It seems that everything turned into scams, aggressive self marketing and just click bait irrelevant content. I liked finance videos, but every creator sounds like "the world will end soon" or "my secret method to make 1 million per week day trading stocks/forex/crypto."
Content aimed at culture (movies/series) also behave the same way, throwing a bit of politics into the mix. Always the same incendiary click bait title spewing a bunch of nonsense that has nothing the story, setting characters or other topics relevant to the piece.
Is there anything that can be saved on that platform? It has gotten so bad that I'm start to think that Tiktok and Twitter both have better content than YouTube. At least in those platforms you can find a random dude writing an essay in a series of 20 tweets on why an increase of mantis is related to the global surge of ballpoint pen prices.
Video Essayists:
Barely Sociable - mysteries and dark stuff
CGP Grey - stuff you forgot you wondered about
Computerphile - explanations of topics tangentially related to Current Tech Thing
Defunctland - documentaries about theme parks and their experimental ventures
Disrupt - thought provoking dark topics; a bit over the top (this is why I don't watch Nexpo)
hbomberguy - venting about video games and pop culture
Jacob Geller - existentialism framed through video games
LEMMiNO - investigations into things that have left a societal impact
Numberphile - professors geeking out
Philion - explorations of sticky situations in pop culture
Quinton Reviews - mercilessly in-depth explorations and reviews of millenial and gen z nostalgia
Slightly Sociable - more mysteries and dark stuff
Solar Sands - existentialism framed through pop culture rants
Summoning Salt - mostly retro gaming speedrunning content
Veritasium - educational content
Wendigoon - paranoid nerd content
Wendover Productions - explorations of how the world works
Other stuff that interests me:
Captain Disillusion - breakdowns of digital trickery; digital media education
danooct1 - examining retro viruses
Surveillance Report - an approachable, not-too-paranoid, privacy news podcast (breaches, legislation updates, commentary, etc)
TechLore - privacy info and commentary
videogamedunkey - video game critic; pop culture commentary
Great list! I have a lot of overlap so here are some of my additions:
RedLetterMedia - movie and series reviews and shows, usually with s lot of snark and cynicism
The History Underground - history videos, mostly war / ww2 related topics, with a lot of on site visits
PBS Space Time - Physics and astronomy videos, complex topics sometimes on the verge of being too difficult to follow for most mortals, very interesting!
Hot Ones - interviewing celebrities while eating increasingly hot wings, amazing host, great questions.
CuriousMarc - restoring and fiddling with vintage tech, famous for rebuilding an Apollo spacecraft guidance computer
Ben Eater - building computers and in depth explaining the components using breadboards, super interesting stuff!
Everyday Astronaut - spaceflight and engineering, very in depth videos about various rocket engines
Like Towan - building model railroads and dioramas with great detail
Primitive Technology - a guy building huts and shacks and stuff with only self made tools, no voice over. classic!
GxAce - photography and equipment related videos, incredible production quality with a cyberpunk themed twist
3Blue1Brown - beautifully animated math videos
SmarterEveryDay - engineering related videos
EC Henry - Star Wars and Star Trek themed videos about models and ship lore
Finally someone mentioning dunkey
This comment is almost as good as Knack 3
Nexpo is also a good mysteries channel
Just wanted to add DIYPerks to the list because he makes some cool stuff
Great list, I follow a lot of the same channels! I'd add EmpLemon and Bright Sun Films if you don't already follow. Solar Sands is exceptionally good.