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?
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.
One I haven’t seen mentioned yet that I think needs more exposure is miniminuteman: https://m.youtube.com/@miniminuteman773/
He does a mix of long form archeology videos and short form pseudo-archeology debunking. Some of it should be dry content but his delivery bridges the gap every time. He has a side channel where he posts about his side projects like his solo motorcycle trips that’s also interesting.
Peter Santanello
Dime Store Adventures
Moon
SomeOrdinaryGamers
SamONella
There’s probably more, but these are the ones I recall
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
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
Their episode about Y2K hooked me.
Technology Connections
It might be worth adding that some people might find him (and similar long form content) verbose if they are not into the topics. I watch probably most of his episodes, but some people in my life don’t vibe with his those. The same people did not appreciate the 7 color e-ink display I had been tinkering around with until I made it display a dog pic, so it’s also about how the topic relates to what you already like.
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.
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.
Bill simmons podcast. Mainly sports but a lot of just in general topics too. Famous guests athletes and not.
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.
- Weird Fruit Explorer
- Tasting History
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
Looooooove Brick Immortar. Check out Maritime Horrors if you haven’t already.
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.
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
Check out NNKH. More of a Philadelphia vibe but enjoyable the same
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.
