Echoing some other suggestions surely, but here are a few that I regularly come back to:
GAMING:
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CallMeKevin (really funny, wholesome Irish guy known for playing games kinda hilariously incorrectly )
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GameGrumps (two best friends playing games and riffing. Usually very funny and wildly inappropriate. Feels like gaming with high school buddies)
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Outside Xbox/Outside Xtra (small team of British friends with lots of quirky, easily digestible “7 things” lists over the years)
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Dungeon Dudes (pretty broad and approachable dives into all things D&D)
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Smooth McGroove (older channel with many delightful a cappella renditions of video game songs)
COOKING:
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Babish Culinary Universe (super approachable, funny, and well-edited cooking tutorials with fun themes and lots of room to be wrong)
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How to Cook That (Ann Reardon is a super knowledgeable, friendly, crazy talented baker, and she does a lot of good work to address and debunk dangerous & stupid trends on social media)
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Joshua Weissman (similar vibes to Babish, but a little more overtly comedic. Does great recreations of fast food classics)
SCIENCE & TECH:
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Technology Connections (deep dives that make mundane things in our lives seem super fascinating)
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OzTalksHw (very wholesome, budget-friendly PC builds with an emphasis on self care.)
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ZeFrank (excellent, accurate, and very funny short nature documentaries)
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NetworkChuck (friendly, well-edited tutorials on lots of IT-related things)
ENTERTAINMENT AND OTHER/MISC:
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Kitboga (fairly wholesome considering the content area. He exposes and confronts phone scammers with hilarious made up character voices and fake websites & accounts, and he teaches people what to look out for in the process. Lots of swearing and shouting from scammers that he regularly pisses off by wasting their time and getting their accounts closed)
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Watcher (Ryan and Shane do a lot of different interesting things, and their banter and chemistry are infinitely watchable. Puppet History is a particular favorite)
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Digging the Greats (really cool deep dives into the makings, origins, and fun facts about all things hip hop)
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I don’t know these were posted or not but here is my suggestions which every youtube watching person probably already heard about most of them:
Not Just Bikes: Channel about Urban Planing-Living and how destructive the cars are.
History Matters: Short animated videos about historical events, narrated with humor.
my mechanics: Best and most detailed restorations ever.
NileRed - NileBlue: All about experimenting with chemical reactions.
Oversimplified: Like the name, oversimplified narrations of historical events but in a long form with animated depictions and humor of course.
Stefan Milo: Really informative research videos of archeology.
The Linux Experiment: Like the name suggests it’s all about Linux.
Bad Lip Reading: It’s in the name.
ChrisFix: Best car repair channel out there.
DIY Perks: DIY videos but heavy on the entertainment side rather than the doable diys.
Ethan Chlebowski: Trying to understand cooking from the perspective of homecooks.
Alex (the French Guy Cooking): Reverse engineering the recipes.
Brick Experiment Channel: Building Lego machines.
These all are high quality channels imo. There are a lot more but I am kinda lazy for now.
This is a csv file of really high quality channels that you can directly use in Piped: Proton Drive Link to csv file
Gaming
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TheRussianBadger - gaming with good humor and editing
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Max0r - gaming with good humor, voice acting, and insane editing
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Scott the Woz - for that old YouTube feel
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RTGame - funny Irish gaming man
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Call Me Kevin - funny Irish gaming man
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Indeimaus - mostly horror and Metroidvania gaming
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Game Apologist - good Sonic content
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RadKing - Fallout content
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Iron Pineapple - From Software enthusiast
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MuYe - BeamNG content
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The Orpheon - good Metroid content
Tech Stuffs
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Louis Rossman - disgruntled business tech repair man
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Gamers Nexus - pc tech review
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Linus Tech Tips (and its other channels) - LMG has been making some very good changes since their first response to their recent controversies. If they actually deliver with them, then all of these channels should be good to watch. Mac Address should be fine to watch as it has been stated that the channel and group affiliated are kept somewhat separated from the rest of LMG for various reasons.
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Hardware Unboxed - Australian pc tech review
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Monitors Unboxed - Hardware Unboxed for Monitors
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Dave’s Garage - cool Windows tricks from the guy who made the Task Manager
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The Cherno - good Australian C++ channel
Open Source Stuffs
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Nicco Loves Linux - good KDE and GNOME stuff
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The Linux Experiment - Linux and open source news
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unfa🇺🇦 - open source audio solutions
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Mental Outlaw - the libre man
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Royal Skies - free and open 2d and 3d content and assets
Animation
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TerminalMontage - great animations
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Noodle - great story animator
Practical Experiments
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The Slow Mo Guys - slow motion videos of pretty cool stuff
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Hacksmith Industries - cool Sci-Fi irl building channel
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Shadiversity - medieval weapon and armour experimentation
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ElectroBOOM - shocking experiments
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Major Hardware - 3d printing and fan design showdown
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Donut - good car content
Music
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SilvaGunner - wacky game music
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Eurobeat Gems - great if you like Eurobeat music
Education
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Audio University - how your sound system works
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Kyle Hill - science with nerd Thor
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LockPickingLawyer - you will never look at locks the same way
Miscellaneous
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No Text To Speech - cool for Discord users
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Fact Fiend - miscellaneous facts and British banter
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Bosnian Ape Society - If you’ve seen Nvidia Bread, then you’ll understand.
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High Boi - movie summaries
There’s more that I could # recommend, but I couldn’t figure out how to describe them.
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Really depends on what you want to check out. Here are some of my favorites in no particular order but roughly ordered by topic.
Science
- Astrum - various space and planets related topics
- Geschichtsfenster - A German channel on medieval topics and reactions to documentaries
- Raumzeit - Vlog der Zukunft - A German channel about space and science
- Urknall, Weltall und das Leben - A German science channel with focus on space topics
Technology
- Cathode Ray Dude - In-detail videos on 2000’s tech with focus on audio/video hardware
- Lost In Tech - Videos on 3D printing and 3D printers
- my mechanics - High quality “restoration ASMR”
- The 8-Bit Guy - Videos about 1980’s computer technology
- Brodie Robertson - News and commentary on various Linux and FOSS topics
- ThePrimeagen - Reactions on various coding-related content
- Kevin Powell - CSS tutorials and videos on CSS development
- Zack Freedman - Could be best described as “open source craftmanship”
Gaming
- aCookieGod - Minecraft mega builds in hardcore mode
- Fan The Deck - Steam Deck news and commentary
- Karl Jobst - Documentations on gaming history and speedruns
- Shulkercraft - Minecraft videos about creative and large build projects
- Summoning Salt - Video games speedrun history and documentation
3D printing
- 3D Printing Nerd - A channel about 3D printing topics
- CNC Kitchen - Mainly 3D printing content
Contrapoints and Andrewism immediately come to mind. Might add more in an edit.
- Adam Something
- blameitonjorge
- Computerphile
- crowbcat
- Digital Foundry
- dime store adventures
- ElectroBOOM
- GamersNexus
- LEMMiNO
- neo
- Nexpo
- PBS channels
- RealLifeLore & related channels
- Sam O’Nella Academy
- Tom Scott
You could add Summoning Salt to this list. I’m not really otherwise interested in world record attempts, but something about his narration is so good.
Another fun addition could be Oversimplified.
If you like Summoning Salt, I highly recommend OneShortEye.
This didn’t tickle my fancy, but I can see why the videos are popular.
Most of mine have already been mentioned, but here are a few I didn’t see:
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Songs by Spencer A guy named Spencer makes songs. Relatively new channel, but the production quality is top notch. I think his day job is owner of a video production company.
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Cheap Audio Man Reviews relatively cheap audio gear. Cheap is a pretty wide range in the audio world.
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Awesome Open Source Talks about open source software. Usually runs through how to install and basic usage/features.
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Chris Titus Tech Tech channel. Mostly Windows and Linux.
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Techno Tim Mostly homelab related stuff
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66Samus Drum stuff
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Nicole van der Hoeven Obsidian.md / Personal Knowledge Management
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Rachel Maksy Cosplay / crafty stuff
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How to ADHD ADHD stuff
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Coffeezilla Covers scams, grifters, etc.
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James Hoffmann All things coffee
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The Kiffness Makes songs out of random internet clips of animals. Or remixes other people singing. My kids love this channel.
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Depends on what you are interested in:
AntsCanada
Donut Media
Hoonigan
Ken Block
george hotz archive
Primitive Technology
Scott Manely
Colin Furze
Linus Tech Tips
Louis Rossman
NotJustBikes
Adam Something
City Beautiful
Alan Fisher
CityNerd
Rich Rebuilds
JerryRigEverything
Marques Brownlee
WOBO
Rising with The hill
Breaking points
Russell Brand
Kim Iverson
Sabby Sabs
The Jimmy Dore Show
Hard Lens Media
The Dive with Jackson Hinkle
JRE Snips & Clips
Camping with Steve
Defunctland
Mic the Snare
Weatherbox
SovietWomble
Kitboga
Eddy Burbank
Summoning Salt
NakeyJakey
RedLetterMedia - movie and bad movie “reviews”
RedLetterMedia has been my favorite channel for years now. They’re pretty big outside of the internet too, as I’ve worked with a couple fellow fans. The Mr Plinkett Star Wars Prequel reviews put em on the map, like what… a decade ago?
I’m not doing links because I’m lazy, but I watch a lot of YouTube and these are my favorites:
Ordinary Things - funny smarmy British dude explains ordinary things. Once a month or so, very high effort stuff.
That Chapter - funny sarcastic Irish guy explains true crime things. Twice a week on a good week. Also high effort research
Internet Comment Etiquette - this is not for you. Don’t watch it. You’ve been warned.
LGR - the best legacy youtuber talks about the best legacy tech.
Patrick Willems - funny American guy explains movie stuff.
The Crafsman Steady Craftin - funny puppet man does crafts. This is the most high effort channel on YouTube.
If you like sarcastic Brits and the Craftsman, please check out Bill Making Stuff.
Love that channel! I bought some of his prints and 2 of his shirts from his shop. Pretty affordable vs many other YouTube artists!