Looking for some hidden gems
A bit of an outlier but I find myself watching quite a lot of DarkViperAU. I got into his stuff from watching his very amusing series where he tries to complete GTA 5 as a pacifist, but he also does a regular “rambles” series where he just chats shit about current events, while being fully aware of his own field of knowledge and being careful not to step outside his remit. On the occasion that he does and he gets something wrong, he fully owns the mistake and admits his shortcomings. It’s very refreshing!
You might be vaguely familiar with him if you’re aware of the ongoing drama around reaction streamers. He’s been railing against them for some time.
One of my current favorites is Robot Cantina.
He transplants lawnmower engines into regular cars and tries to make them go as fast as possible in various ways.
True crime. Fat electrician, animagrafs, nilered, primitive technology!
You might also like gesithasgewissa, which is like primitive technology, but in 600AD. And not fake like most of the clones.
I’ll check that out…the reason I like Primitive Technology is because it is clearly not faking the success or failure and the end result is functional but far from flawless.
Same reason I watch it. And this one ticks all those boxes for me too
Lock Picking Lawyer - You’ll quickly realize that locks only keep honest people honest. I even got my own set of practice picks to play around with.
Deviant Ollam - A professional penetration tester. His job is to infiltrate secure facilities then tell them how he did it, so they can improve their security. He takes LPL’s expertise, and puts it into practice. Start with his “I’ll let myself in” talk.
Veritasium - Dude talks at a camera about some niche science and tech concepts.
*Tom Scott - Now retired, so no new videos. Same idea as Veritasium, with a different host.
Technology Connections - Charmingly dorky dude in an t-shirt and blazer explains how everyday items work. Everything from air conditioners to jukeboxes and coffee makers. He’s a big part of why I’m not afraid to troubleshoot my own appliances.
Primitive Technology - Dude goes out into the middle of a forest and builds stuff with nothing but handmade tools. Turn on closed captioning!
Macho Nacho Productions - Retro console modding and emulation, featuring installs and reviews for some of the most popular mods and emulation tools.
Pirate Software - Former Blizzard/Amazon game dev is making his own indie game. There’s also a healthy dose of offensive digital security sprinkled throughout, because he’s also a greyhat hacker.
Practical Engineering - An engineer explains and demonstrates all kinds of engineering concepts, in a simple and easy to follow format. You’ll start seeing examples of his concepts all around you.
Adam Savage’s Tested - Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) builds and shows off all kinds of fun stuff. He also has great insight into how to best utilize a bunch of different tools and equipment.
The Modern Rogue - Two professional idiots try not to injure themselves (and often fail) while stumbling through learning everything from simple bar tricks to knife throwing and Mongolian archery. One of the hosts is a magician of some repute, so there are occasional bits of illusion and sleight of hand thrown in too. It’s basically “what would happen if a couple of dads tried to teach themselves how to make ninja stars in a garage?”
William Osman - Dude with programming and electrical engineering experience uses it to create a musical bidet, and other equally dumb things.
Michael Reeves - See above. He’s friends with William Osman, and they often collab.
Dropout - The old CollegeHumor production crew. They have a variety of content. Game Changer is my personal favorite; Contestants compete on a game show where the rules change with every episode, and the contestants aren’t told what the new rules are.A man of class and taste. I chose to picture you wearing the in bread cat T-shirt while you wrote this.
- Project Farm
- Lock Picking Lawyer
- History Matters
- GeologyHub
- Corridor Crew
- B1M
- Kurzgesagt
- Dave’s Garage
- Mattias Wandel
… and many others that are a lot more hobby specific…
Russian dashcam. I can’t stop.
I watch all sorts of urbex and abandoned exploration videos. The Proper People are great.
Rust to running videos about restoration of old cars and heavy machinery. vice Grip Garage is great, that guys a hoot.
Lately I’ve been into the guy’s channel who bought the old Cerro Gordo mine and had been doing cool videos where he explores the old mines like 900 feet underground.
I’ve been into Heavy D Sparks rescue and recovery videos too.
If you asked me a few years ago, I would have not even said I’m interested in any of these, but with the flood of useless “creator” content, I think they’re pretty interesting.
Synthesizer news and reviews, Dark Souls streams (Lobosjr is the only streamer I can tolerate), 80s and 90s music videos, cute cat videos, Rush covers, gadget teardowns, soldering videos.
Edit: Almost forgot robot sumo.
Videos on urbanism and transit, video essays, tutorials, and music videos. I watch more YouTube than any other streaming service.
Just about nothing besides a song I wanna hear really quick
Climate Town - Looks at fossil fuel propaganda with humour
Everday Astronaut - This guy loves space. Contagious joy but also in depth. He also got a ticket to space. Where I go for space news, docs, and live streams.
Half as interesting - Short interesting videos
Kurzgestagt - what if or how science questions
Minute Earth - very short biology videos
Minute Physics - very short physics videos
Not Just Bikes - urbanism and will help you see how cities can be better and what’s stopping it
Practical Engineering - Engineering explained
Primative Technology - Guy build stone age shit in the forest
The B1M - Short docs about buildings
Tomorrow’s build - Short docs about future building.
Just started to get into land restoration and binge watched: Shaun Overton Dustups
!landrestoration@lemm.ee going to plug a community I’m going to try get off the ground in the next few weeks.
Seconding (thirding, etc)
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Adam Savage’s Tested - cosplay, engineering challenges, interviews with makers
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Project Farm - no nonsense tool/equipment tests
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Bad Obsession Motorsport - two guys taking WAY too long building an old mini into a rally car
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Primitive Technology - John Plant building cabins and clay tiles and basic iron smelting in the Australian woods. No talking at all, but turn on subtitles to find out what he’s doing
Stuff I didn’t see recommended:
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James May’s The Reassembled - Top Gear’s Captain Slow putting things back together. Very ASMR
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What’s Next - the new name for Drive Tribe, the Top Gear guy’s video channel. I love the series where they send their curmudgeonly producer on last minute international travel to shoot ad hoc travel shows
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TASKMASTER - a British TV show where celebrities you’ve probably never seen before make their way creatively through challeneges
I flipping love taskmaster (CA USA) and no one else I know watches it
I got into it from 8 out of 10 cats and similar panel shows. It’s so fun!
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Watched an hour long documentary on the history of the difficulty of making blue LED lights this weekend lol.
Saw the thumbnail for that and added it to my watch later. So I’ll probably never watch it
The Veritasium version is only 33 minutes 😉
It’s actually a cool story. The dude was a technician and was shunned by the phd’s and had to repair equipment which gave him the skills to modify the machines to eventually succeed… and he later got a phd like he always wanted…. If the story is to be believed…. Either way pretty sure that dudes family is loaded unless there’s a weird thing from his country where they don’t allow hereditary stuff but maybe not…. Dum dum dum…. Does he get rich I can’t remember but he seemed happy I think and proud rightfully so
This was a great watch!
Lock picking lawyer
Adam Savage’s Tested, watching his videos finally got me to start working on my 3d printing and costuming.
