What's your go-to long form Youtuber?

I only really subscribe to two channels that focus on 20-30 minute videos and post on a pretty regular basis:

Technology Connections

Internet Comment Etiquette with Erik

There are two YouTubers who make videos 4+ hours long that you have to watch every minute of:

Jenny Nicholson

HBomberGuy

Technology Connections

Crime related:

Disaster related:

Weird medical stories: https://www.youtube.com/@chubbyemu

Interesting economic vids: https://www.youtube.com/coldfusion/

Business and economics: https://www.youtube.com/c/Wendoverproductions/

Geopolitics explainer vids: https://www.youtube.com/@CaspianReport/

Theme park history: https://www.youtube.com/@Defunctland/

Interesting historical themed vids: https://www.youtube.com/@YoreHistory/

Angela Collier for commentary on physics. She has a lot of good commentary on the field itself (see her recent Feynman video), but also good science videos... that I usually lose track of about 3/4 of the way through, but I enjoy nonetheless.

Along with Technology Connections, Philosophy Tube, and Primitive Technology, here are my "must watch" subs

Climate Town - Excellent videos about climate change and environmental impact that are insightful and funny

Contrapoints - Well written and meticulous deconstructions of philosophical concepts in media, pop culture and society with a dry wit

Every Frame a Painting - Amazing content on film-making. No longer active, but if you haven't seen it yet, lucky you, enjoy.

Pop Culture Detective - Interesting meta analyses of popular tropes in pop culture

Because I'm into historical clothing and fashion, Bernadette Banner and Abby Cox both do great videos on costuming, history and creating cool stuff

I actively avoid shorts so most of what I watch is long form.

Technology Connections - A guy needing out about household tech
Unlearning Economics - a trained economist turned public edutainer who kept learning after Econ 101, unlike others who shall remain nameless
Behind the Bastards - Chummy laughter about the worst people ever
RPG with DBJ - RPG talk with a focus on creativity and exploring the opportunities afforded by the space of 'limited only by your imagination'
We're in Hell - A guy looking at pieces of media and the ideology infused into them by culture
Gresham College - lectures on widely ranging topics, presented by professors but targetting the layperson
The Morbid Zoo - A cool gal doing analysis of movies, usually horror, but sometimes others, with an eye toward ideology and culture (Hellraiser, Smile, Twilight, PotC, etc.)
Folding Ideas - More film analysis, but with a tack toward various criticisms
Doctor Who - the old series are all on the tubes now. Not educational, but fun.

Red letter media

I love Star Trek, but don't want to watch the modern Alex kurtzman garbage, so they take the bullet for me.

I'm also not a movie guy, so watching their reviews/analysis while playing Minecraft is more entertaining than the movies they talk about.

Best of the worst is them watching B and direct to video movies that i wouldn't otherwise know about.

Haven’t seen Philosophy Tube on here yet.

High quality and engaging deep dives on various philosophy-related topics. Abigail, the face of the channel is an actor and playwright (and an academic) and that very much shines through.

Well ... My go-to is still Hbomberguy. Eben if I don't know/care about the topic I know every vid of bis will be interesting and worth the time investment. The jokes are really funny (even on rewatches) and I've learned a lot. I watch old Hbomb videos to Fall asleep to almost every night.

Main issue: there's one video every 1-2 years ... However if you've never seen one you'll have the back log to get through.

I love Technology Connections for an easy, interesting watch. He just explains how appliances work lol

For long form,

Bobby Broccoli, ~1hr videos on science scandals https://youtube.com/@bobbybroccoli

Defunctland, 30m to 1h45m videos on defunct theme parks and rides https://youtube.com/@defunctland

Your dinosaurs are wrong, 15m to 1h45m videos on comparing toy dinosaurs to the most up to date research https://youtube.com/@yourdinosaursarewrong

2nd on Drachinifel, 7m to 1h45m videos on naval History https://youtube.com/@drachinifel

Perun, 1h videos on defense economics https://youtube.com/@perunau

Diplo Strats, 2h to 6h videos on diplomacy the board game, like risk on massive steroids https://youtube.com/@diplostrats

For educative scientific YT channels I'd recommend Veritasium, The Action Lab and NileRed to name a few. They produce top quality scientific videos about really interesting phenomenas and experiments. And the best part is they make the concepts simple to understand without the need of a degree or smth lol

Steve Wallis - Calm Canadian dude that does stealth camping, he'll just camp behind a McDonald's billboard and is very chill about it

Contrapoints is one of the youtube GOATs for a reason. High production values, thought provoking content, and a level of thought and honesty that's powerful. Her video that's absolutely definitely about twilight and nothing else caused days of discussion with my wife.

Folding Ideas is a documentarian with a film background. He's most famous for his videos about NFTs and meme stocks, but all his videos are excellent. "I don't know James Rolfe" was a youtube filmmaker descending into madness attempting to understand another one.

Philosophy Tube is a woman who got pissed that the UK was raising tuitions so she committed to giving away the knowledge she got in her philosophy degree. Sometimes she plays with clickbait, but in a very self aware way. Her content is definitely meant to make you think

Hbomberguy is a man who made a 4 hour video about youtube plagiarism so popular the Onion referenced it. He's largely a video game critic but does some deep dives into political topics like climate denial, flat earth, and antivax

Sarah Z is a older gen z media and fandom critic who largely leans towards Tumblr oriented topics. She consistently has good takes. I really liked her video on how the internet talks about narcissists that I watched over the weekend.

Strange Aeons is probably my suggestion people are least likely to like. She's like if Sarah Z was a lot weirder. You want someone to explain the omegaverse or Snapewives or the other bizarre outlets of fandom in a wat that's generally respectful to them? She's got you. In particular I like how she's respectful towards weirdness when it's not harmful and that she treats trolls as the performance artists they can be.

Practical engineering is youtube for the sort of people who think bridges can be interesting. He's a civil engineer with a fair bit of charisma talking about civil engineering.

Stuff made here is for when you want impractical engineering. He's a dork who designs and builds weird shit for its own sake.

Defunctland, listen I'm not really into amusement parks that much, but this guy makes them fascinating to hear about.

Peter Dibble has some great documentaries on historical curiosities around the Pacific Northwest, and beyond.

Technology Connections does deep dives into topics of technology, specific devices and appliances, and generally is very entertaining and informative.

RedLetterMedia for film critiques, so bad it’s good reviews, and comedy.

Defunctland does documentaries around theme parks.

Tasting History with Max Miller is a very educational historical food dishes show. Not super long form.

Matt Baume does great “LGBTQ+ in TV, historically” type of content. And wrote a book about it which is great too.

Stand-up Maths does great math content. Yeah, it’s math, but it’s fun. Bonus is he also wrote a great book relating to his content about engineering and maths mistakes in real life on large scales.

LGR- retro computer tech

Techmoan- retro audio tech

Depends how long is long form for you, if you mean like multi hour videos I have less to give. But for like 25 to 40 minutes videos:

Practical engineering - educational videos about civil engineering.

Dr. Becky - space/astronomy news from an astrophysicist.

Plainly difficult - civil disaster documentaries

Joseph Anderson - gaming essays (multi hour)

Raycevick - gaming essays (around 30min)

The sphere hunter - game essays, mainly classic horror

Jay Foreman - British comedy.

LGR - retro tech deep dives, and tech oddware.

Joe Scott - Did you know, style investigations.

Plus some already mentioned. There is probably more, but keeping this shorter.

Brick immortar- probably the single most technical long form YT channel in the engineering disasters category

NNKH - fixing things that probably shouldn't be bothered with.

Green dot aviation - air disasters and near disasters

Pilot debrief - light aviation crash analysis

Andrew camarata - long, long form time lapse videos of running backhoes and dozers to cut roads and things, nice to relax to.

The great war - I watch on nebula but I think they are on YT too.

Hoog - explainers

Bald and bankrupt - I've heard mixed things about the guy as a person but his videos are entertaining, in the "travel to unusual places" genre

Integza - another one on nebula but I think also on YT. Building rocket engines with 3d printers, etc

Driving 4 answers - probably the single best automotive focused engineering channel

Folding Ideas is a favorite of mine.

Coffeezilla for crypto exposes

A Catholic socialist, a Jewish anarchist, and a Muslim communist walk into a bar, and they make a podcast about engineering disasters: Well There's Your Problem. It's great for that intersection of people for whom the phrase "crimes against TERFs aren't crimes" resonates and like listening to an engineer complain about low quality as-builts 2 hours into a 3 hour episode about 9/11

I was sold on the show when I found out that the episode about the Titanic was split into two parts, totaling around 5 and 1/2 hours. That's partially because they spend a lot of time bullshitting, and partially because they go really in-depth about how and why structures fail

Ahoy @xboxahoy. Very well produced videos about gaming. A brief history of graphics, iconic arms, video game origins and more.

I saw a lot of tech and science channel in the comments so to balance that out, here are some of my favourite crafting channels:

North of the border: creates a clay sculpture every week. Generally it is something nerdy or something cursed

Enchanterium: repaint dolls, often to popular characters. They also sew their own outfits. A lot of fun even if you're not interested in dolls

Nerdforge: create a lot of crazy projects, mostly related to nerdy stuff. (Last project was a 2m booknook)

Wicked makers: create decorations and animatronics for Halloween

Florian Gadsby: very talented potter with very relaxing voice and videos

Pottery to the people: pottery videos, often trying new experiments

Evan and Katelyn: videos on stuff that they build. Always a lot of fun (last video: how they built an ergonomic laptop)

TL Yarn Crafts: crochet videos

Kaypea Creations: making of art dolls (animals), either out of clay or fake fur.

Studson Studios: creates amazing sculptures out of mostly trash. Amazing channel, one of my favourites

Make strange things: makes strange things. Small channel but greatly appreciated

Boylei hobby time: creates dioramas

Lightning cosplay: creats amazing cosplays

Transcended furniture gallery: restores vintage furniture

Bonus: Half-Asleep Chris: videos with stop motion elements, mostly about cats and/or lego

Buckin Billy Ray - interesting videos about cutting trees down and servicing chainsaws. A little bit unchained (excuse the pun) in a wholesome way as he seems to randomly intersperse his videos with positive affirmations like 'be kind' 'love your friends' which is kind of wholesome

Way out west - an older English guy living in the West of Ireland making things like a railway for transporting garlic

I did a thing - a hilariously unhinged aussie bloke

James Hoffman - for coffee. And hames joffman also

Karl Rock - travels around India/Pakistan exploring the places

Mike okay - travels to really off the beaten track places like Iraq.

Maximus ironthumper - many videos, the project kermit series is him rebuilding a land rover defender from scratch

Still it - distilling and making spirits

Because I manually download videos to watch on the bus or train (thanks Grayjay & NewPipe), most of my subscriptions are for long-form, often listenable content:

Retro Tech: Techmoan, Technology Connections, Posy, Janus Cycle, CRD, Ben Eater, DiodeGoneWild, pannenkoek2012, videolabguy, Adrian's Digital Basement,The Science Elf, previously LGR and 8-Bit Guy/Keys

Science: Kuvina Saydaki, BobbyBroccoli, Numberphile, Computerphile, carykh

Tech News & Discussion (not always long-form): Louis Rossmann, Mental Outlaw, Brodie Robertson, SomeOrdinaryGamers, Asianometry, Atomic Shrimp, previously Thunderf00t

Urbanism: Not Just Bikes, Adam Something, Alan Fisher, Tramly, BritMonkey

D&D Story Narration: CritCrab, Puffin Forest

Bold channels are most underrated imo

My #1 go to is probably Cathode Ray Dude. He makes videos mostly on old tech which is what I'm very interested in.

If you're more looking for exposing scandals there's always Coffeezilla/Voidzill.

No wonder I feel like such an outsider here. I've been on youtube for almost two decades and there's not a single channel I follow mentioned here in this thread.

EDIT: Well there was one match: Primitive Technology

I made this spreadsheet a while back for easy sharing. Some have been mentioned like F.D Signifier and HBomberGuy. Also like Mr. Beat for history, Nth Review for games, Astrum for space, and Maritime Horrors for... maritime horrors.

Epimetheus. High quality history videos on past and current civilizations. His hand drawn art is amazing too, he tries to stay very historically accurate. No theatrical narration, just a broad view of history. My favorite channel by far.

Dr Becky. Very very good science communication on astronomy and cosmology. She always sources the papers she mentions and excels at making you understand basic astrophysics. Best explanations of a very hard topic.

Angela Collier, another science communication more focused on physics and the epistemology of the field. I love her personal perspective on all the drama in physics (e.g. why Feinman is overhyped, why it’s still such a terribly sexist field etc.) though she makes it clear that it’s her channel and her opinions. Much more detailed explanations of physics but a little harder to understand.

City Nerd data driven showcase on why cars are bad for cities, usually in a top 10 of cities ranked by some metric of transportation.

Jenny Nickelson does.. nerd stuff? Highlights include:

"Church cinimatic universe" where she becomes a sommelier of art and walks you through a decade or so of some church in Canada's Easter plays, which are delightfully technical and imaginative while also being a beautiful form of cringe.

And a 4+ hour documentary/review/commentary on her visit to the short lived "star wars hotel"

I'm not big into star wars or Disneyworld/land wherever it was, but I watched that whole thing.

These are channels I follow or at least like enough to look up once in a while. They're a bit random. I apologize if any are repeats, but they're worth repeating (and I didn't read every reply):

Adam Savage's tested: https://youtube.com/@tested
bigclivedotcom: https://youtube.com/@bigclivedotcom
Intelligence Squared: https://youtube.com/@intelligence-squared
MIT Open CourseWare: https://youtube.com/@mitocw
Townsends: https://youtube.com/@townsends

Entertainment:
Cirque du Soleil: https://youtube.com/@cirquedusoleil

Very other:
SBSK: https://youtube.com/@specialbooksbyspecialkids
the channel features a man who goes around and interacts with/interviews disabled children and adults. I take this one in small doses. It is not long form in the traditional sense of a well researched and thoroughly laid out topic, but I find it very wholesome/heartbreaking at the same time.

in addition to a lot of others already mentioned (there's a lot of overlap)

History:

Step Back History

culture/politics:

writing/education:

Zoe Bee

media/ect:

Tale Foundry (technically about writing fiction, but they also discuss media in general along with its themes, character archetypes, ect. it's more interesting than it sounds)
Pop Culture Detective
Jacob Geller (mostly video games)
My Little Thought Tree (also psychology)
Broey Deschanel

I really like my weekly hour long defense/economics powerpoint from Perun.

I have a few to recommend:

SEA and Astrum. Almost interchangeable calm and chill space documentary channels. If you're like me and get a spinny mind around bedtime, these are great, they hold my attention to keep my mind from racing and are calm enough to drift to sleep while listening.
Bedtime Stories. Anything from urban legends to strange disappearances told in a campfire ghost story format accompanied by hand drawn illustrations. Sometimes wanders into hibbidy jibbidy but fun nonetheless. See also Wartime Stories for a similar format focusing on stories from/about the military.
History For Granite. I read this guy as an armchair archaeologist who is interested primarily in the pyramids and megalithic structures of ancient Egypt almost as much as he is at sniping at Zahi Hawass. Possibly a bit of a crank, though his wild ideas tend to be things like "The pyramid was designed to remain open for worshippers to routinely enter" and he often focuses on the engineering of the structures and layout of the stones.
Nexpo. Short for Nightmare Expo, purveyor of creepy stories.
Captain KRB. Video essayist, fond of minecraft, retro media, and occasional odd stories like the Voynich manuscript or the Cicada 3301 mystery.
Lemmino, started out as a top ten list channel, has pivoted to long form documentaries on a "when it's done" basis. Topics range from the history of the "Cool S" graffiti symbol to the Lost Colony of Roanoke.
Ahoy. Churns out one, maybe two videos a year on the topic of video games, primarily video game weapons. Typical format will introduce a weapon, say, the M-16 combat rifle, discuss its real world invention and service history, then its depiction in video games and possibly other media. Peppered in are other more general video game topics; his video on Polybius is particularly good.
This Old Tony. A dude named Tony whose got a hobby machine shop full of dad jokes in his garage.
Clickspring. Australian dude who makes soul-achingly beautiful videos about clockmaking and machining. Go watch him build a clock out of raw brass and tell me your life hasn't changed.
Tech Tangents. One of those guys who will hold an 8-bit ISA card in his hands with a look of utter rapture on his face, he repairs, restores and documents old computer and gaming equipment, and operates a capacitor wiki. He once reverse engineered an ISA adapter card to get a very early CD-ROM drive functioning...live on Twitch.

I like Dime Store Adventures for history trivia and exploration, mostly USA focused.

Steve Wallis is my comfort creator. Genuine dude from Canada who does loads of camping from simple in the woods stuff to hiding in a roundabout overnight. He's had a rough go these last few years as he lost his wife, mother, and best friend all within a year and a half. This is a man just enjoying what mother nature has to offer.

How long-form?

I absolutely love “More Kitboga”, videos where a fella calls scammers and uses a Roland VT3-3 voice transformer to improv. Video lengths range from a few hours to… I believe his record fucking with the same call center (like two or three specific people) is 54 hours. I put it on when I’m working from home. He is HILARIOUS. He and his team have whole fake websites, fake banks, and a fake Google Play store where he can redeem fake Google play cards into his account and it works as the actual play store would. People go insane when they see they “lost” thousands of dollars because an “old lady” redeemed the codes they wanted.

True crime: Explore With Us is a channel my partner recently found. Lots of FOIA’d videos and pictures that have never been seen before they made their videos. Very interesting.

Drain Addict.

He's a weird plumber. From Australia. He unclogs drains. When he walks, he moves his arms like a player character in an FPS. He has a toy rat and crocodile that help him. Sometimes it's hard to tell what's a sound effect and what's a real sound.

It seems like it shouldn't work but somehow it does.

Adding a few I haven't already seen:

https://www.youtube.com/@NeverKnowsBest - very long form videos on video games
https://www.youtube.com/c/SummoningSalt - documentaries on speedrunning in various games
https://www.youtube.com/@Steve1989MRE - reviews of military rations, spanning from very old to very new
https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes - videos on urbanism from the perspective of The Netherlands
https://www.youtube.com/@SkipIntroYT - videos about TV shows

Abstract - break down of disasters and crimes with excellent narration and very interesting topics

Rare Earth - highlights uncommon locations (speaking as a Westerner) and the often horrific histories that framed their civilization/cities/people

Micerah Tewers - super talented maker that sews copies of red carpet looks and other fun custumes with some home decor. Not instructional at all, just fast paced and entertainingly wholesome

Ask a Mortician - really fascinating deep dives into what happened to the bodies of famous people, or people who died in extreme circumstances. She has recently highlighted a few infamous shipwrecks...which brings me to

Oceanliner designs and Part Time Explorer - both nautical history buffs that articulate the grandeur and sometimes horror of ship travel

Miniminuteman - archeology videos featuring a lot of lesser known sites that are fascinating. Articulate dismantling of psuedo-archeology bullshit and refreshingly modern understanding of science communication

LadyKnightthebrave - discussing the emotions that film and tv can make you feel. Honestly just cathartic if she talks about a movie you feel strongly about, like the articulate friend you wish you had to decompress with after an emotional movie

Contrapoints - incredible everything from set design to arguments. Long form, in depth explanations about a lot of topics some people would consider taboo, or that people are close minded about.

Atun Shei Films - known primarily for Check Mate Lincolnites which is a comedic sketch that dismantles lost cause myths from the civil war. Lots of interesting historical and film stuff.

Lindybeige - every video feels like an eccentric history professor's impassioned tangent on a subject he deeply cares about, so it entirely derails the original subject of the lecture.

Nerd³ (nerd cubed) long form video game content while he talks about the game he's playing, sprinkled with commentary about life and current events

Cold Fusion. Sort of a mini documentary on news items, one item at a time. Tech focused.

Preface - I enjoy car stuff, so there's more than a few car channels here:

Legit Street Cars
Deboss Garage
David Freiburger (roadtrips)
Louis Rossmann (when he does long stuff)
DefunctLand
Junkyard Dave
Technology Connections (No-effort November is wonderful)

If you're interested or curious about music theory (even if you don't know much about it), I recommend Charles Cornell. Here's one of him talking about Pure Imagination.

Well There's Your Problem - Engineering disaster podcast, with slides! And the hosts vary from left, to very left.

JunkyardDigs/PoleBarnGarage - Two separate channels. Love them both for just fucking around with old cars/farm equipment/vintage snowmobiles

I'm hooked on Corridor Crew. They review and explain good and bad cgi/vfx in shows and movies.

A couple fun ones I haven't seen mentioned:

Myron Cook - Think "the Bob Ross of Geology." Basically he goes out, finds some rock formation, goes "Huh. Isn't this cool? What do you think happened?" and walks you through everything dating back to like the formation of the planet. He's like a teddy bear and his channel is wonderful and fascinating.

Dan Hurd - He's a dorky gold prospector. He may have caused me to buy a gold panning set.

Trying not to put duplicates:

ViceGripGrage - finds old shitty cars and gets them running and drives them home
MightyCarMods - as the name suggests, building/fixing/modifying cars
Savagegeese - very detailed car reviews, no bullshit
B1M - talks about mega projects and there issues
ItchyBoots - Badass motorcyclist that has traveled solo across the world
shiey - Explores abandoned places, hops trains, insane lack of fear of heights
The Proper People - also explores abandoned buildings
Rick Beato - music producer that analyzes songs and talks about various music related topics

Science and futurism with Isaac Arthur.

"Stuff made here" is an excellent channel about crazy fun engineering projects, such as a pool cuestick that always pockets the ball and so on.

My recommendation for travel would be 'Bald and Bankrupt', in particular I loved his whole Russian/Ex-Soviet Union series.

For documentaries, I do enjoy the 'Down the Rabbit Hole' documentaries. They did a great one on Terry A. Davis a few years back

For videogame essays, my two faves are Jacob Geller and Powerpak

I watch a few different channels regularly. Here are a few of my favorites

Cecilia Blomdahl lives in the Arctic Circle/northern Norway and has lots of adventures and videos her day to day life in a really interesting way.

Also some Brits who have been renovating abandoned chateaus in France called Escape the Dream and a new one called Mucky Mansion are great escapism

Brain Pilot makes some good videos recapping a few shows i enjoy

I have a few classic youtubers I still watch from back in the day Safiya Nygard and Grace Helbig, for some beauty/crazy fashion/cooking stuff

If you want a sane political/comedy channel, Trae Crowder, the Liberal Redneck is fantastic. In that same vein, Some More News does fantastic deep dives in lots of political and social issues focused mostly on the US

Living big in a tiny house is really interesting seeing cool tiny homes around the world

Takis shelter is a channel from an amazing man who runs a sanctuary for animals in Crete and is a literal saint

I really enjoy Calum's work on obscure vehicles, shipping containers, and stuff like that: https://www.youtube.com/@CalumRaasay

Mustard has other fun vehicles, often with a focus on aircraft: https://www.youtube.com/@MustardChannel

David Hilowitz does fun stuff with musical instruments (finding them, sampling them, stuff like that): https://www.youtube.com/@DavidHilowitzMusic

I love wargaming miniatures and basically the only channel I watch on the subject is Eric's Hobby Workshop: https://www.youtube.com/@EricsHobbyWorkshop

Do yourself a favour and watch Ed Pratt Unicycle around the world. This is one of my favourite things on YouTube, watching him go from just a kid with a weird dream to a great filmmaker and experienced traveler in such an authentic way. Highly recommended

Bobby Fingers

Clay sculpting with humorous narration.

Watch 30 seconds to get the feel. One of the best.

Crime pays botany doesn't

I don't know why I get suggestions for flat earth and anti-evolution videos but I like watching them because I learn a lot. My guess is that because of my interest in comedy videos I discovered "Patti Reviews Exotic Animals". From there I got" Clint's Reptiles". He is a a theist that accepts and explains evolution. I never doubted it but never took the time to learn what it was all about.

Then I get "Professor Dave Explains". He's fantastic. So many good science videos. So many videos where he puts an end to the dumbest ideas I've never even heard of. Do I need to learn how to argue with a creationist? No, but now I know how.

"Gutsick Gibbon" is awesome. Hers are on the larger side so I haven't seen them all but she's got great science education.

The last one I'll mention is "Lindsay Nikole" because she's my second favorite. If you want to know about the history of life on Earth then she's the best. Why isn't she my first favorite? It's because I don't have a favorite and I want her name to stick in you mind when you go to search youtube for things to watch. You'll notice she has guitars on her wall and I someday I hope to get her on a music project. I write songs about bugs and need her to get on at least one of them in some way. That would be cool as fuck.

"Oki's Weird Stories" is so very good.

Also "Shaun" and very much "Shanspeare" are great, if you're looking for long-form content.

I keep thinking of more, so I'm just going to list them here:

AustinMcConnell, BobbyBroccoli, Dime Store Adventures, Fredrick Knudsen, Jenny Nicholson (already mentioned here many times!), Ahoy, Kid Leaves Stoop, Lady Emily, Sarah Z, Moon Channel, Paper Will, Soup Emporium.

For comedy I love watching Drew Gooden and especially Kurtis Conner.
DougDoug (Twitch Streamer) has an incredible creativity for stream ideas and his videos on the main channel are edited incredibly well to capture the essence of a stream in ~30 minutes.
Techmoan is one of my favorite technology YouTubers. He has such a calming voice
Another Tech YouTuber I really love is CRD - Cathode Ray Dude. He pretty much is the nerdiest nerd for the most incredible niches. Highly recommend
To get some girls here: I enjoy the essays by Gabi Belle quite a lot, she makes video essays on pop culture with a high focus on music and Gordon Ramsay for some reason

Perun for military stuff, especially Ukraine.

Mostly history documentaries below:

Fall of Civilization (takes forever to upload stuff, but it's always superb quality)
Kings and Generals (wars, historic battles and the context surrounding them)
Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages (several videos show the very likely migrations of different peoples in ancient times)
Ancient Americas (north, central and south americas)
Real Time History (most videos are ~27 minutes, but the Franco Prussian war is a whopping 6 hours and worth it)

I like the Why Files, very entertaining even if they have to ruin the fun by "telling the actual story" at the end.

Haven't seen it here yet, but it's one of the greatest and most prolific YouTube channels about science fiction and the future... Science Fiction and Futurism With Isaac Arthur

I am not normally a fan of long form videos unless I'm in the mood for it, but Philosophy Tube is my go to. Thanks to her, she (he before she transitioned) actually taught me what liberal really means, socially progressive but economically conservative.

Most of my favourites have been mentioned already, but I wanna add a really niche one:

OSW Review, old school wrestling video podcast. Some Irish blokes who watch old wrestling shows und discuss them in a mostly humorous, yet still informative manner.

I don't watch YouTube to often but I used to like to watch some content from Yes Theory.

My partner watches a few others though, I see her watching Smosh, which sometimes is good, she always watches good mythical stuff, but I am not as much of a fan of them.

I think I avoid YouTube mostly, but if Yes Theory fits your question, I like their underlying message (it started off as a saying Yes to life and taking chances and believing that people were inherently good and try to get communities and the world to come together it seems) and I was actually afraid to say it because I figured someone would come out and tell me how they are actually terrible people somehow. Hopefully not. (Fingers crossed)

Hochelaga, Horses, Real Science, ContraPoints, Knowing better

Fall of Civilizations

A podcast about the collapse of civilizations throughout history.

Why do civilizations collapse? What happens afterwards? And what did it feel like to watch it happen?

The original podcast episodes have been set to high-quality video of the area being discussed and whatever remains of the civilization are possible to capture on video.

The discussion of what we know about these dead civilizations and what happened to them is really fascinating.

Explore with Us

Two video game ones:

I've recently caught up on About Oliver's second season of Minecraft streams. He's an astrophysicist who never played Minecraft before 2022 and documented his entire blind playthrough. No reading chat, no googling etc. He only knew that he could get to credits somehow, but didn't even know how.

I highly recommend the entire playthrough, but there is a 6 hour Compilation of season 1 if you want to catch up to current day. Season 2 is about 40 episodes in, with about 4-5h per episode.

For stuff about films, I like 'Thomas Flight' and 'Like Stories Of Old'. LSOO has just released a video about Gladiator II that I'm going to watch in a bit (I'm hoping he hated it as much as I did!)

Let me lead with this: I'm taking recommendations for spooky channels.

Okay, first of all, how the fuck has nobody mentioned Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't? [https://youtube.com/@crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt](Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't)

You get to hear the angriest man alive nerd out about plants.

Someone else mentioned Tasting History with Max Miller and I must second that recommendation, it's a really good channel if you appreciate Cooking, History, and especially both.

For spooky stuff, I recommend Midnight Broadcast. They basically take 4chan/reddit creepypasta threads, clean it up a bit for the YouTube algo, feed it to an AI reader, and publish them as 20-30 minute videos. There's also a now dead channel called "Chass" that did the same thing, mixed in a bit of its own lore, and also did a couple of specials like the Epic of MonkeyHumper (11/10 story, possibly the best creepypasta ever published, cannot recommend enough). Though, Chass kept a bit more of the raw 4chan elements than MB does, so be ye warned.

Overanalyzing Avatar does that good 20-min long videos where he just really goes maximum nerd on Avatar The Last Airbender and Korra. It's passionate, funny, and interesting, and if you even kind of like the cartoons, I highly recommend giving him a try.

I'll add some more if I think of them

Depends on my mood, and some creators have come and go from my rotation, some random ones: Krystal Kyle and Friends (left leaning politics podcast) Warfronts (more medium form, but I think it's a good balance) The Right Opinion (long form documentaries, generally around controversial internet figures) Jim Can't Swim (JCS Criminal Psychology) Fredrick Knudsen (down the rabbit hole series) Karl Jobst (speed running documentaries essentially) Radking (Fallout lore stuff) SmoughTown (Elden Ring lore stuff) Ymfah (ridiculous video game challenges with humorous editing)

There's tons more ofc

melodysheep - quality animations about universe, earth

thinmatrix - cozy, solo gamedev videos

Hakim, Mental Outlaw, Second Though , Alice Capelle, The Hated One

I haven't seen it mentioned but I enjoy channels like Solo Solo Travel - slow-TV style videos about public transportation. What food can you get on a first class flight from Tokyo to Australia? All the videos have zero commentary unless you turn on the subtitles.

I enjoy them a lot because they're very relaxing and make me feel very cozy.

Weird Fruit Explorer
Tasting History

Jeff Gerstmann, video game journalist

Lindsay Nikole, paleontology pop sci

Gutsick Gibbon, prehistoric anthropology pop sci and some academic stuff

Spacetime and SEA, cosmology pop sci sometimes leaning more academic

Rifftrax/mst3k, comedians that add audio tracks over bad mostly public domain movies, there's a ton of them

Ben G Thomas, prehistoric biology pop sci

This Old Tony - if you like tools, machines, and clever dad jokes. He's the best.

I personally enjoy these but not sure if its what your looking for

The outdoor boys - goes solo camping and sometimes brings his kids along, family trips abroad, and also creating a homestead.

Westinchamplin - modifies cars and trucks for red neck science.

Paolo from tokyo - interesting takes on the life of japan series was the best. Shows all different types of jobs from japan

This Old Tony: home machinist that fixes stuff and makes other stuff in his garage, but does everything very well thought out. Humorous and good editing.

I enjoy efap which is probably the longest form, especially Mauler, the others are generally better in a mixed crowd. It's movies and Internet drama for the most part.

I like longer form sailing channels that avoid the more obvious place or lack basic sailing skills and are frankly dangerous. I don't get to sail as much as I like so this is a good look and what I would rather be doing.

Maddison Boat Works their recent videos are of their epic tour of the Pacific Ocean, the road less travelled. Beautifully shot and narrated.

NBJS single-handed sailing in the North Sea, often in bad weather.

Alluring Arctic depending what time period you pick there is a wide range of mostly arctic sailing. They recently did the North West passage and are currently over wintering in Greenland.

I have been a fan of Kraut for a long time. He makes video essays on a lot of historical and political topics. He has made two massive three part series that total to nearly four hours about the histories of Mexico and Turkey. He makes some short form as well, like a point about american healthcare that americans don't realize.

@Kraut_the_parrot

Black Dragon Tavern

Storytelling about Celtic, Gaelic, and Norse mythology, history, and lore.

For history, I really like Premodernist. It's just a history professor telling you history. It's great because he's a good storyteller and he actually knows the subject.

One name I have yet to see here is We Are Not Alive (Formerly Diregentlmen), group of professional writers who talk about writing, media, and tropes. Check them out.

Asmongold

Big recommendation for Nebula. It's dirt cheap and has all this type of content ad-free, downloadable, play in background, etc

Hoovies Garage for some car comedy. The guy buys dump cars that need repairs and he let the local mechanic fix them. He makes dumb choices for entertainment.

JustBackgroundNoise - morrowind challenges
PatricianTV - Extremely long format game reviews (elder scrolls, world of warcraft and more)
RealLifeLore - Geopolitics

used to be a bunch asain tubers, but they turn shitheel after misdirecting thier channels declines towards thier own female employees(resulting in a unprofessional firing), apparently they continued thier mysogyny against thier past female employees, and yes they are full MAGATs now. also had unchecked racism allowed to fester on the channel which drove most if not all AA influencers away.

Vice grip garage.

Hoog, fern, Thinker and Moon do rather similar styles of documentary content.

rSlash and Mainly Fact are the best "Reddit stories" channels that actually provide their own commentary rather than reading out Reddit posts verbatim with text-to-speech tools, or passing off blatantly fake AI slop hallucinated by ChatGPT as genuine.

Ahoy mainly does documentaries about weapons and how they're depicted in video games, but he's also done some retro gaming stuff too.

Rav is one of the few League of Legends content creators I actually like. He doesn't just lazily regurgitate stream VODs as video guides with clickbaity thumbnails like a lot of creators do. Yes, he uses text-to-speech commentary to narrate his games but his scripts are actually fucking hilarious.

Mr Sunday Movies/The Weekly Planet

Time Team Official

Cutting Edge Engineering

Not as long form as they usually max out around an hour. Good enough for walking dogs.

New Rock Stars.

Dark Net Diaries.

Star Talk.

Beyond Trust has a podcost interviewing tech people.