Post the names of youtubers and other internet microcelebs you love with a burning passion based on more than vibes. Very preferably not large.
A good example is Cathode Ray Dude, who makes long videos on older technology. He doesn’t seem to have done anything reactionary, he’s got a personality far beyond “the algorithm”, and he doesn’t associate with any terrible people. And I enjoy his videos.
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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
He feels like someone who is hiding his power level, though the power level he is hiding is succdem
Through the magic of buying two of them!
I’m amazed it’s not been mentioned here yet - Luna oi! 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’m sorry to keep NL-posting but there’s a reason he’s like the only youtuber/streamer with emotes on here. He’s simply the GOAT of being a nice well-rounded person who is also actually funny.
His balatro videos were food for the soul. anti-slop
- Retro Game Mechanics Explained - pretty much what it says on the tin. Super well-structured breakdowns of retro game stuff (like getting down to the assembly level) with some of the best visualizations I’ve ever seen.
- pannenkoek2012 - this man has so much passion for pushing the SM64 A Button Challenge to its limits and all of the SM64 minutiae that have been discovered in the process. I want to live in a world where everyone can pursue their passion like pannen no matter how seemingly trivial.
- Kaze Emanuar - detailed technical breakdowns from a German man with a monomaniacal drive to squeeze every last microsecond of performance gain out of Super Mario 64, which has led him to rewrite large swathes of the game engine.
- MartSnack - okay, so he’s only got two videos as of this comment, but they’re some of the best goddamn videos on YouTube. Even if he had just posted the first one he would have a better output than most could dream of, but then two years later he dropped an even more impressive video. They both involve playing Pokémon “deaf and blind”–in other words, coming up with a sequence of inputs that will beat the game regardless of any RNG. The amount of work that went into these videos is truly mind-boggling, and he presents it in a very digestible and entertaining way.
- 8-Bit Music Theory - wonderful music theory channel which teaches concepts using examples from all across the world of gaming (two great videos to start with are his videos on the Dolphin Shoals sax solo and Baka Mitai). I appreciate that he uses concrete examples with detailed transcriptions and doesn’t dumb down the explanations, and he doesn’t just focus on the what but the why, showing how you can apply these concepts in composition. I think you can enjoy his channel even without music theory knowledge just for the experience of going, “Oh, neat, I never realized that this technique was being used in these different pieces!” and gaining appreciation for the craft; that said, if you are interested in music theory this is a really fun way to get introduced to concepts big and small. You’re not going to master any one concept just from watching a 15 minute video with some examples, of course, but watching his videos has primed me for when I do come across those topics in my more rigorous study and helped me hear things when doing transcriptions. Just having that bit of prior exposure really makes things less daunting, and I treat his channel as a library for when I want to brush up on a topic (his series on modes is especially invaluable!).
- Jonko the ROM Hacker - Another channel with only a few videos, but if you’re interested in ROM hacking I can hardly recommend a better place to start. The channel is run by the leader of a Haruhi fan translation group (that website also has some technical blog posts if you’re hungry for more or prefer written explanations). As a bonus, you don’t have to worry about whether he’s some cryptofascist because he puts
at the beginning of all his presentations. - Hilltop - Another wonderful romhacking channel this one with a focus on PS1 games; I’ve linked to the playlist of all his romhacking breakdowns. Not much to say other than, if anyone can recommend other channels with romhacking/game reverse engineering videos of similar depth and quality, please share them!
- hazel - comfy cozy anime/retro game vibes. I’m gonna be real, I’ve only watched a few of her videos, but I’ve enjoyed all the ones I’ve seen so far. I think her video on old-school fansites will resonate with fellow millennials wistful for the days of the personal web before big tech got their claws into everything.
- Hunter R. - all the weird little trivia you could ever want to know about Animal Crossing and more! As you might guess from the other channels I’ve listed, this one has a fair bit of focus on some of the technical aspects of the series, and there’s a focus on the GameCube game in particular.
- KRAZAM - satire on the world of software development. Highlights include Microservices, The Hustle, and AI Boyfriend.
I sense a theme here (no shade)
Lol, yeah…they all basically check some or all of these boxes for me:
- Figuring out how things work/solving puzzles
- Programming
- Sticking it to the man (e.g. by taking their proprietary code and transforming it into something the people can use freely)
- Video games
I barely even play games these days, but I did a lot as a kid so I think that’s why it’s a comfy substrate for me. And since romhacking/game decompilation checks all of those boxes, I can’t get enough of it. None of my friends are remotely into this stuff, so to the internet I must go!
I play stormworks and no one I know does. I had a friend play with me for a bit, but tapped out once we started touching LUA and PIDs.
I’d never even heard of that game before but it looks super interesting! I know a bit about digital logic, but it looks like it goes well beyond the basics, and on top of that you’ve got the scripting you mentioned plus practically an entire CAD program to build whatever your heart desires and then plop that into the game world.
It’s kinda funny, because it’s basically the opposite of what I just described. One of the things I like about reverse engineering is that I don’t have to actually build or design anything directly, since the program/device is already finished—it’s more detective work, and if you do have to make any tools they’re usually for a narrowly tailored purpose. And the best part is, there’s actually a “correct answer” when it comes to describing or replicating the original functionality. But if you enjoy the freedom and expressive capability found in something like Stormworks, I imagine you could sink thousands of hours into it!
I get very easily overwhelmed with planning and creating things, so I tend to prefer either baby-brained games like platformers and shooters or puzzle games where the end goal is very clear. But I totally empathize with enjoying a multiplayer game that none of your friends are into—for me that game is Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, which I don’t think I’ve ever gotten past a single play session with anybody. If I weren’t so paranoid about talking to strangers on the internet, I’d try to find a Hexbear to play with. Still thinking about if I can find a solution I’d be comfortable with where I could use a voice changer and a private (non-Discord) voice chat provider. Is finding people to play with online something you’ve looked into at all?
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
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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.
Yarr he’s got good research and good music. Great fella.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
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 watched all four hours of her video about the Star Wars hotel. Damn, that was almost a year ago and apparently she hasn’t posted a video since.
She posts more videos on her patreon, IIRC like 2-3x what’s on her channel now. She doesn’t advertise it much, probably because of how rarely she makes videos lol.
- 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
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
Either they’re Marxists or PhD level trained historians. The field pretty much agrees that the base premises of historical materialism are the right tools for analysis.
A similar internet person who does much more overt commie ancient history analysis is Patrick Wyman, and his Tides of History podcast.
At 4:55 in their Roman Afterlives video, it really sounds like they make a Marx reference. “a way to interpret the world in various ways, their point however is to help us change it” vs “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it."
she visits interesting houses - https://www.youtube.com/@kirstendirksen
Big fan of her. Some videos are rich people wankery, but a lot of them are forward-thinking examples of ecologically sound housing and/or cool community building projects.
yeah, not all of them are hits but eg the one about the italian immigrant guy who excavated a series of caves and underground courtyards in the desert? or the two videos about houses built inside greenhouses? hell yeah
This one about the semi-indoor village is my favorite: https://youtu.be/EzKSKqjEmDA
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Random Indian guy with one upload that explains the solution to a very specific problem I’m having with some software. Thank you my nameless friends.
They’re a dying breed! Everyone is switching to AI voice-overs for explanations and I say that’s a damn shame. Bring back the heavily accented English, it’s draining all the magic and charm from my preferred method of solving tech issues. What a sad state, this world.
Pretty much all the tech knowledge I have was taught to me by random Indian you tubers and I am forever grateful to them for it.
same with designing very specific things in blender or adobe illustrator!
3Blue1Brown
The current goat of youtube math education. I don’t know what he is like on some of his streams (because I don’t care about those). However, his mainline videos really helped me understand a lot of math concepts.
Agree. Some smaller also good ones:
Thomas Kern Really good at making some advanced/less mainstream topics accessible, careful to build up lots of necessary background and thoroughly explain details, so a bit like 3B1B except 0 fancy animations and slightly more rigorous. Covers a variety of topics but with a focus on automata and theory of computation.
Sheafification of G The opposite of Thomas Kern, designed for people with extreme ADHD. No slowing down, very little explanation, borderline silliness, you learn by osmosis. Half of the videos are him trying to incept category theory into your head. I still haven’t learned category theory, but I’m old and my brain is starting to calcify, I did learn some stuff though and it’s always entertaining.
Going to sheaffication of G sometimes feels like I’m getting whatever the opposite of education is lol.
Indeed, but if I could somehow revert to infant level neuroplasticity while retaining all my current knowledge it would be super useful
Numberphile is very good too!
Astrum
PBS Spacetime
PBS Eons
Angela Collier has awesome videos, especially about physics and the experience of being a physicist. Appreciate her a ton, my best science professor. is definitely a bit lib but seems on the edge of communist in some cases.
Videogamedunkey is probably not a great person in political terms (idk, but he’s american) but his videogame reviews are awesome even though I never play them lol. And he plays mario funny
My spouses YouTube channel was very good and popular until she retired
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.
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.
Did you ever give Tasting History with Max Miller a go? Might be up your alley. I’m def going to look these up, thanks!
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
Nerissa is the epitome of a theater kid and I’m 100% here for it. Her hotpot yapping streams while she’s been in Japan have been the perfect thing to put in the background while I work on stuff.
For me its Ruze and Shinri’s yappy streams that I enjoy listening to in the background but really ill enjoy anyone’s yappy yakky fun times
