Title essentially. Youtube’s algorithm is hot garbage, so I can’t search for anything anymore without a ton of AI slop and rage bait. So, who do you go to for actual good long form videos? Exposes, scandals, behind the scenes, documentaries, film, travel, transit, who do you recommend I follow?
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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?
I left at the same time. As a science minded person the phrase “Feminism ruins everything” is just such a low effort and absolutist statement that even if it were somewhat accurate it would betray a lack of serious consideration. On top of that, it isn’t true. He makes all sorts of claims that are just not true and has no understanding of feminism beyond his echo chamber. He knows some stuff about chemistry, has done legit research such as on how the sodium water explosion happens, and yeah, in that area he knows his shit, but like many people he steps past his actual area of expertise without the humility required to learn about a new field without jumping to conclusions.
The world of feminism is deep and full of confronting ideas like how the low availability of emotional expression on boys leads to low emotional regulation in men, but Thunderf00t just goes with the lowest effort “Men are victims” line rather than seeing feminists agree with harms happening to men and want to fix those too.
He still hates Anita Sarkeesian and Rebecca Watson.
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.
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.
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
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.
Maritime Horrors is great, but for the same vibes as him I also watch Brick Immortar and Big Old Boats from time to time.
And if you’re into mode sky boats then Green Dot Aviation is your guy
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.
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
OK that sounds exactly made for me
WTYP Pod, the podcast that hates you back!
WTYP Pod, the podcast that hates you back!
Their episode about Y2K hooked me.
“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.
Clay sculpting with humorous narration.
Watch 30 seconds to get the feel. One of the best.
Science and futurism with Isaac Arthur.
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.
Jenny Mickelson 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!
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.
Asmongold
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
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.
Did you see his latest video about algorithms? Best video so far this year imo
Yes, I figured that might have been part the trigger for the thread.
