Title essentially. Youtube’s algorithm is hot garbage, so I can’t search for anything anymore without a ton of AI slop and rage bait. So, who do you go to for actual good long form videos? Exposes, scandals, behind the scenes, documentaries, film, travel, transit, who do you recommend I follow?

  • purplemonkeymad@programming.dev
    3·
    36 minutes ago

    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.

  • BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world
    1·
    12 minutes ago

    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

  • mugthol@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    2·
    52 minutes ago

    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

  • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
    1·
    50 minutes ago

    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.

  • MohamedMoney@feddit.orgEnglish
    3·
    2 hours ago

    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 booked who watch old wrestling shows und discuss them in a mostly humorous, yet still informative manner.

    • ajoebyanyothername@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 hour ago

      Upvote and another shout out for OSW. They initially went through old school WWF, have now covered older and newer stuff from TNA and AEW, as well as film reviews and some video game deep dives. They do have quite a few running jokes at this point, but not so much that it would alienate new viewers.

  • Opinionhaver@feddit.ukEnglish
    6·
    2 hours ago

    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

  • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
    2·
    2 hours ago

    Adding a few I haven’t already seen:

  • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    2 hours ago

    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.

    • ajoebyanyothername@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 hour ago

      These two were my first thought! I’ll add that both cover a range of topics, Jenny does do a lot of videos around Star Wars, but also covers obscure films, and theme parks, wherenl HBomber runs the gamut from flat earth to vaccines to video games to plagiarism. Both are incredibly well researched and, in my opinion, offer very fair takes on the subject matter.

  • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
    19·
    6 hours ago

    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.

  • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
    5·
    4 hours ago

    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

  • spiderhamster@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 hours ago

    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.

  • NotNotMike@programming.dev
    2·
    3 hours ago

    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.