askchapo

Technology Connections. I know nothing about that guy, but being able to watch someone with terrible hair talk about washing machines for an hour basically justifies the existence of YouTube imho

Moose2 (Brutalmoose)!

Extremely comfy streams of random stuff, mostly vintage games for Windows 98 and XP, on original hardware (no emulation). His Nancy Drew videos are just the best.

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.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_hK9fOxyy_TM8FJGXIyG8Q

Dhar Mann, the goat

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.

I really enjoy Exurb1a

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

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.

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.

• 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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

She's also gotten two new chibi avatars!

Ææugh!

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.