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Educational content has all but left broadcast television. National Geographic and a few other stragglers hang on, but TLC went the way of dysfunctional family drama, Discovery channel fell in love with blue-collar jobs, and The History Channel found crab fisherman and never looked back. Don't get me wrong—some of this content is great in its own right, but for fans of the informational and educational side of things there's been a dearth of content for years. Like podcasting before it, YouTube has come into its own over the past couple of years, offering a massive platform for incredibly niche programming. However, their channel discovery tools are woefully underbaked and it's hard to find anything if you don't already know what you're looking for. So this thread is here to recommend and discuss various educational or informational content amongst a sea of cute cat videos, sad teenagers playing guitar, and vine compilations. This content doesn't have to be dry, as personality is a huge part of many YouTubers successes. And it doesn't have to be traditional educational content, as you'll see from my personal list. So here's what I'm subscribed to. I've tried to break everything down by category but there's a lot of overlap: Science Crash Course: Easily digestible history, science, mythology, economics, and more, well animated Isaac Arthur: Incredible television-length breakdowns of spacefaring futurism concepts, if you can get past the speech impediment Fraser Cain: Space and astronomy Ted-Ed: Short, animated TED talks Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell: Pop science, well animated Vox: News and culture standupmaths: Pop mathematics SciShow: Pop science Today I Found Out: Pop science and culture PBS Digital Studios: Pop science PBS Ideas Channel: Pop culture, technology, and art PBS Infinite: Math and our universe PBS Space Time: Astrophysics Mental Floss: Pop science/trivia It's Okay to Be Smart: Pop physics AsapSCIENCE: General science, animated Braincraft: Psychology and neuroscience Cody's Lab: Sort of like Mythbusters, but for chemistry Deep Look: Animal science focused on the small John Michael Godier: Space news updates Fig. 1: Science research out of the University of California Quartz: Sociological video news and essays Sixty Symbols: Physics and astronomy Smarter Every Day: Exploring the world using science Stated Casually: Science and genetics The Good Stuff: Pop Science The Thought Emporium: Taking science out of the lab Brain Scoop: Science from The Field Museum in Chicago Veratisium: Science and education Wendover Productions: How our world works Technology N-O-D-E: Advances in technology with a cyberpunk bent Motherboard: Incredible investigative science and sociological journalism Seeker: Technology and innovation Techquickie: Technology news Chrontendo: playing and reviewing every NES game in depth, chronologically Tom Scott: Science, technology, and society Techmoan: Reviews of forgotten and outdated technology The 8bit Guy: Reviews of forgotten and outdated technology Tested: Adam Savage propbuilding and technology History PBS Eons: The history of the Earth, eon by eon Townsends: 18th Century Living Calico Jackson: breaks down dinosaurs in pop culture with an eye to paleontological accuracy The Living Past: Nature, dinosaurs, evolution Beta64: breaks down early versions and unused content in video games Did You Know Gaming: History of popular videogaming franchises and hardware Gaming Historian: In-depth history of popular videogaming franchises and hardware Trey the Explainer: Pop paleontology and cryptozoology Thagomizers: Paleontology, art, and culture Ben G Thomas Animal science, with a bent toward paleontology Defunctland: Disney theme park history Yesterworld: Disneyland and Disney history Film (warning: variable quality ahead) ImageworksVFX: Visual effects breakdowns from a visual effects company Legacy Effects: Special effects breakdowns from a special effects company Steve Johnson FX: Special effects breakdowns from one of the greatest special effects companies, sadly defunct StudioADI: Special effects breakdowns from a special effects company Every Frame a Painting: Great film essays, sadly defunct Lessons from the Screenplay: Essays on film storytelling Make-Up Effects Group: Special Effects Techniques Filmmaker IQ: Film technique history No Small Parts: Career breakdowns of beloved or undervalued character actors Nerdwriter: Great film essays Lindsay Ellis: Film essays with a feminist bent Science vs Cinema: Turns out movie science is wrong sometimes Pop Culture Detective: Essays about politics and masculinity in film FilmJoy: General film essays Cinema Tyler: General film essays Like Stories of Old: General film essays Films&Stuff: More general film essays Must See Films: More general film essays iamthatroby: More general film essays KyleKallgrenBHH: More general film essays Movies I Love (And So Can You): More general film essays Now You See It: More General Film Essays kaptainkristian: Loveletters to films In Defense Of: Defending undervalued films Storytellers: More general film essays The Discarded Image: More general film essays The Film Theorists: More general film essays The Royal Ocean Film Society: More general film essays Other Binging with Babish: Making food from pop culture with great production values Andrew Huang: breaks down pop music production in a really accessible way, very "YouTube Personality"-based at times BonApetit: cooking with an eye toward trendy foods and techniques David Bull: Japanese woodblock printmaking Great Big Story: Pop storytelling and sociology How to Cook That: Baking weird and fun monstrosities How to Make Everything: How do you make a sandwich from scratch? Absolute scratch, sourcing every element yourself. Or a telescope? Or chocolate? Or makeup? Klayton Fioriti: Obsessive essays on the Jurassic Park franchise. I can't with good conscience recommend it. But I watch every video. Luke Towan: Insanely detailed Modelmaking Kathy Millatt: Modelmaking techniques Loft Pursuits: Making hard candy nuggetnogin: Sweet, enthusiastic southern guy metaldetecting and river trawling, ignore the psalms That Japanese Man Yuta: Dispelling sterotypes about Japanese culture from the Western perspective The Proper People: The most interesting, least douchey urban explorers I could find TheGreenMachineLtd: Aquascaping fishtanks into gorgeous forests, sadly defunct The Wolfe Pit: Guy buys disgusting food from dollar stores and reviews them with subtle social commentary This Is Dan Bell: Tours of abandoned and depressed shopping malls Village Food Factory: A man makes food for his village Summoning Salt: Speedrunning world record breakdowns
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Mar 19, 2018 21:16
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Do yourself a favor and drop Pretty Good somewhere into this list, which was actually my pick for the 6th best show of last year.
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Mar 19, 2018 21:32
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The Great War for the history section thanks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=user?TheGreatWar The channel is covering world war 1 week by week 100 years later with the main episodes and then Q&A and special episodes ontop of that covering various subjects or people throughout the war. Probably the best youtube 'project' out there.
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Mar 19, 2018 22:48
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This is a great list! Might I humbly suggest: CineFix, movie channel that, despite its focus on list videos, actually offers fantastic in-depth analysis of film and film techniques. Adam Neely is a working musician in NYC who regularly posts videos about music theory and analysis as well as regular gig vlogs. He’s really good at explaining difficult concepts, and even his “meme” videos contain educational content. Clint aka Lazy Game Reviews mostly reviews old games and strange computer peripherals (which he calls oddware). Though not technically educational, he frequently gives background on the people and companies who made the things he’s reviewing, which gives a good view of the computing world of the late 80’s/early 90’s. He also does a decent Duke Nukem impression. Finally, Peter Brown posts videos of him making things in his wood shop. Though I originally subscribed due to his habit of putting things like gummy bears into craft resin and fashioning axe handles out of them, he is surprisingly informative, to the point where I feel like I could step in front of a wood lathe and fashion a half-decent... chair leg? [Edit: forgot about Captain Disillusion! He debunks viral videos while explaining how to do the visual effects used in said videos. If you’ve ever seen a video and wondered “huh, how’d they do that?” you can probably find the explanation on his channel.] asecondduck fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Mar 19, 2018 |
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Mar 19, 2018 22:50
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the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs streams a bunch of their (guest) lectures for the internet to enjoy. Topics include problems facing modern journalism, democracy/challenges in brazil and the global south in general, challenges when fighting poverty, displacement of peoples, and many other topics that are international and political. they also occasionally make ~1 min videos on something that's noteworthy in some way where one of their professors gives a bullet-point overview of wtf happened, its causes and consequences, for example here's nick barnes providing context on Brazil deploying the military in combating lawlessness; or Maung Zarni on the Rohingya genocide basically a good series of analyses on various topics in international affairs. double nine fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Mar 19, 2018 |
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Mar 19, 2018 23:31
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My friends hate it when I put youtube on because a lot of my youtube tastes tend to skew slower, educational, and dry. Ergo, "boring." But that's ok with me. Here's some channels I watch. It's going to skew mostly video game centric. Digital Foundry is an offshoot of Eurogamer that reviews games on a technical level. If you're conflicted on what console you should pick up a game on, they're a great resource. Slope's Game Room is notable for his videos where he details the complete history of video game series. He's British and skews heavily on Sega. Mark Brown's Game Maker's Toolkit is a look at game mechanics and how developers utilize them. Jeremy Parish from Retronauts's channel has video essays where he chronologically reviews NES/SNES/GameBoy games from from a historical context. It's a very ambitious project. Ok, that's enough video game youtube channels. Lon.TV is a computer/tech channel that has the air of the Tech TV glory days. I'm certain that This Is Dan Bell will be posted here by other people if it hasn't been posted by the time I get this out, so I'll also post a local guy who does the same thing. Retail Archaeology mostly chronicles retail stores in Arizona, focusing mostly on dead/dying malls. Rob Dyke is a true crime channel. He gives the same vibe as 90s true crime shows like Unsolved Mysteries and Forensic Files. He has no reverence for the serial killers when he does biographies for them. Company Man makes videos where he talks about the history of corporations. Two popular series he does are "Bigger Than You Know" where he talks about all the subsidiaries some corporations have that you might not be aware of, and "The Decline of..." where he talks about why certain companies go out of business or are in danger of doing so. He did one about Toys R Us a few months ago so when the news broke last week I was able to smugly tell people that Amazon had nothing to do with it. Detective No. 27 fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Mar 20, 2018 |
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Mar 20, 2018 02:28
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Cooking shows are another thing that cable TV has decided to throw by the wayside in favor of shows that absolutely need to have Guy Fieri and/or a competition theme to them. Personally, I just wanna learn how to make something without all the drama or hassle. All of these channels focus on one kind of cuisine. Some of them are more educational than others but they're all good sources of recipes.
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Mar 20, 2018 02:49
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Gonna second the ownage of LGR, Captain Disillusion and Dan Bell. Here's a few I like: Defunctland: I was told to post about this in here. This guy mainly talks about theme park rides that are now closed. He goes in to detail about their inception, what the ride was liked and why it eventually closed. I really like him a lot, and he puts out videos at an kind of scary pace Bright Sun Films: Covers much as the same stuff as Defuntland but also goes into closed businesses and other failures. Also does some Dan Bell like urban exploration. Did You Know Gaming: Just brief little videos full of random facts about varios video games and video game topics. Nothing amazing but often informative and contains a few things that I didn't know. Core-A Gaming: A guy explaining a bunch of the intricacies of fighting games and the fighting games community. Fleb: Just a guy (who I believe is a puzzle maker by trade) that goes through various puzzles and how to solve them. Larry Bundy Jr: I think this guy used to have a game related show on BBC but these days he's mostly on youtube. His videos may look like clickbait gaming listicles at first but his stuff is actually usually very interesting, well researched and full of facts I'd never heard before. Night Mind: A Breakdown of various horror related media (mostly horror series). The host is not quite as insightful as he thinks he is, but his stuff is still very enjoyable. Also that man has a silky smooth voice. Nightmare Masterclass: Basically the same as above but from a different perspective. Also not as insightful as he thinks he is, but more in a college Freshman kinda way. Still some good stuff. pannenkoek2012: OK, this one is extremely specific. This is a guy that's devoted his life to beating Mario 64 pressing the A button as few times as possible. That might not sound interesting but the videos explaining some of the stuff he does are loving bonkers Edit: just noticed two things I posted were already in the OP. Oh well... axelblaze fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Mar 20, 2018 |
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Mar 20, 2018 03:23
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Numberphile: stereotypically quirky mathematicians explain strange numbers, weird geometric constructions, and other perplexing things. Mr Carlson's Lab: a small man dwarfed by far too many oscilloscopes. Explains electronic topics slowly, calmly and deeply. The Bob Ross of vacuum tube amplifiers. Game Hut: old-school Sega programmer reveals low-level coding tricks & secrets of game effects. ynohtna fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Mar 20, 2018 |
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Mar 20, 2018 03:30
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ynohtna posted:Game Hut: old-school Sega programmer reveals low-level coding tricks & secrets of game effects. Ooh I forgot about Game Hunt. He’s got some really interesting videos about what they tricked the Genesis into doing, like displaying hundreds more colors than it was actually supposed to and fitting an FMV intro into a Genesis cart. Very cool stuff.
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Mar 20, 2018 03:53
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This are all super popular but they haven't been listed as yet. Vsauce Educational Channel that focuses on (as per their Wikipedia entry) Veritasium General Science, with a focus on dispelling public misconceptions about Science Captain Disullusion Goes in the Film/VFX section but this channel focuses on dispelling viral/paranormal hoax videos highlighting the SFX tricks used to accomplish them. CGP Grey General Education focusing on politics, geography, economics, history, and culture
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Mar 21, 2018 05:43
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I'm quite fond of School of Life. They're a little dry, but tend to have one or two insights that make it worthwhile.
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Mar 21, 2018 12:58
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Anubis is a YouTube channel that highlights state parks in Florida, and possibly state parks elsewhere in the future. It's named for the greyhound the channel creator takes on her trips. According to her dog's Instagram page (@anubis_the_greyt), she's also big into astronomy, so there may be some of those videos in the future. Very relaxing videos and Anubis is all smiles.
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Mar 21, 2018 20:15
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=channel?UChalKOKFNdPgcheruAamx6Q - Batzilla the Bat This is one of a few channels from Wildlife Habitats, just videos of Bats being Cute but there is a lot to learn from them about Bat behaviour, like the reason they always give the babies pacifiers - Bats latch onto their mothers while children with their teeth being the most secure method - when their teeth are clamped around a teat, real or artificial, then they "know" that they are in no danger of falling. Not having a dummy can result in slight panic because of most of the babies being orphans who have no mothers to attach to. Also some of the rescue vids go into the problems that a lot of bats face, like Large Aperture Netting - terrible lovely netting used to protect fruit trees from birds, that bats often get badly caught in. Happily a lot of orchard owners do switch to less dangerous netting (basically if you can get your finger through a hole, a bat gan get it's head through it or worse) when told about the effects, although a small minority are cheap assholes about it. As a result one of the main non-medical expenditures is buying large swathes of Good Netting to donate to orchards to increase the chance the switch is done.
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Mar 21, 2018 20:25
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Some more that I enjoy: Michael Jamison loves animals, especially tigers, and loves sharing lessons and insights about animals and his relationships with them. Tigers react to kittens is a fun one. He's not strictly educational, but he's certainly fascinating. Do you like art? Do you wish you could paint? Or do you just love watching someone paint? Then watch Watercolor by Shibasaki, the Japanese Bob Ross. Does that inspire you to want to learn drawing? Proko's got you covered. He is the #1 recommendation in Creative Convention when anyone asks how they should learn to draw or improve their art. He has a series about learning the basics, but does interviews with artists and gives advice that even experts can learn from. Some of the videos are NSFW simply because you gotta learn how to draw sexy nudes before you learn to draw boring clothes.
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Mar 21, 2018 20:38
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I like just about everything Hank Green is involved with, but the regular sci-show channel is really hit and miss, and the hosts can make or break it. I think Hank and Michael kill it, while Olivia and Stefan are really hard to watch. Sci show space and psych are top notch though. I've been seriously binging PBS Eons lately, and i think it's my favorite youtube edutainment right now. For History stuff I'm a big fan of Knowledgehub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpVEkH14Jrc They have a sister channel that's pure speculative fiction called AlternateHistoryHub that's sometimes good, sometimes bad, but overall if you like speculative historical fiction I think this guy does it pretty well. Extra Credits: Extra History is also really neat, although i'm not a huge fan of the pitch-shifted voice, I enjoy them nonetheless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ZZeCDGHJE
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Mar 21, 2018 22:06
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Some more of my favourites. Georg Rockall-Schmidt: a sardonic lava lamp talks about films (e.g. how the Predator movies changed over time), pop culture and sometimes other stuff (i.e. 10 signs I'm a dickhead). Physics Girl: accessible physics explanations, experiments, weird interactions, and awkward academics. This Guy Edits: strong insight, advice and tips on editing film from a well-experienced pro. Markus Fuller: Markus tears synthesizers apart - and lays bare all their gubbins - so you don't have to. ElectroBOOM: Medhi takes all possible electrical shocks to his gubbins - and barely survives - so you don't have to. Ben Eater: building an 8-bit micro-computer piece by piece on breadboard. Two Minute Papers: breezy bite-size overviews of the latest advances in science, with particular bias towards AI and photo-realistic rendering. AI and Games: Dr Tommy Thompson breaks down game AI architectures and game applicable research.
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Mar 22, 2018 12:28
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A lot of the majors have been touched but I'll thrown in: Zenos Warbirds - Lots of interesting historical military/training films as well as some more modern stuff. It's mostly relating to aviation but there's a few other topics as well. Fascinating little time capsule. Townsends - Old timey/historical cooking channel with a little bit of primitive technology thrown in. Wanna know how to make 18th century fried chicken or potted meat? Go here. Primitive Technology - Didn't see this one mentioned yet so here you go. Related channels are worth checking too. Linus Tech Tips - Computer nerding/building/reviewing stuff. There's a lot of these channels out there but they actually seem pretty reliable. AvE - Engineering and manufacturing channel. It's very much geared to people in the profession I think but interesting to listen in on. Dark5 - Covers unsolved mysteries, conspiracies, spooky/creepy stories in brief. Wouldn't take it seriously, mostly just for fun but they do hit some interesting topics now and then. edit: whoops just realized Townsends was in fact mentioned Erghh fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Mar 22, 2018 |
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Mar 22, 2018 16:50
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Erghh posted:AvE - Engineering and manufacturing channel. It's very much geared to people in the profession I think but interesting to listen in on.
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Mar 24, 2018 10:55
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This thread is right up my alley! Some of my favorites: 3Blue1Brown: Good explanation of math topics. If you took Calculus but didn't really learn it because of the way it was taught, you might understand after seeing his animated diagrams. The Action Lab: Science experiments you can do at home, like boiling water using a blender or making a home-made particle detector. Technology Connections: Shows the history of different technology, recently focusing on different storage media. Objectivity: A Numberphile spinoff showing rare museum artifacts in soothing voices. What's Inside?: A guy and his son try to find interesting things to cut in half. Game Developer's Conference: Seminars showing the artistic and technical process behind how video games are made. Ask a Mortician: You'd be surprised how much time you can spend hearing stories about death and dead bodies.
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Mar 24, 2018 19:42
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More? More! Fran Blanche: "Apollo Computer Anatomist" Fran loves explaining things like the first LEDs, guitar effects, spaceship tech, tubes, and similar circuitous eccentricities. 8 Bit Music Theory: Why does Mario music sound "fun"? What are that sonic hedgehog's secret songwriting tips? Want to learn some jazz reharmonization tips from pokemon? Here's your start button for that. Jonathan Meades: archive of somewhat surreal, deeply caustic video essays often but not always about place, architecture and culture.
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Mar 29, 2018 21:55
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Great thread idea and very impressive list! I probably watch more YouTube content than television content. Just about everything I would have suggested has already been posted, but here are two that aren't quite Discovery Channel-esque but worth checking out: Wisecrack - Examining film, television, video games, and books through the lens of philosophy. New Rockstars - Very smart and in-depth analysis of current hot pop culture.
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Mar 30, 2018 19:32
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I really like this woman's videos about her experiences being deaf (IIRC she started being able to hear and it just... faded over time and now she's stone deaf) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQFuL2KYRdc She's quite funny and her very 1950s-chic aesthetic is quite unique.
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Mar 30, 2018 22:42
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BioEnchanted posted:I really like this woman's videos about her experiences being deaf (IIRC she started being able to hear and it just... faded over time and now she's stone deaf) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQFuL2KYRdc I've met Jessica (we live in the same town) and she's great! Clickspring: Yet another channel for those who appreciate metal working with an incredibly obsessive attention to detail. You'll find here beautifully documented steps of machining spares and tools, a large wheel skeleton clock from raw stock, and "a recreation of the Antikythera Mechanism in its most authentic form to date, with the intention of establishing the nature of the tools, techniques and technology used to create it."
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Apr 7, 2018 18:50
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I didn't see it posted, but The Signal Path is a real electronics heavy channel. They guy is way smarter than I ever will be but if you want to watch (or fall asleep to) some real long videos about tearing down and repairing oscilloscopes, network analyzers, power supplies, or crazy microwave stuff; this might just fascinate you. Also, he's got this bitchin painting hanging in his workshop:  This channel, Connor Wolf, also has a lot of electronics teardowns and repairs, but it unfortunately hasn't been active in a year. Also, the guy is goony looking as gently caress. I'm also a fan of Shango066 and his repair videos of old vacuum tube/transistor radios and tv's. Jordan Pier has a lot electronic repair videos as well, mostly focusing on older audio equipment. LGR/Lazy Game Reviews talks about a lot of old PC games, PC hardware, or other random electronics from the 80's,90's and early 2000's and does it in a very friendly way. Mental Hospitality fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Apr 8, 2018 |
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Apr 8, 2018 08:43
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I like to watch documentaries on rivers when I'm winding down for the night. There's an excellent one on the Danube that I've seen like 5 times
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Apr 8, 2018 09:29
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Simone Giertz If you watch Tested you might have seen Simone pop up from time to time. Her main thing is building lovely robots and it really scratches that old Mythbusters people building ridiculous stuff itch for me.
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Apr 9, 2018 02:25
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A few new favorite channels: Deja View: Did you know that there was an unauthorized Turkish Star Trek TV show with a wacky new crew member? Or that there was an Indonesian ripoff of Rambo—shot twice with an Australian and Indonesian actor for different markets? Or an animated Korean ripoff of Tron, or a Brazilian Planet of the Apes ripoff, as well as an entire Japanese TV series ripoff? This terribly dressed man will introduce you to all of them and many, many more. History Of Comics On Film: Exactly what it sounds like, and far, far more comprehensive than you'd think. From a series on every adaptation of The Green Hornet to many versions of Superman (and a dozen more) to obscure jungle comics togoofy live action TV specials, the narrator breaks down the history of adaptations of comic books and comic strips over time with some solid dry humor. Warning: the production values and audio is pretty rough on the first dozen or two, but vastly improves after a point. Oliver Harper's Retrospectives & Reviews: A quick movie summary followed by a thorough breakdown and review of genre films. Well-produced and well-researched.
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May 7, 2018 19:00
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