LAST EDITED ON Jul-23-25 AT 03:44 AM (EDT)
 
Over on the vtubers board, TsukaiStarburst said:
>It really does feel like there is some giant kind of psyco-parasite
>doing everything it can to mentally and emotionally destroy as many
>people as it possibly can in the world right now and you can see in
>real time people doing their best to fight back against an enemy they
>don't even understand with support and kindness.

Before I crash, I'd just like to take a moment and offer a handful of YouTube channels, some of which I've watched for a long time and others I've just stumbled over in the last little while, which may go some way toward making things better.

Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial
Just like it says on the tin: the former USS New Jersey (BB-62), now preserved (like all the Iowa-class battleships) as a museum. NJ's is not your average museum YouTube channel. Curator Ryan Szimanski and his media team put out a video at 7 PM Eastern time every weekday about something in, on, around, or to do with the ship's history and/or present state. You never know what it's going to be. It might be the keys that controlled the nuclear weapons the Navy can still not confirm nor deny the ship carried in the 1980s. It might be a cool wrench Ryan found while poking around one of the ship's dozens of DAMCON lockers. Ryan seems like he'd be a fun guy to hang around with.

The Tank Museum
Another not-your-average-museum-channel. The Tank Museum in Bovington, England has the world's largest collection of armored vehicles, and they like to talk about them. They like to do that quite a lot. Most of the figures who made this channel one of the lifelines of the pandemic have sadly moved on, but there's still a lot of fun stuff coming out of Bovington, and of course the archive of all their older content is still there.

The Royal Armouries Museum
One last museum channel. Many of you probably already know this as the home of Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, Which Houses a Collection of Thousands of Iconic Weapons From Throughout History, and indeed his "What Is This Weapon?" series is a mainstay of the channel--but they also have other people working there, and other areas of specialization, which also get their own interesting and well-produced videos on occasion.

Midlife Stockman
Speaking of fighting back with support and kindness: Sean Stockman lives somewhere in greater Detroit, and his hobby is driving around with a trailer full of lawn care equipment and tidying up overgrown properties he spots along the way. Abandoned houses (and there are a lot of those in metro Detroit these days), vacant lots, the yards of folks who can't keep up with it for various reasons, whatever. If it's covered in vines, choked in weeds, and just generally making the rest of the neighborhood look bad, he'll clean it up. He doesn't just mow the grass, either. Trash that needs picking up, hedges that need trimming, if it's yard-related he'll get to it. The man is a fanatical edger. (Not in that way.) And he does it all for free.

He's also relentlessly cheerful and non-judgmental about whatever's going down, and very good at de-escalating situations when people get in his face about... cutting grass for free?? (This happens with a slightly weird frequency.) He clearly regards what he's doing as a capital-M Mission in the Christian sense, but, at least on camera, he's unusually non-overbearing about it. He's too busy getting stuff done.

Rudan Brothers
The three Rudan brothers, Miloš and his twin younger brothers Stefan and Momĉilo, are immigrants from Serbia who have a roofing business in greater Toronto. A few times a month, they do basically the same thing as Stockman, except instead of looking for yards that need work, they look for houses with roofs that are in bad shape. When they find one, they offer to replace the gutters, no charge. If the homeowners take them up on it, they do the gutter work as promised, but at the end, when they've shown the homeowners their new gutters, they offer to put a new steel roof on the house. For free. With a lifetime warranty.

As you might expect, a lot of people the Rudans encounter are very suspicious, both of the initial offer and the follow-up. The homeowners almost always assume it's some kind of scam at first. Some homeowners even run them off with threats of violence and/or the police. Even after the gutters are done, some are skeptical about the roof offer. The fun thing about this is that the brothers are so likeable, and so obviously good at their job, that the ones who give them a chance usually end up bringing them food and having patio parties with them by the second day of the job.

I dunno, I never thought I would be interested in videos about lawn care or roofing, but there's something strangely engaging about both of these channels. Part of it is that the segments where they're actually working are oddly meditative, but in both cases, their interactions with the people they're helping, and other people in the neighborhoods, are what really makes their channels what they are. It's a sad statement about today's world that so many people are suspicious of, or even actively hostile to, both Stockman and the Rudan brothers, but at the same time, the fact that they're out there pushing back against that tide is really something.

(Also, the Rudans have a pal called Sonny who sometimes comes and pitches in with their bigger products, which is especially touching when it comes out that Sonny's Croatian. Serbs and Croats... not generally the best of buds, after all.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Another channel to have a look at: http://www.youtube.com/@the_fat_electrician

Started off doing short TikToks but since coming over to youtube does more longer-form videos. The subject of his videos are mostly military history (WWI, WWII, certain military divisions, vehicles, weapons, people, etc) but occasionally focuses on things that he likes or finds funny. Aldi's, Bass Pro Shops, Waffle House and other random off-the-wall things. I could try to describe his approach to presenting the information but I wouldn't be able to do it justice. It's definitely not a bland or dry spewing out of facts.

Figured I'd join in the fun and add a few channels I've been following (off and on) for awhile:

Junkyard Digs
One of the many "car revival" channels out there, though in this case of the "glutton for punishment" variety (ala Vice Grip Garage) in frequently picking cars far from home that either haven't run in ages and/or in very rough shape and then driving them home to Iowa to decide if they're even worth trying to fix up for sale. Channel is run (and largely stars) Kevin Brown and his crew of misfits like his wife "Mook," Angus, Phoenix, Tom, and whoever shows up to join in the misadventures on a (somewhat) weekly basis. Has two annual channel traditions, the first is finding an abandoned camper to fix up in a week and drive 500 miles to watch a NASCAR race at the Kansas Motor Speedway, while the second is finding similarly abandoned farm equipment to plant and harvest crops on his property with the end goal of making enough money to afford beers for everybody.

SB Mowing
A similar channel to Midlife Stockman, SB Mowing is run by Sean B who runs a mowing and lawn care business out of Wichita, Kansas but uses his free time and materials to help out folks in the local community by cleaning up overgrown lawns and vacant lots, magically finding sidewalks under years of built-up dirt and sod, and getting harassed by everybody from nosy neighbors and cops to random jackholes who have a problem with the idea of charity. Oddly has a side project channel called SB Power Washing which is exactly what it says on the tin: A channel with Sean power-washing people's driveways and walkways (again, for free).

Midwest Magic Cleaning
A channel run by Tim Felix and his friends/employees who (like Stockman and SB) take on projects for charity, in this case usually cleaning the homes of hoarders which are in need of deep cleaning...or an exorcism. Highlights will often include stacks of years/decades old detritus, kitchens that haven't cooked a meal in ages, tubs blacker than the heart of a Fortune 500 CEO, and the occasional rodent skeleton or two. Also does side videos on issues related to hoarding, his reasons for not cleaning certain homes, stuff that he left out of previous videos, and his own struggles with depression. A good channel if you're not too squeamish about the things that grow in toilets that haven't been touched with a cleaning brush since Clinton was in the White House.

EXP
The home of the "Expert Reacts" videos that used to appear on Gamespot before they unceremoniously canceled the series, the main draw is (of course) Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, Which Houses a Collection of Thousands of Iconic Weapons From Throughout History and his co-host Dave Jewitt continuing to look at the weapons of famous games and movies such as their recent video on the guns of the John Wick films. Tune in for a look at your favorite weapons from the latest first person shooter, stick around for Jonathan cringing at cursed guns as he cradles his emotional support MP5.

Found And Explained
Rounding out this list is Found And Explained, a channel hosted by Nick that looks at various aeronautical, nautical nautical, and technological topics from across history with a heavy emphasis on various test projects and paper designs that failed for one reason or another. What makes Nick's work impressive is that he takes the time to not only build 3D models of the subjects of his videos but also animated sequences or cutaways for important bits so that he's not simply throwing grainy B&W or gray-scale pictures on the screen while he narrates over them.

>SB Mowing
>A similar channel to Midlife Stockman, SB Mowing is run by Sean B who
>runs a mowing and lawn care business out of Wichita, Kansas but uses
>his free time and materials to help out folks in the local community
>by cleaning up overgrown lawns and vacant lots, magically finding
>sidewalks under years of built-up dirt and sod, and getting harassed
>by everybody from nosy neighbors and cops to random jackholes who have
>a problem with the idea of charity. Oddly has a side project channel
>called SB Power Washing which is exactly what it says on the
>tin: A channel with Sean power-washing people's driveways and walkways
>(again, for free).

I've watched this one from time to time! Solid channel.

>>SB Mowing
>>A similar channel to Midlife Stockman, SB Mowing is run by Sean B who
>>runs a mowing and lawn care business out of Wichita, Kansas but uses
>>his free time and materials to help out folks in the local community
>>by cleaning up overgrown lawns and vacant lots, magically finding
>>sidewalks under years of built-up dirt and sod, and getting harassed
>>by everybody from nosy neighbors and cops to random jackholes who have
>>a problem with the idea of charity. Oddly has a side project channel
>>called SB Power Washing which is exactly what it says on the
>>tin: A channel with Sean power-washing people's driveways and walkways
>>(again, for free).
>
>I've watched this one from time to time! Solid channel.

Ok, can anyone who watches this channel tell me exactly what the deal is here? I mean, I get the "Hi, can I mow your lawn for free" part, and apparently he has some sort of relationship(?) with the city govt, so actually abandoned properties would be fair game, but I managed to get a couple videos in a row randomly where he couldn't tell who owned the house or if anyone was home and just... started mowing. Surely that's a bad idea? Trespassing, liability issues, something?

--dbrandon

>stick around for Jonathan cringing at cursed
>guns as he cradles his emotional support MP5.

If you haven't watched any of these yet, this isn't an exaggeration- Johnathan will really hold up one of his example guns in a manner suggesting it's like a security blankey (I recommend the Horseshoes Hotdogs and Handgrenades episodes for this).

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

>EXP
>The home of the "Expert Reacts" videos that used to appear on Gamespot
>before they unceremoniously canceled the series, the main draw is (of
>course) Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the
>Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, Which Houses a Collection of
>Thousands of Iconic Weapons From Throughout History and his co-host
>Dave Jewitt continuing to look at the weapons of famous games and
>movies such as their recent video on the guns of the John Wick
>films. Tune in for a look at your favorite weapons from the latest
>first person shooter, stick around for Jonathan cringing at cursed
>guns as he cradles his emotional support MP5.

Just FYI: EXP is having a 50% off sale on their Patreon memberships this month, so if you're not signed up, you can get the first month of the $20 "extended episodes" tier for 10 bucks and change (depending on your local tax situation). I did so, and am now working my way through the rather satisfying backlog that's built up while I've been too {cheap|poor} to pop for the full price.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

LAST EDITED ON Aug-03-25 AT 09:34 PM (EDT)
 
So I'll throw in a few of my own.

For the foodies and history buffs among us:

The Townsends
Centering on the Colonial era, primarily the 18th century, looking at food, cooking methods, and other lifestyle touches such as how to make a quill pen or seal a letter with sealing wax.

Tasting History with Max Miller
More of a historical generalist, Matt picks an era of history, finds an interesting recipe from it, and recreates it in the modern era. His series on the meals of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class, and crew, on the RMS Titanic, might be of especial interest. He also did an episode on what the rescuees were fed aboard the Carpathian.

How To Drink
For the boozers among us, Greg will mix up just about anything, be it a classic drink, a modern drink, or inventing something based on various fictional IPs. (And then there was the time he made MountainDew flavored corn chips and Doritos liquer....)

Chef PK
A professional chef and anime fan cooks various dishes from anime and related products. Unfortunately his reaction videos to the various episodes of Shokugeki no Soma (aka Food Wars) have been taken down due to copyright complaints, his commentary on them from the perspective of a professional chef was very interesting.

Not food related: Cracking the Cryptic
In which a couple of Brits solve puzzles while you watch. Mostly Sudoku of complicated and interesting variants. Might sound boring: really isn't. Watching them work out the chain of logic that goes into some of these puzzles is fascinating.

Words Unravelled
In which a couple of linguists tell you about where words came from and why we talk the way we do.

Tokyo Lens Explore
Dude walks around various places in Japan with a camera, showing off some absolutely beautiful scenery.

There's also B. Dylan Hollis, who recreates recipes from old cookbooks.

He started out doing it during the pandemic as a way to fill time, but has gotten two published books out of it. He's also a riot:

https://www.youtube.com/@BDylanHollis

I found Dylan on TikTok. Also, we bought his cookbooks.

They are absolutely fantastic, as they have both the recipes and the cultural and historical information to go along with them.

Baking Yesteryear is the older stuff arranged chronologically, and Baking Across America is arranged regionally. They also have basic how-to's in the front so that if you have never done much baking, you can get up to speed very quickly. I saw someone review them as "the essential books on baking for the early 21st century", and I agree.

--
Jen Dantes - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lady of Sith Tech Support.
"This may not be a good idea, but it's the only one I have."

Here's some of my favorites...

My Mechanics and Hand Tool Rescue are both dudes with a machine shop in a shed that they use to restore old junk. The difference is, My Mechanics goes for relatively simple old junk that he can make perfect, better than new. Hand Tool Rescue on the other hand looks for interesting and/or strange mechanisms, "high gizmosity", and doesn't try for perfection, just thoroughly cleaned, de-rusted, repainted, and working again. Either way it's always oddly satisfying to see the transformation.

(There are a lot of other "dude with a machine shop who restores old junk" channels but most of them have a bad habit of making the junk pretty but ruining it for actual use in the process. These don't do that.)

kiwami japan hasn't posted anything in a while but their basic schtick is they make a knife out of something you wouldn't think they could possibly make a knife out of.

Wintergatan is a professional musician who's determined to build this machine in real life. And take it on tour with his band. He's blown a lot of time rediscovering various principles of mechanical engineering by cut and try, but somehow that's more fun than if he'd known what he was doing to start with.

I will note that Wintergatan is in fact a professional BAND, made up of 5 multi-instrumentalists and that while the Marble Machine is a bit attention-getting, they've made other instruments, like the Modulin, and also play things like the saw.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The
Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-
Covered Balls!"

This is true, but the vast majority of the *channel* is Martin noodling on the marble machine.

Discovered at random tonight:

Cobbler G
Scotsman repairs boots, using a range of machines and tools that look like they were probably doing the same job in the 1950s. Oddly satisfying. Kind of makes me wish I was a cobbler.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Discovered at random tonight:
>
>Cobbler G
>Scotsman repairs boots, using a range of machines and tools that look
>like they were probably doing the same job in the 1950s. Oddly
>satisfying. Kind of makes me wish I was a cobbler.
>
>--G.
>-><-
>Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
>Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
>zgryphon at that email service Google has
>Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Sounds very in the same vein as The Hoof GP, Scotsman (and team) goes to local farms and trims the hooves of cows. Very relaxing/satisfying (usually), odd mix of brand new heavy machinery and tools that haven't changed in form in a couple hundred years.

-dbrandon

>Sounds very in the same vein as
>The Hoof GP, Scotsman (and
>team) goes to local farms and trims the hooves of cows. Very
>relaxing/satisfying (usually), odd mix of brand new heavy machinery
>and tools that haven't changed in form in a couple hundred years.

(Is that the guy who... yes it is.)

This probably deserves a bit of a content warning: The hooves are often very not healthy and while often satisfying they are satisfying in the same way dermatology videos are. At the very least, don't check it out around a mealtime. (The featured video as I type this has the word "fountain" in the title for a very good reason.)

>(Is that the guy who... yes it is.)
>
>This probably deserves a bit of a content warning: The hooves are
>often very not healthy and while often satisfying they are satisfying
>in the same way dermatology videos are. At the very least, don't
>check it out around a mealtime. (The featured video as I type this
>has the word "fountain" in the title for a very good reason.)

Ok, yes, fair, it's often messy and a strong stomach is if not required definitely helpful sometimes. I find the end results worth it, though.

--
dbrandon

LAST EDITED ON Jan-27-26 AT 12:46 PM (EST)
 
@physicsduck on YouTube . Chris Biden. He does mainly shorts, but he'll explain in 60 seconds well enough to get your attention on something. Covers pretty much anything you can think of, and encourages you to think and be kind. Encourages kids to pursue a trade, like electrical or plumbing, something that AI won't replace.

... And that's pretty cool

(On Mobile, so I'll have to get the actual link later)

TechMav
Tygr Labs/Tygr Motors

LAST EDITED ON Jan-27-26 AT 01:19 PM (EST)
 
>@physicsduck on YouTube . Chris Biden. He does mainly shorts, but
>he'll explain in 60 seconds well enough to get your attention on
>something. Covers pretty much anything you can think of, and
>encourages you to think and be kind. Encourages kids to pursue a
>trade, like electrical or plumbing, something that AI won't replace.
>
>... And that's pretty cool
>
>(On Mobile, so I'll have to get the actual link later)

Chris Boden (not Biden). Seconded recommendation. Chris is an industrial electrician by trade and a massive wiseass by inclination. Foul-mouthed, sarcastic, preposterously erudite, and extremely up-front about being an ex-con (he got busted for some jiggery-pokery with Bitcoin and did a couple of years in federal prison) and a high-function autist. His high-speed wordplay (filled with innuendo and alliteration) makes his Shorts game so strong I don't even mind that they're Shorts.

His channel description quotes a commenter who described the channel as "Today I Found Out hosted by Deadpool," which is... pretty spot-on.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Thank you. Was doing this over lunch while I was waiting on food. Forum isn't the greatest on mobile, but that's a known issue.

TechMav
Tygr Labs/Tygr Motors

>Thank you. Was doing this over lunch while I was waiting on food.
>Forum isn't the greatest on mobile, but that's a known issue.

No worries! I should've mentioned Chris myself before this, he's awesome.

--G.
check out... this fuckin' thing
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

LAST EDITED ON Feb-03-26 AT 06:40 PM (EST)
 
Mentour Pilot
In which Swedish airline pilot and instructor Petter Hörnfeldt breaks down aviation accidents, generally with a sharp eye for the procedural and human-factors aspects. Petter works from official accident reports and keeps speculation to a minimum. Sort of Mayday omitting the re-enactment scenes and narrated by one of the Expert Witnesses, if said witness were a genial Swede. Petter also has a second channel, Mentour Now!, on which he and/or English colleague Ben Watts talk about current events in commercial aviation; a third channel, Mentour Long Haul, which presents feature-length compilations of videos previously shown on Mentour Pilot; and a fourth channel, Captains Speaking, which presents the eponymous podcast hosted by Hörnfeldt and Watts.

blancolirio
Juan Browne, aviator and Northern California water enthusiast, mostly does as-we-learn-about-them looks at aviation accidents, as opposed to the retrospective analyses seen on Mentour Pilot. For instance, last night he released a video on the crash of a corporate jet here in northern Maine which happened the previous evening. He'll continue to follow the incidents he covers as NTSB and FAA preliminary and final reports about them come along. Juan has a lot of strong opinions about pilot behavior and he's not shy about voicing them, but is willing to walk them back if he's proven wrong by later investigation. He also digresses into things like the state of the Oroville Dam's reservoir and wildland firefighting (in which he used to be involved as a pilot for the U.S. Forest Service).

Pilot Debrief
Retired USAF F-15 pilot, callsign "Hoover", looks mostly at light aviation, charter, and instruction mishaps, with a particular beef against reckless and/or incompetent pilots (especially instructors). In the spirit of a military after-action debriefing (hence the channel name), he looks at what was done wrong and/or could be done better in the future--albeit in something of an abstract sense, since many of the pilots he's "debriefing" are dead. He has a second channel, Hoover's Hangar, in which he flies various aircraft and critiques their capabilities. (Fair warning: these sometimes turn into essentially long advertisements, if he has a rep from the manufacturer with him.)

Captain Steeeve
Captain Steeeve recently retired from American Airlines at the mandatory retirement age of 65, and he's not pleased about it, which is a theme he returns to pretty frequently of late. Like Juan Browne, he mostly talks about things that happened recently, though he covers near-mishaps and absurd things that happen to aircraft and/or ATC as well to keep things on the lighter side. Steeeve's pet peeeve these days is what he views as an experience crisis in the airlines, a consequence of Federal law driving seasoned pilots like himself out of the ranks too soon.

Also, in his previous life (which he talks about sometimes), Commander Steeeve flew P-3 Orions for the Navy out of the former NAS Brunswick here in Maine.

74 Gear
As the name suggests, channel owner Kelsey flies 747s. He flies cargo 747s, which means he's always tired, always hungry, and usually cold. In addition to breaking down various aviation incidents, he also discusses the vicissitudes of the cargo dog's life, including nomadism (last I knew he was technically homeless, but looking for a place to set up a permanent base), circadian disruption, and the best ways to score free food in airport lounges and in-flight snacks on aircraft that don't have cabin crews. Seriously, the man is obsessed with snacks. I picture him in flight like Spider-Man in recent comics, always eating something.

Paper Skies
The creator of this channel is the son of a Soviet fighter pilot, and has many opinion about Soviet military aviation, which he is pleased to share with the wider public. He's also Ukrainian, which makes him doubly unwilling to miss any opportunity to take a cheap shot at the Russians. I mention this bit partly because I think it's hilarious, and partly to temper your expectations. This man is not interested in giving the Soviet system or the Russian national character the benefit of any doubts... but he's extremely funny not doing it, even though it often makes YouTube's monetization police very angry.

He also talks occasionally about oddities from aviation's past that don't involve the Soviets doing preposterous things, such as the Pan Am Clipper that made an unplanned round-the-world flight in 1941–42.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Somehow I missed this thread the first time around.

In the spirit of Stockman and the Rudans, there's Post 10 and other storm drain clearing people. It's just short of hypnotic to watch a street full of water drain away.

If you're into watching people play games, I recommend Pete Complete, not only for his good explanation of why he's doing what he does, but for his voice. It's stress reduction and gaming.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

I guess it's my turn now that I'm resurrected. (I had a kidney stone that took a week to depart, due to a number of factors including the bleeding idiocy of the local hospital system, the stunning idiocy of the New Jersey Department of Records, the extended issues of being of a particular social group in the current United States, and some of my own bullheadedness, making it impossible for me to get a very important medication that would have sped things up tremendously.) This isn't going to involve any of my favorite vtubers, or any people who specialize in particular politics that are very important to me, but I can do followups if people want.

so: Here We Go:

RuPong House: let's start with one that's pretty nice palette cleansing! TheSoy lives in Korea and is apparently pretty fucking rich, and her channel is entirely about her two Pomeranians, Rudy and Pongki. Rudy is the larger of them and very much the lady of them, Pongki is the smaller and most chaotic. It's just, you know, watching a couple of dogs. TheSoy absolutely dotes on these dogs, to the point she hand-makes their food.

Adam Savage's Tested: This got started before the original run of Mythbusters ended, and Jamie dropped out early and it became 100% Adam. And it is one hundred percent Adam Savage. Q&A sessions, visiting costumers and museums and having them visit him, stuff he does in his research. If you love Adam Savage, watch this channel. (And there's a series of episodes about four years ago where you can see he's really barely holding it together with teeth and toenails as he goes over things from the shot of the late, legendary Grant Imahara.)

C. M. Alongi: Urban fantasy, social realism, and coffee! She's an author from Minnesota who started a series over on TikTok called CaFae Latte, which is about a coffee shop run by the fae, using mortal ingredients so they don't capture you in fae magic, and all the crap that happens. The cast expands; the world expands; she wrote a book based on the series. It's got what she calls "super-comps", multi-hour gatherings of episodes from TikTok so you don't have to babysit things, just sit back and let the story flow.

Nerdforge: Skjera bagera! Martina and Hansi make stuff. You get to see them level up their skills and their abilities and their contacts as they go.

• They taught Adam Savage bookbinding!
  
• They made Brandon Sanderson OVERSIZED copies of his Stormlight Archive books and had enough of a good reputation that the publishers let them have one copy of the text of Wind and Truth so they could make the then-unreleased book to present him with a full set (he keeps the books in the background of his videos/podcasts now)!
  
• They made a suit of Warhammer 40K armor that Martina could fit into!
  
• She built herself a pinkie!

They also have Behind the Forge, which they put their own bookbinding course on, and a couple others.

Four Keys Book Arts: classic, basic, fundamental bookbinding. He restores old books, showing the entire process, in a soothing voice. Try to avoid falling alseep - he's so calm.

The Cosplay Bunch

As the Chief mentioned, oddly meditative as they get into the work.

KamuiCosplay. Warning: includes corgis!

Miss Twisteddd: originally saw her doing skits with one of her costumed characters, Juniper the Owl Harpy, on TikTok. Incredibly engaging personality.

--
Jen Dantes - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lady of Sith Tech Support.
"This may not be a good idea, but it's the only one I have."

>Adam Savage's Tested: This got
>started before the original run of Mythbusters ended, and Jamie
>dropped out early and it became 100% Adam. And it is one hundred
>percent Adam Savage.

Adam's Tested is great, but I have to admit I kinda miss the old Whiskey Media Tested, when it was mostly just Will and Norm messing around with 3D printers and toys and unboxing viewer mail.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I'll take my own shot at this, too. I hope I'm doing this right.

Video Games 101, a channel with the conceit of being a class teaching you how to complete classic (Or 'Classic') video games, mostly on the NES, along with fun facts about the game.

U Can Beat Video Games is similar, but without the 'classroom lecture' conceit. These are both good channels for a second monitor, or to go to bed to.

BigstackD casting is an Australian man who has a backyard forge and smelter. He's currently up to over two metric tons of medallions, bricks, figures, and the like. He also has two little pugs which he devotes some time to every video.

AntsCanada is a channel featuring a naturalist(?) who, in the last few years, has made large, extensive vivariums replicating natural environments and filling it with local fauna (plus some occasional uninvited invaders) and showing vignettes of life in them, slightly dramatized (As in anthropomorphized and narrated, rather than forced). NOT FOR THOSE AFRAID OF INSECTS, ARACHNIDS, OR REPTILES OR AMPHIBIANS.

TASVideosChannel is one of the video archives for tasvideos.org, which is an archive of speedruns done via tool-assistance - Typically running frame by frame with save states to play a game 'perfectly' and then run all of the commands through as a script.

LAST EDITED ON Feb-11-26 AT 10:59 PM (EST)
 
Brian Lagerstrom
Former chef and pizza guy turned YouTube cook. Brian's a bit of a hipster and that's sometimes a little annoying (his habit of only saying the first syllable of words sometimes, for instance), but he's funny and engaging, and his food looks really good. Also occasionally drops in hints for gluten-free alternatives, since his partner is either allergic or has celiac, I'm not sure which. This has no personal bearing on me, but I think it's a nice touch generally.

Cowboy Kent Rollins
Kent runs the modern equivalent of a cowboy chuck wagon, traveling around the American Southwest feeding the crews on cattle drives and whatnot. His style leans heavily into the down-home aw-shucks presentation and, true to his roots, he often demonstrates how to cook things outdoors. Occasionally things you wouldn't normally associate with being cooked outdoors. Has some amazing chili recipes. Also frequently features his dogs.

Gavin Webber
Avuncular Australian chap makes cheese. That's it, that's the pitch. Gavin makes cheese. He's the cheese man. That's his whole thing. He was once issued an official cease-and-desist letter by... I forget, either the EU or the Italian government, for having the temerity to call a particular hard aged cheese he was making "Parmesan". Mind you, he wasn't selling this cheese, just letting people watch him make it. They got so much flak from his followers that they rescinded the demand. (Perhaps coincidentally, the law was changed such that only the full "Parmigiano Reggiano" designation is protected outside the EU.)

Japan Eat
Not cooking, just eating. An American in Japan eats at restaurants and comments in a deadpan voiceover, often with strange and silly digressions. His shorts game is almost as strong as Chris Boden's.

John Kirkwood
John's own introduction at the top of each video says it best: His name's John, and he's a retired cook from the north of England in the UK. He sounds like you would expect Santa Claus to sound if he came from Lancashire, and he shows how to make yummy-looking food he used to make commercially at home. I keep meaning to buy his cookbooks. Even when he's making something I wouldn't be into, I find his presentation so comfy I usually watch anyway.

Life of Boris
Boris does a lot of stuff, some of it hard to classify, but I like his cooking videos the most. He's usually making some iconic Slav dish or another, and usually demonstrating how to do so on a budget and without a lot of equipment. Claims to have been thrown out of at least one apartment for the state in which he left the kitchen.

Sip & Feast
New York deli veteran Jim Delmage cooks mostly Italian-American dishes, since that's where his roots lie. I like his attitude toward recipes--that they're guidelines, not rules. He often casually notes, "if you don't like (ingredient), leave it out. I'm not your boss." His teenage son often appears at the end of the video to taste and rate the dish of the day, and it's hilarious to compare his appearances in recent videos to the ones from, say, four years ago. Four years is a long time in that age range. :)

Solo Travel Japan / Food Tour
This is actually a side branch of a channel that I'll probably plug under a different topic eventually. STJ is one of several oddly similar channels in which a Japanese man travels around Japan by various means, showing viewers the experience. A lot of Solo's time on ferry journeys is spent ransacking buffets and eating an astonishing amount of food, so it was only natural that when he started a second channel, it was entirely about food. He goes to restaurants around Japan, especially ones that are noted for a particular dish, and eats in silence, "narrating" with English subtitles, just like his travel videos. I'm not really into Japanese food so much, but I was already a fan from his original channel, so I'm subbed to this one too.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

A couple channels to toss into the pot, one that involves actual cooking and the other a "tasting" channel:

Binging With Babish
A channel started on a lark by Andrew "Babish" Rea back in 2016 on the theme of recreating dishes from various works of fiction and then expanding with "Basics with Babish" that shows his largely single male audience how to cook various dishes or improve the ones they already know, the channel has expanded out into the "Babish Culinary Universe" and includes cohosts like Sohla El-Waylly, Alvin Zhou and Kendell Beach. Highlights include attempts to recreate the infamous "Bubble Bass Burger" from Spongebob, the "Every Meat Burrito" from The Regular Show, and the Ratatouille (Confit Byaldi) from (of course) Ratatouille.

Steve1989MREInfo
On the tasting end of things is our buddy Steve "Steve1989" Thomas who posts semi-frequent videos of something new (or old) in the world of military rations. Steve's taste-tested rations dating back to the mid-1800s with Civil War rations and Mexican-American War hardtack to samples of more modern MREs and their foreign equivalents submitted to him by both friends and viewers alike. While he will not eat anybody obviously rancid, he has gotten sick at least twice from rations that he believed were safe (if disgusting) and been crazy enough to open everything from bulging cans to piles of rust...under safe conditions, of course. He's the guy known for saying "Nice hiss" when rations are still well-sealed (and conversely "hmm, no hiss" when they're obviously gone bad), as well as "Let's get (this) out onto a tray" before cutting to the items of a ration set out on a shiny steel cafeteria tray.

>Steve1989MREInfo

Back when Ian McCollum was still actively involved in the InRangeTV project, he and Karl did a self-conscious riff on Steve1989's style when they opened a couple of Soviet ration kits from (IIRC) the 1980s. Besides how disgusting all the food items probably were before they rotted in the tins, the highlight of the piece was Ian trying to live-translate the Russian labels with an early version of Google Translate for phone-cam. "This is... 'salt ouch with beef'. Maybe. It keeps changing. It might be 'spicy pong'."

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>'salt ouch with beef'.

This sounds like the most perfect name for a dodgy pack of rations ever.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

I'm a big fan of B. Dylan Hollis, a YouTuber who recreates historical recipes (mostly desserts). I'm not sure which is more fun... his reaction to recipes that don't work at all...

...or his reaction when a recipe that SHOULDN'T work, actually does.

(Hint: Watch his ears...)

LAST EDITED ON Feb-13-26 AT 11:32 PM (EST)
 
>I'm a big fan of B. Dylan Hollis, a YouTuber who recreates historical recipes (mostly
>desserts). I'm not sure which is more fun... his reaction to recipes
>that don't work at all...
>
>...or his reaction when a recipe that SHOULDN'T work, actually does.
>
>(Hint: Watch his ears...)

Runner up is when he's mystified by an ingredient in the recipe, only to realize that it makes its own twisted sort of sense. Such as being puzzled by baking soda in the beet chocolate cake because there's no acid...and then realizing the beets are the acid.

I like Tasting History with Max Miller, which is basically what it says on the tin.

McFortner
Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

One of my favorites in this line was The Wolfe Pit. The original focus was eating on a budget, but it looks like his What Are We Eating? videos, which focus on questionable pre-packaged food, have taken over.

I still use some of the recipes from this channel, although I've put them on index cards for ease of cooking.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

I was debating whether to post this rec over in the Motors forum as I was catching up on said forum, then reached this thread. :)

Mighty Car Mods
"A musician and a madman walk into a garage..." A couple of Australian guys have for 15+ years been modding and building cars starting in grandma's driveway and now in their own garage. They've made at least four documentaries, some about the Japan drift scene, some about the Kei car scene, and one epic about their experience taking a car to a 24 hour endurance race in Malaysia. Just all around awesome gearheads who seem like genuinely nice dudes in the bargain.

--sofaspud
--