For me it’s Skallagrim. This is a channel of a guy who specializes in ancient armory and weaponry, he also reviews swords and stuff that’s sold online and tests them. Pretty cool.
But then I started to not like him for some reason and it took me a while to put my finger on it. Until I saw the video where he tried criticizing weapons in video games. Then that was where I found problems with him as a channel.
His personality comes off very pretentious and one of those pseudointellectuals you know, who try sounding smarter than they really are. He even has the voice tone to back that with.
So yeah I really once loved his channel. Though whenever he goes on tirades about things that are meant for fantasy purposes which aren’t supposed to make sense when translated to reality, as well as try to poke at fictitious things that borrow from ancient history, I feel he misses the plot of his entire channel and why people like me once subscribed to it.
We didn’t subscribe to your channel for your stupid takes on - anything. We subscribed because you seem to know your melee weapons and historical backgrounds of said weaponry. Stick to those.
pretty much all of the ones that got bought out by PE. the biggest offender of that in my realm is veritasium
AvE used to be good but a while back starting saying dumb right wing political stuff. not dumb because it was right wing, to be clear. just that it was right wing and also was dumb. I still have thisoldtony though, he’s better anyways. AvE mostly just had funny quips with a bit of knowledge. ToT has funny scripts and a lot of knowledge.
Scotty Kilmer was always a character, but I stopped watching years ago because idk I guess he just started putting out crappy clickbait content? idr
most Minecraft channels simply ran out of content to produce. the best two, to me right now, are mahjongblonsky and bigbooty17
what else… there’s a ton of those informational sciency type channels that I no longer like because they’re just too big budget trying to appeal to too many people. smartereveryday lost appeal to me — though I cannot say if quality has declined. it just lost appeal to me. mark rober, similar situation. haven’t seen a video from either of them in a year, but been phasing it out for several now. I disliked when a bunch of channels did promo stuff with the US military, too.
oh, MKBHD — turned into a shill for excessive-tech-having cars. at least he made a separate channel for automotive content. I think? still, another situation of somebody speaking in your area of knowledge — I couldn’t take him seriously or hear the shitty opinions any longer. as a counter, UnderDunn made a separate channel for his automotive content, and while not my favourite stuff to watch, it’s not shill crap like MKBHD.
I tried scrolling through my YouTube subscriptions to see what other channels fit the bill, but I’ve already unsubscribed from them…
MKBHD, Linus, Most of the tech reviewing kids who got money and then hired an entire staff and in lots of cases also bought up really good solo YouTubers.
Motherfcking Casey Neistat. He was never an amazing person, his exploitation of his wife’s ass in thumbnails and being comfortable with click bait titles always felt off. But he’s a masterful propagandist and videographer until I saw him waving Israeli flags at pro Palestine protests during a filmed documentary.
I think Veritasium is doing it right. They have new people presenting in videos, but Derek is always there tying everything together.
They were sold to private equity and are slowly transitioning it away from Derek. That way it can be a brand not directly tied to him and his face
Their content is at least still fairly high quality. It’s just a lot more now
And Derek is now basically just a taking head / presenter
Yeah, I love the new faces, hope Derek doesn’t leave, but if he does, he’s leaving it in good hands.
Linus was never solo, literally staff day 1. As his staff slowly leave they make some cool new channels though.
All of the Neistats. I got tricked into thinking they had something to say and/or teach. Nope, just a few guys up their own ass.
VanlifePlus, or as the channel is now known, MATV. I started watching because I had an interest in Van Life. Regardless of your opinion on Van Life, it was a good channel, as he really showed what it was like to live in a van, and trying to navigate fatherhood as well as a full time job, etc. Matthew is very personable, and likeable. He explored not only places to stay in a van, but actual camping in a van as well.
He finally made enough money from YouTube to get his own place, and now he’s only part time in the van, and is trying to get a gaming channel going, as well as building out a trailer for camping. I still find him likeable, but his content just isn’t doing it for me anymore. I can see that the views on his channel are going down, so it’s just a matter of time before he either has to quit YouTube and get a full time job, or supplement his YouTube with a job on the side. The content just isn’t there anymore.
I’ve dropped a couple of channels because I suspected the presenter was a choad. I once unsubed from a movie-review channel because the presenter made a joke about “games journalism”.
Another popular channel had (has) amazing content about historical guns. I first got a bad taste in my mouth because he covered some shit from Rhodesia. But I decided to give the benefit of the doubt. I know that collecting Nazi artifacts doesn’t imply politics. Then the channel decided to cover “anti-riot” “crowd control” type weapons during the George Floyd Summer protests. Nah, I’m out.
Way back in the before times I watched Shadiversity when he was just about swords and nerdy fun.
When he fell down the Choad Hole so deep and hard, I dropped him like a hot branding iron. I’m so happy to see his channel floundering and failing and his constant, pathetic attempts to make himself seem like a victim for it. I will treat myself to a cupcake when his channel finally goes under.
FW has sooo many Rhodesia gun videos, it’s such a clear red flag
I disagree that covering Rhodesian arms is a red flag. Rhodesia gets sucked off by a lot of terrible people, but their arms are legitimately interesting because they are different and because they have influenced a lot of modern conflicts.
I also agree that FW is very sus. He famously had a falling out with InRange TV over whether 2A rights should extend to people of all identities or not. If he isn’t a bigot, he is at least a coward.
Ah, so that is why they fell out. I’ve been curious about that for a long time.
I’ve been on the fence about FW for quite a while otherwise as well. On one hand I like the format (before the self-promotion took over to this degree), on the other hand certain things were a bit suspect. Larry Vickers as a guest, anyone?
I don’t get overtly bigot-vibes from him either though, so perhaps you’re correct and he’s just out to get his and that’s that? It would be interesting to know.
When YouTube recommends a movie/game review channel, more than half the time I check their history they have videos complaining about “woke” or feminist themes. It’s a minefield finding good video essayists on that platform who aren’t terrible people.
like the channel owners making “anti-woke comments” or the comments in the seciton, i often see anti-woke comments in the comment section by random users.
Mark Rober
He’s been going harder and harder into the Mr Beast format, and it’s off-putting. I’m still subscribed for now, but I almost never watch his videos unless the topic seems interesting.
If he stopped SHOUTING ALL THE FUCKING TIME, his content would be just about tolerable.
I cancelled him when he faked the porch pirate videos years ago.
He creeps me out. Some uncanny valley thing, like maybe plastic surgery?
He’s definitely been working out a lot, potentially juicing.
i took a glimpse at one of his recent videos, collabing with christiano (a questionable characther thats tied to SA and panama papers) he definitely look like beefed up
He’s just part of a huge machine now. And he looks tired as hell sometimes.
Yeah, his more recent videos seem to be more about the spectacle, rather than the education or interesting subject matter.
Since he started that subscription box company his focus shifted from telling a cool story through a creation or robot to creating a video that can sell the most boxes for him
Are there any good science/education channels left? Veritaism, smarter every day, Kurzgesagt all seem to have fallen off. Didn’t like Johnny Harris from the start.
3b1b, perhaps?
Depends on what exactly you’re looking for. Technology Connections, Steve Mould, ElectroBOOM, Practical Engineering, Hank Green’s various enterprises, Cody’s Lab, and the various “mad scientist” types like StyroPyro, NileRed, and the various people William Osman hangs out with.
Technology Connections is brilliant. You truly learn something when you watch his stuff.
Tech ingredients is really good too. The anti drone laser, radiant cooling, and various diy evaporative cooling projects especially. Homemade hootch too, but I tend to doze off during those.
They also got better during the pandemic, instead of worse, like AvE and some of the bigger channels. And have had some good protester related experiments like protecting from microwave and audio type police dispersal weapons.
Me getting a 1 hour long crash course on dishwasher powder (I do not use dishwasher powder) and enjoying it
I saw a great comment that he really enjoys boxes that make things hot/cold/wet/dry
I know it’s his brand, but it’s mostly useless stuff that you learn. His recent video about 8-tracks was fascinating, but I can’t imagine a single scenario where that info will be useful.
That said, I still recommend it to everyone.
yea i follow some science channel, mostly around biology, paleontogy, not huge influencers. im not “fluent” in physics content so i barely follow those.
A great channel that ive been really enjoying is alpha phoenix. His old videos inside his crystal growing lab are super cool. I’d recommend air tight vs vaccumn tight that was cool
so, just scrolling through my subscriptions. this isn’t a list of just science channels, lots of maker/diy stuff in here, but sometimes there’s videos from those channels that overlap with the topics the more educational-type channels might have
technology connections Chris Boden Louis rossman Steve mould good work Mike Boyd this old Tony Matthias wandel bigclivedotcom fortnine Marius hornberger essential craftsman everyday home repairs project farm mujin pask makes superfastmatt Marcin plaza notanengineer inheritance machining John heisz ibuildit Michael Reeves blondihacks Laura kamph UnderDunn
also shout-out to Hunter Direction for just making amazingly beautiful videos lately, the algorithm delivered him to me recently and holy shit does his newer stuff just tickle me in exactly the right spot
All of those are still pretty good, honestly.
oh yea i saw the thumbnails, it seems to eerily like mr beast, i dont follow him. but his thumbnails are starting to resembling the “reaction channel” influencers thumbnails.
That hotel demolition video could have been really cool
Instead it was just… Boring and weirdly edited
I feel exactly the same. I’ll still watch his glitter bomb videos, or if he makes another squirrel obstacle course, but his stuff has become very child oriented recently.
The one Video I’ve seen of him was a sponsored look at an Anduril combat drone. Never bothered looking at anything else he did after.
Yeah that was uh
I dislike Mark Rober.
Here is Mark Rober shilling for Anduril, an AI weapon company.
anduril is one of THIELs creation too, for people not aware.
I gave up watching Rober when he proclaimed he loves his Tesla and will buy another one. This is was said well after Musk went full Nazi dirtbag. Rober has enough money to buy another electric, he doesn’t have to support that man.
. . . All? . . . of them?
Technology Connections, Map Men, Dunkey, Tom Scott (rip) are as authentic as ever
he got tired of being an influencer, he knew when to quit.
The whole platform and all of its content are enshittified
Monetization ruined authenticity. Videos became just another product to push.
Ain’t nobody seent that comin!
Top Gear, Not sure if this fully counts as YouTube but I’m sure that’s where most of us watched it. It hasn’t been the same since Jeremy, Richard, and James left.
Their spinoff shows haven’t been the same, either. It’s less about the cars and more about playing up their personalities. Or I’m just getting older and am tired of Clarkson being a condescending, belligerent prick about everything. To a lesser degree, I’m a bit bored of Hammond as well. Somehow, May is who I enjoy the most. Geek out, dgaf
It was never about the cars, it was the chemistry and banter between the three.
And I’ve watched it since they looked like this 😁
He is the most down to earth normal guy of the bunch, and the only one I think I’d get along with if I ever met him IRL. The others… Didn’t really handled their fame well
The older I get, the more I associate with the man who shit the fuck up and just let out a couple tears upon seeing the curvature of the Earth from a U2
Here is the thing, i loved top gear a lot and to some extend i also like their other stuff just as much. But going back to the original top gear is kind of painful. A lot of it feels like filler, a lot of famous people talk about their movies. Famous people driving cars and a lot of their segments are actually pretty boring. I think when people remember the good old top gear, they talk about the specials, because they are just really good and fun
I’ve been watching the Kings and Generals channel for a number of years now and I’m noticing the quality starting to waver a bit in the last couple years.
Casual Navigation
The creator sold it and the last time I was looking it was AI slop
Yeah I was afraid of that.
Lindybeige lost basically all credibility for me after the whole “Spandau” fiasco where he was trying to talk authoritatively about things he clearly didn’t understand or had any knowledge of. It really made me question whether he knew anything at all about the things that I didn’t know much about (pre-modern warfare mostly) and I ended up not watching another video of his after that.
All of them.
Almost all of them that “care” have terrible thumb nails and titles. Just so clickbaity. Channels seem to get worse over time on that front
This might be too niche for anyone here, but Ronny Dahl.
He used to make good videos on four wheel driving in Australia, with good gear tips and longer form camping trips with his friends. Well, either he started editing his videos alone or stopped taking his meds or something, but now every video is quick cuts, stupid voice effects, stories that build into nothingburgers or intermingled stories that have nothing to do with each other and just get confusing. I also notice those friends he used to camp with aren’t in his videos any more, so that’s probably saying something.
At least I still have the 4WD 24/7 guys (although I don’t really like the “next generation” they’re trying to bring in).
Bourbon Moth
Loved to watch his videos as he made woodworking accessible. He also does really good work.
Then one day he built an epoxy river table then promptly blew it up… Literally blew it up… Which spread all that epoxy all over the place in a forested area. I still watched, but next he did a video on rags catching fire and it was all obviously staged. That was it for me, I unsubscribed then told Youtube to never suggest his videos again.
AVE
Funny enough it was AVE that exposed Bourbon Moth on his BS regarding the towels combusting. However, shortly after that whole thing AVE just really went downhill. Instead of being informative and amusing, his videos just turned into the narcissist’s playbook for look at me! Haven’t watched one of his videos since. Which is a shame, because his earlier videos were really interesting.
I used to love AVE, but there was a video where he seemed very proud of the fact that he taught his little girl the racist version of “Eeny Meanie Minnie Moe” and I couldn’t find excuses for him any more. Then he cheered for the small business tyrant trucker revolt later and it affirmed my decision to unsub earlier.
I didn’t know about him teaching his daughter that… Must have missed that video or had already unsubscribed.
Definitely an immediately unsubscribe reason.
I unsubbed after the convoy thing, but I didn’t know about the other bit or I would have blocked him earlier.
Pretty much all the old gaming YTers I used to watch I barely have time for because of how long the videos are. Most of this is down to streaming, and how long and plodding VODS are.
Also, ditto anytime they transition to doing it full-time. I remember YT in the 2000’s when people basically just did it as a hobby.
