Hey, I'm working on a project to help users discover more interesting content on YouTube. Our channel-based recommendations allow you to search a channel and get a list of other channels making similar content, with a focus on surfacing relevant smaller and more obscure channels.
We have most of these channels mapped and I think you'll be able to discover some interesting new content on some of these lists, especially in the more niche categories of the shoe commentators and the London transport channel:
I hope some people find the tool useful. You can search channel names in the top bar or click icons in the lists to navigate to different channels' pages.
Edit. Seriously, not sure what it is but the site looks wacky. Like only partially rendering and elements out of focus and missing some borders etc. Is this planned? Not sure it's the best way to attract users....
Just put out an update on the database to correct the missing icons. As channels change icons the old links go dead. Should be back to near 100% icon coverage now.
As far as "elements out of focus and missing some borders" goes, I think this may be referring to the choice to have channel descriptions pop-up on hover in the lists rather than cluttering the screen with text. It may be something else, we do use a gray background underneath the page headline (with the channel title, subscriber count, large red "View on YouTube" button, and channel icon), for example.
Of course, we'd love to hear more feedback on the page design choices.
Matthias Wandel's channel, mainly on carpentry but really, on anything he posts, is very good. He's so good at what he does that I'd add him to that old cliché - "if you look up Engineer in the dictionary, his picture comes up". From his series on woodworking machine construction to just about anything else, his analytic mind has visualized the solution and has avoided the various pitfalls related to it.
Andrew & co. just don't miss. From All Gas No Brakes till now as Channel 5 the videos are either great or perfect. They always provide such an amazing insight.
Thank you for sharing. I listened to a wonderful poem linked below. The author wrote it for his son when he turned 12. On a sad and tangential note, years after this poem was published, he “pulled strings” to get his son to serve in WW1. His son died and he later wrote: “If any question why we died / Tell them that our fathers lied.”
Yep, love Adrian's Digital Basement. Lots of Commodore 64 repair videos and I feel like I'm learning more about the hardware from watching the repairs.
Lots of videos using early Apple gear, but it's not exclusively Apple. HN might know him for his FrogFind search engine, designed for use on vintage computers with resource constrained browsers. I really enjoyed his recent videos getting the Apple IIGS online, and testing Wolfenstein 3D on the IIGS with increasingly fast IIGS CPU accelerator boards. Once you get to around 14 Mhz it actually looks playable...
Scott Manley. Started with Kerbal Space Program videos, now one of the leading freelance Space YouTube channels: https://www.youtube.com/c/szyzyg
Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut. Bought a Russian space suit, started wearing it and making videos. Has leveled up to interviewing Elon Musk, and other notable Space related people such as the former NASA administrator: https://www.youtube.com/c/EverydayAstronaut
Lindsay Ellis. Got her start in an ensemble channel, in the last few years has produced long form video essays mainly about film. Nothing in recent months sadly: https://www.youtube.com/c/LindsayEllisVids
Documentaries from Vice, Vox, Journey Man Pictures, Al Jazeera and DW TV are very good and available on YouTube.
Non-English channels:
https://www.youtube.com/c/Raanvata07 (the guy treks various unmaintained ancient "forts" in the Indian state of Maharashtra; photography is good as the guy himself is a photographer)
He has a series on building your own computer. His "World's Worst Video Card" is also instructive. Ben's brain must be wired differently from the rest of us, as nearly all of us would have given up long before reaching the stages that he has.
For music, something about the corporate library music of my childhood lifts my spirits with its bombastic naffness. I've recently discovered fusion, which I see as the precursor to that. A guy called Terminal Passage collects old 70s vinyl and digitises them for Youtube.
GameHut, where Jon Burton, a developer from Traveller’s Tales; goes into extreme technical depth as to how they managed to pull of some seriously ludicrous achievements on the SEGA Genesis/MegaDrive such as the FPS section in ‘Toy Story’, or the supposedly-impossible transparent polygons in Sonic R for the SEGA Saturn.
If you’ve got the mind for it, Burton’s channel is one of the most fascinating I’ve been blessed to see. It’s an amazing achievement of sharing highly obscure technical detail for no reason but passion.
Tom Scott ( https://www.youtube.com/c/TomScottGo ) is one of my favorites which I have seen mentioned a lot, but I am surprised to see almost no mention of Stuff Made Here, or Smarter Everyday. Both are amazing channels.
Hands down the best post-pandemic discovery has been Martijn Doolaard: a Dutch gentleman that bought a pair of old houses in the Italian Alps, and with a lot of patience, DIY and elbow grease is turning them into an off-the-grid home.
No music, no sponsors, no ads, just nature, ingenuity, long shots, some conversation and (small spoilers) heartwarming human collaboration.
Warning: you will get an itch to leave the city behind, for a better life close to nature.
I really like Jimmy Akin for his podcast, "Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World". It covers various mysteries topics, from the cause of inflation to remote viewing and parapsychology. Jimmy does all of this in a non sensationalist way while retaining an interesting story-like format. As a Catholic, Jimmy gives both the reason and faith perspectives.
There are probably better more technical YouTubers in this space but I don't have the patience for long form video essays, GMTK is usually pretty concise.
I play it at night as a sleeping aid. For some reason it hasn't gotten old yet, 2 years of nightly play. Helps me wake up fresh so I can do my engineer/entrepreneur work :)
Also helps out cleaning my YouTube recommendations from TV like rubbish.
Don your safety squints, I’m surprised no one has mentioned Uncle Bumblefuck, AvE [0]. All-around tool teardowns, machining, enginerding and et cetera. Highly recommended.
https://youtube.com/c/dallasmed65 dallasmed65is probably one of the most creative and oldest minecraft player you can find on youtube he is severely underated but i love his channel and his 10 year old world.
Ali Abdaal: https://www.youtube.com/c/aliabdaal
He is an amazing nerd of science entrepreneur guy that shows you how to.... many great stuff, in a very simple way. I love it.
Is there a single fucking channel in these links that isn't full of affiliates, sponsorships, "thanks" hearts with dollar signs in them, or donate links? This is the fucking internet. This isn't television 2.0.
Forrest Haggerty Channel - this guy just recently got a donate link because dumb people in the comments were telling him to do it and he listened. Ugh. But he's a really good educator. Gives only the facts about events using Google Earth.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiEbRbR2F34dORnT0faWFXw/vid...
Pat Condell - speaks directly to the camera with one take, no editing, no begging for money, and straight to the point commentary on politics and atheism.
https://www.youtube.com/c/patcondell/videos
ewhac - the developer of Escape from Monster Manor for the 3DO. Has a LOT of insight about the 3DO video game system not found on any other channel or anywhere on the net, really. Doesn't beg for money or donations.
https://www.youtube.com/c/ewhac/videos
big blue frontend - developer working on native PC port of Final Fight. Also has deeply insightful videos about arcade emulation not found anywhere else online. I have yet to find any other human know more about the accuracy of arcade emulation than this guy. Doesn't beg for money or even monetize his videos. This is the INTERNET.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwPvdwZZ35dm6xozp-zpcpQ/vid...
Who of us on Napster got paid for sharing our music collections with other people? Oh that's right: nobody.
Most people who look at the internet as a place for profit feel they own the videos they upload. So if you reupload a video they deleted, they copyright strike you. Do you know how much of a violation that is? Once you upload something to the internet you no longer own it. That's been the way it's been for years. Now these people come along and try to stop you from mirroring things or having it be lost to time, and I bet you support that, DON'T YOU?
- Stuff made here, building incredible inventions: https://m.youtube.com/c/stuffmadehere
- BPS Space, advanced model rocketry: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCILl8ozWuxnFYXIe2svjHhg
Both cover engineering, machining, 3d printing, software, algorithms - love them!