff works), Berm Peak (mountain biking), Chris Fix (mechanics), Cleetus McFarland (cars, flying), Colin Furze (making), DIY Perks (making), Garand Thumb (guns), good Times Bad Times (geopolitics), Grind Hard Plumbing Co. (custom vehicle builds), Jon Gadget (EDC gadgets), Lincoln St. Woodworks (woodworking), Matthias Wandell (woodworking) Project Farm (product reviews & testing), Max Maker (making), Müjin (home improvement), Night Shift (scale models), Northmen (woodworking, building, blacksmithing), Outdoors55 (knife sharpening), Peter Santenello (travel / people), Practical Engineering (civil engineering explained), This Old Tony (machining)

Cutting Edge Engineering (heavy machinery repair done incredibly well…addictive to watch)
Martijn Doolaard (restoring cabins in the Italian Dolomites)
AvE (though I’m pretty sure he’s conservative)
Primitive Technology (an anthropologist that recreates primitive technologies like kilns and huts)
Watcheyes (amazing ASMR watch repair)
Clickspring (ambitious machinist projects)
3Blue1Brown (beautiful info graphics to explain concept topics)
The Signal Path (a pro electrical engineer talking about and repairing advanced electronics)
Democracy Now (leftist news)
Tech Ingredients (a professor and his students inventing tech gadgets and sharing their work)
Applied Science (one of the most advanced and ambitious YouTube scientist inventors out there)
Cody’s Lab (a brilliant guy who lives on a ranch doing science and metallurgical experiments)
NileRed (excellent YouTube chemistry channel with incredibly ambitious projects)
Fireship (articulate infographic explainer of tech news)
Mental Outlaw (news and leftism)
Behind the Bastards (podcast about the worst people in history)
Two Minute Papers (an AI researcher reacts to new research papers)
bigclivedotcom (a brilliant electrical engineer’s musings)
Hackaday (a podcast that talks about news stories on Hackaday which is a feed of impressive electronic maker projects)
The Amp Hour (pro electrical engineers chatting)
Andreas Spiess (an IOT maker sharing his work)
Tsoding (a brilliant Russian software engineer screencasts his wizardry)
Tsoding Daily (a brilliant Russian software engineer screencasts his wizardry)
No Boilerplate (BEAUTIFUL explanations of the features of different programming languages)
CinemaStix (REALLY solid documentaries about films and filmmakers)
Pitching Ninja (the smartest pitching analyst by a mile)
Jeff Geerling (super thorough computer hardware and software reviews, builds, experiments, and musings)
Strange Loop Conference (YouTube channel for this really good conference with tons of brilliant talks from software engineers and language authors)
Impure Pics (a really helpful channel for Haskellers and Purescript people)
Psionic Audio (an amp repair guy that doesn’t bring his fucked up life into his channel and alienate all of us like Uncle Doug)
Computerphile (really solid explanations of complex topics by researchers and professors in all fields of computer science)
Abom79 (a really solid machinist that does a good job walking you through everything he does)
Tweag (a brilliant software engineering company’s channel)
Serokell (a brilliant software engineering company’s channel)
NixCon (all things Nix/NixOS)
IOG Academy (a brilliant software engineering company’s channel)
Mend It Mark (an electronics repair guy with the kindest disposition)
Man Carrying Thing (politics and satire)
Vimjoyer (excellent infographics and walkthroughs of technologies)
HasanAbi (politics) 🇵🇸✊🏽

AvE (though I’m pretty sure he’s conservative)

You're right. AvE went completely off the deep end during the height of Covid, and revealed that his being a scumbag isn't just doing a bit for the camera.
- Do you have a link to his undoing?
  
  His knowledge of everything mechanical and electronic is pretty useful though. I’ve learned a TON from him but now I prefer Cutting Edge Engineering to scratch that kind of itch.
Good list, many hits with my list. Let me recommend "Tally Ho" and "Escape to Rural France" to you, although the latter might be too short for "long format" with 10 minutes per episode, give or take.

For long form,

Bobby Broccoli, ~1hr videos on science scandals https://youtube.com/@bobbybroccoli

Defunctland, 30m to 1h45m videos on defunct theme parks and rides https://youtube.com/@defunctland

Your dinosaurs are wrong, 15m to 1h45m videos on comparing toy dinosaurs to the most up to date research https://youtube.com/@yourdinosaursarewrong

2nd on Drachinifel, 7m to 1h45m videos on naval History https://youtube.com/@drachinifel

Perun, 1h videos on defense economics https://youtube.com/@perunau

Diplo Strats, 2h to 6h videos on diplomacy the board game, like risk on massive steroids https://youtube.com/@diplostrats

Explore with Us

I have been a fan of Kraut for a long time. He makes video essays on a lot of historical and political topics. He has made two massive three part series that total to nearly four hours about the histories of Mexico and Turkey. He makes some short form as well, like a point about american healthcare that americans don't realize.

@Kraut_the_parrot

For comedy I love watching Drew Gooden and especially Kurtis Conner.
DougDoug (Twitch Streamer) has an incredible creativity for stream ideas and his videos on the main channel are edited incredibly well to capture the essence of a stream in ~30 minutes.
Techmoan is one of my favorite technology YouTubers. He has such a calming voice
Another Tech YouTuber I really love is CRD - Cathode Ray Dude. He pretty much is the nerdiest nerd for the most incredible niches. Highly recommend
To get some girls here: I enjoy the essays by Gabi Belle quite a lot, she makes video essays on pop culture with a high focus on music and Gordon Ramsay for some reason

Two video game ones:

+1 for NCG. His gears of war retrospective is fantastic

Red letter media

I love Star Trek, but don't want to watch the modern Alex kurtzman garbage, so they take the bullet for me.

I'm also not a movie guy, so watching their reviews/analysis while playing Minecraft is more entertaining than the movies they talk about.

Best of the worst is them watching B and direct to video movies that i wouldn't otherwise know about.

kurtzman is so trash for NUTREK, and there are so many people actually defending the current franchises on youtube videos, did they not noticed the material was most lifted off of memory alpha and the fan novels? why it so bad in taste. the animated series, however im partial to.

as for SNW ITS BETWEEN disco in terribleness(its a sold C- show), but not as bad but no where near "2000s enterprise series level of great series". the enterprise series wouldve continued beyond 4 seasons, if not for LES MOONVEs, who hated star trek.

both picard and disco were just plain cringey. almost always on the 3 series, use romulan at end of season 1 as clickbait and then completely dropping thier arcs.
Watch strange new worlds, Mike is rightfully dead inside after disco, but I genuinely like a majority of Strange New worlds, and generally align with Mike and Rich on most other Star Trek. I do think they praised season 3 of picard too much.
[email protected]

Adding a few I haven't already seen:

https://www.youtube.com/@NeverKnowsBest - very long form videos on video games
https://www.youtube.com/c/SummoningSalt - documentaries on speedrunning in various games
https://www.youtube.com/@Steve1989MRE - reviews of military rations, spanning from very old to very new
https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes - videos on urbanism from the perspective of The Netherlands
https://www.youtube.com/@SkipIntroYT - videos about TV shows

Steve is a legend. Love that guy.

I have a few to recommend:

SEA and Astrum. Almost interchangeable calm and chill space documentary channels. If you're like me and get a spinny mind around bedtime, these are great, they hold my attention to keep my mind from racing and are calm enough to drift to sleep while listening.
Bedtime Stories. Anything from urban legends to strange disappearances told in a campfire ghost story format accompanied by hand drawn illustrations. Sometimes wanders into hibbidy jibbidy but fun nonetheless. See also Wartime Stories for a similar format focusing on stories from/about the military.
History For Granite. I read this guy as an armchair archaeologist who is interested primarily in the pyramids and megalithic structures of ancient Egypt almost as much as he is at sniping at Zahi Hawass. Possibly a bit of a crank, though his wild ideas tend to be things like "The pyramid was designed to remain open for worshippers to routinely enter" and he often focuses on the engineering of the structures and layout of the stones.
Nexpo. Short for Nightmare Expo, purveyor of creepy stories.
Captain KRB. Video essayist, fond of minecraft, retro media, and occasional odd stories like the Voynich manuscript or the Cicada 3301 mystery.
Lemmino, started out as a top ten list channel, has pivoted to long form documentaries on a "when it's done" basis. Topics range from the history of the "Cool S" graffiti symbol to the Lost Colony of Roanoke.
Ahoy. Churns out one, maybe two videos a year on the topic of video games, primarily video game weapons. Typical format will introduce a weapon, say, the M-16 combat rifle, discuss its real world invention and service history, then its depiction in video games and possibly other media. Peppered in are other more general video game topics; his video on Polybius is particularly good.
This Old Tony. A dude named Tony whose got a hobby machine shop full of dad jokes in his garage.
Clickspring. Australian dude who makes soul-achingly beautiful videos about clockmaking and machining. Go watch him build a clock out of raw brass and tell me your life hasn't changed.
Tech Tangents. One of those guys who will hold an 8-bit ISA card in his hands with a look of utter rapture on his face, he repairs, restores and documents old computer and gaming equipment, and operates a capacitor wiki. He once reverse engineered an ISA adapter card to get a very early CD-ROM drive functioning...live on Twitch.

SEA and Astrum

Can confirm. The one thing that bugs me about Astrum is the clickbaity titles (along the lines of "The Image That Shocked NASA Scientists!", that sort of thing), but don't let that turn you off and away, the content is solid and the tone is much more grounded than those stupid faux-populist titles, which I'm sure the author chooses to gain traction with YouTube's skewed algorithmic tyranny.

Another channel I'd love to add here is ParallaxNick, who does astronomy and science history videos, this man is a poet and a scholar, deserves a million subscribers and more.

Fall of Civilizations

A podcast about the collapse of civilizations throughout history.

Why do civilizations collapse? What happens afterwards? And what did it feel like to watch it happen?

The original podcast episodes have been set to high-quality video of the area being discussed and whatever remains of the civilization are possible to capture on video.

The discussion of what we know about these dead civilizations and what happened to them is really fascinating.

Seconded, best history channel on Youtube that I know of. Only downside is that there are months between episodes, which isn't surprising though given the in-depth analysis presented in each.

Folding Ideas is a favorite of mine.

I personally enjoy these but not sure if its what your looking for

The outdoor boys - goes solo camping and sometimes brings his kids along, family trips abroad, and also creating a homestead.

Westinchamplin - modifies cars and trucks for red neck science.

Paolo from tokyo - interesting takes on the life of japan series was the best. Shows all different types of jobs from japan

My #1 go to is probably Cathode Ray Dude. He makes videos mostly on old tech which is what I'm very interested in.

If you're more looking for exposing scandals there's always Coffeezilla/Voidzill.

who do you recommend I follow?

What I like may not be what you like at all. I mean, depends on your interests.

And I don't "follow" any of these, watch every thing when it comes out. These are just some YouTubers for whom I've had a high proportion of their material wind up being something that I feel is worth watching.

Montemayor

Does military history, mostly naval. Does not put out a lot of videos, but from the ones that I do follow, has really done his research through the written material out there before putting the material out, does a good job of highlighting what's important.

To a lesser degree, Drachinifel and The Operations Room. They're also military history, but I don't feel like they do as much research or highlight the important bits as well. Drachinifel focuses more on surface gun-era naval warfare, and The Operations Room tends to deal with newer stuff.

The Slow Mo Guys. Not exactly deep stuff, but they do one thing: high-quality interesting slow-motion footage. Pretty popular, so you may have heard of them before. I think it might be interesting to have some sort of analogous channel that does videos of microscope stuff, pans around something with a nice microscope.

SmarterEveryDay does, I think, a good job of explaining interesting things in our daily world from an engineering/technical standpoint; guy does a good job of researching his material. You'll probably walk away from this knowing this that you didn't.

CGPGrey does stick-figure illustrated things that also highlight interesting stuff, often relating to legal or political or historical stuff.

Perun does defense economics, and has had interesting and informed material on the Russo-Ukrainian War. Michael Kofman, an analyst who focuses on the Russian military, doesn't have a YouTube channel, but many YouTube channels do interview him, and while he's kind of dry, I also think that his material on Ukraine is pretty worthwhile -- he's consistently avoided alarmist stuff or cheerleading over the course of the war. Can find material with him via searching for his name.

One of the problems I have with YouTube is a side effect of the fact that it pays content creators. I don't have any real problem with that per se -- I mean, sure, you wanna do work and get paid, that's fine. The problem is that there's no real "YouTube of articles". The result is that a lot of content creators out there are putting stuff in video form that really doesn't need to be in video form, just because they want some reasonable way to monetize it. The above videos are from people who generally take advantage of the video format (well, Michael Kofman could really do just fine on a podcast and often does, but aside from that). I've seen too many YouTube videos -- including those being submitted on the Threadiverse -- that would really be better as text and possibly image articles.

EDIT: Oh, right. Someone else mentioned Primitive Technology, which I would definitely second. Has a guy go out in the woods with just his shorts and basically manufacture a lot of basic technology from the ground up. Does have subtitles, but no narration or speech. The practical use of what he does is probably limited, but I found it fascinating. I remember that this was very popular for a while on Reddit.

Abstract - break down of disasters and crimes with excellent narration and very interesting topics

Rare Earth - highlights uncommon locations (speaking as a Westerner) and the often horrific histories that framed their civilization/cities/people

Micerah Tewers - super talented maker that sews copies of red carpet looks and other fun custumes with some home decor. Not instructional at all, just fast paced and entertainingly wholesome

Ask a Mortician - really fascinating deep dives into what happened to the bodies of famous people, or people who died in extreme circumstances. She has recently highlighted a few infamous shipwrecks...which brings me to

Oceanliner designs and Part Time Explorer - both nautical history buffs that articulate the grandeur and sometimes horror of ship travel

Miniminuteman - archeology videos featuring a lot of lesser known sites that are fascinating. Articulate dismantling of psuedo-archeology bullshit and refreshingly modern understanding of science communication

LadyKnightthebrave - discussing the emotions that film and tv can make you feel. Honestly just cathartic if she talks about a movie you feel strongly about, like the articulate friend you wish you had to decompress with after an emotional movie

Contrapoints - incredible everything from set design to arguments. Long form, in depth explanations about a lot of topics some people would consider taboo, or that people are close minded about.

Atun Shei Films - known primarily for Check Mate Lincolnites which is a comedic sketch that dismantles lost cause myths from the civil war. Lots of interesting historical and film stuff.

Lindybeige - every video feels like an eccentric history professor's impassioned tangent on a subject he deeply cares about, so it entirely derails the original subject of the lecture.

I love me some ContraPoints and Philosophy Tube. Whenever ContraPoints releases a new video, it's like a big movie night for me and my girlfriend.

I like the Why Files, very entertaining even if they have to ruin the fun by "telling the actual story" at the end.

Most of my favourites have been mentioned already, but I wanna add a really niche one:

OSW Review, old school wrestling video podcast. Some Irish blokes who watch old wrestling shows und discuss them in a mostly humorous, yet still informative manner.

Upvote and another shout out for OSW. They initially went through old school WWF, have now covered older and newer stuff from TNA and AEW, as well as film reviews and some video game deep dives. They do have quite a few running jokes at this point, but not so much that it would alienate new viewers.

I don't know why I get suggestions for flat earth and anti-evolution videos but I like watching them because I learn a lot. My guess is that because of my interest in comedy videos I discovered "Patti Reviews Exotic Animals". From there I got" Clint's Reptiles". He is a a theist that accepts and explains evolution. I never doubted it but never took the time to learn what it was all about.

Then I get "Professor Dave Explains". He's fantastic. So many good science videos. So many videos where he puts an end to the dumbest ideas I've never even heard of. Do I need to learn how to argue with a creationist? No, but now I know how.

"Gutsick Gibbon" is awesome. Hers are on the larger side so I haven't seen them all but she's got great science education.

The last one I'll mention is "Lindsay Nikole" because she's my second favorite. If you want to know about the history of life on Earth then she's the best. Why isn't she my first favorite? It's because I don't have a favorite and I want her name to stick in you mind when you go to search youtube for things to watch. You'll notice she has guitars on her wall and I someday I hope to get her on a music project. I write songs about bugs and need her to get on at least one of them in some way. That would be cool as fuck.

If you don’t mind me asking: what do you learn from flat earth and anti-evolution videos?

I'm hooked on Corridor Crew. They review and explain good and bad cgi/vfx in shows and movies.

Not exactly long from, but I agree they're great!

If you're interested or curious about music theory (even if you don't know much about it), I recommend Charles Cornell. Here's one of him talking about Pure Imagination.

Wow, this is great!!

I also like 12tone but those are probably more like medium -form videos

I like Dime Store Adventures for history trivia and exploration, mostly USA focused.

Nerd³ (nerd cubed) long form video game content while he talks about the game he's playing, sprinkled with commentary about life and current events

Cold Fusion. Sort of a mini documentary on news items, one item at a time. Tech focused.

I watch a few different channels regularly. Here are a few of my favorites

Cecilia Blomdahl lives in the Arctic Circle/northern Norway and has lots of adventures and videos her day to day life in a really interesting way.

Also some Brits who have been renovating abandoned chateaus in France called Escape the Dream and a new one called Mucky Mansion are great escapism

Brain Pilot makes some good videos recapping a few shows i enjoy

I have a few classic youtubers I still watch from back in the day Safiya Nygard and Grace Helbig, for some beauty/crazy fashion/cooking stuff

If you want a sane political/comedy channel, Trae Crowder, the Liberal Redneck is fantastic. In that same vein, Some More News does fantastic deep dives in lots of political and social issues focused mostly on the US

Living big in a tiny house is really interesting seeing cool tiny homes around the world

Takis shelter is a channel from an amazing man who runs a sanctuary for animals in Crete and is a literal saint

For videogame essays, my two faves are Jacob Geller and Powerpak

I haven't seen it mentioned but I enjoy channels like Solo Solo Travel - slow-TV style videos about public transportation. What food can you get on a first class flight from Tokyo to Australia? All the videos have zero commentary unless you turn on the subtitles.

I enjoy them a lot because they're very relaxing and make me feel very cozy.

I really enjoy Calum's work on obscure vehicles, shipping containers, and stuff like that: https://www.youtube.com/@CalumRaasay

Mustard has other fun vehicles, often with a focus on aircraft: https://www.youtube.com/@MustardChannel

David Hilowitz does fun stuff with musical instruments (finding them, sampling them, stuff like that): https://www.youtube.com/@DavidHilowitzMusic

I love wargaming miniatures and basically the only channel I watch on the subject is Eric's Hobby Workshop: https://www.youtube.com/@EricsHobbyWorkshop

Love David Hilowitz, he's got such a consistent style

Do yourself a favour and watch Ed Pratt Unicycle around the world. This is one of my favourite things on YouTube, watching him go from just a kid with a weird dream to a great filmmaker and experienced traveler in such an authentic way. Highly recommended

My recommendation for travel would be 'Bald and Bankrupt', in particular I loved his whole Russian/Ex-Soviet Union series.

For documentaries, I do enjoy the 'Down the Rabbit Hole' documentaries. They did a great one on Terry A. Davis a few years back

The soviet Union series was great, but anything I watched after that was boring to be honest.

JustBackgroundNoise - morrowind challenges
PatricianTV - Extremely long format game reviews (elder scrolls, world of warcraft and more)
RealLifeLore - Geopolitics

Hochelaga, Horses, Real Science, ContraPoints, Knowing better

For stuff about films, I like 'Thomas Flight' and 'Like Stories Of Old'. LSOO has just released a video about Gladiator II that I'm going to watch in a bit (I'm hoping he hated it as much as I did!)

Hakim, Mental Outlaw, Second Though , Alice Capelle, The Hated One

MLiG

For history, I really like Premodernist. It's just a history professor telling you history. It's great because he's a good storyteller and he actually knows the subject.

I enjoy efap which is probably the longest form, especially Mauler, the others are generally better in a mixed crowd. It's movies and Internet drama for the most part.

Dude I started of liking Mauler's dive into Soma, iirc, but he went off the rails so quickly and made some pretty disgusting diss tracks of other YouTubers that completely turned me off.

Vice grip garage.