What Youtube channels would you recommend, that have less than a million subscribers?

. The leaping Lemur, Makes videos about general internet F*ckups and lolcows.

. GrahamGraydog, One of the few good commentary channels on YouTube. Now a day's he mostly does sh*tposts.

. GmanLives, A great channel if your interested in video games and modding

.Tors Cabinet Of Curiosities, A without a doubt up and coming YouTuber who makes videos about a variety of different subjects.

This is a fairly niche answer, but Noah Caldwell-Gervais.

He does very smart critical analysis of video games as a medium, often in multi-hour long retrospectives of entire franchises. They are all split into chapters, so it's easy to watch in parts. The visuals and editing are not very flashy, pretty much just footage of the game he's talking about, but they are so well written and thoughtful I find them extremely compelling. There's also road trip travelogues, but I'm not as into those.

I like tech, old and new, so:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I"d also suggest Jeff Geerling but he's close to a million subscribers.

About trains, cycling, transit, and urbanism:

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

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

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

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

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

And about hiking, camping, outdoors stuff:

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

Oh and on languages and etymology:

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

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

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

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

https://www.youtube.com/@Linguisticae (in French)

https://www.youtube.com/@Linguriosa (in Spanish)

Todd in the Shadows Some More News Folding Ideas Thought Slime Atun-Shei Films The Morbid Zoo

Here's my list, included snippets of their own youtube descriptions.

Angela Collier theoretical physicist.

Andrew Millison is a permaculture teacher and practitioner.

Climate Town Rollie Williams and a ragtag team of climate communicators, creatives and comedians are here to examine climate change in a way that doesn’t make you want to eat a cyanide pill. Get informed about the climate crisis before the weather does it for you.

Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't A Low-Brow, Crass Approach to Plant Ecology & Evolution as muttered by a Misanthropic Chicago Italian. We study plants through the lens of ecology and evolution, rather than what supposed anthropocentric uses they can provide (as if holding up the biosphere wasn't enough).

Dr Fatima i went to grad school and all i got was this lousy understanding of systemic problems in science.

Meditations for the anxious mind

Noah Daniel interior & spatial design

Stewart Hicks Takes on Buildings and Cities.

So...so many.

Politics:

• Some More News

• The Kavernacle

• Adam Connover

• Tom Nicholas

• Molly White

• Rebecca Watson

Sociopolitical:

• Salari

Trans Rights/Philosophy/TV Reviews:

• Jessie Gender

• Sophie From Mars

• Aranock

• Lilly Simpson

• Bennie Carollo

• Council of Geeks

Anarchist Philosophy:

• Anark

• Zoe Baker

• Andrewism

Tech:

• The Primetime/The Primeagen

• Casey Muratori

• Tsoding Daily

• Wittcode

• Low Level

• TJ Devries

• Veronica Explains

• DJ Ware

• NeetcodeIO

Animation Reviews:

• KittyMonk

• Georgia Dow

• Offbeat Kiki

• Johnny2Cellos

• ToonrificTarique

Philosophy/Pop Culture:

• Jared Bauer

Niche Product Reviews:

• Ben Vallack

Horror Movie Reviews/Synopsis:

• Ryan Hollinger

Comedy:

• Dr. Jordan Breeding

• Michael Swaim

• Barry Kramer

Chemistry/Psychedelics:

• Hamilton Morris

Worker's Rights:

• Joshua Fluke

SciFi/Fantasy Book Reviews:

• The Book Guy

Tabletop RPG Reviews:

• TheBurgerkrieg

Star Trek Analysis:

• Orange River

Privacy:

• The Hated One

Musicians:

Country:

• Adeem The Artist

Synthwave:

• White Bat Audio

JRock:

• Asian Kung Fu Generation

Cara Nicole. She does a good job at explaining finance and budgeting to the layman, I liked her because I found that what she said more or less aligned with what I've found to be true, so I think she's sending out smart ways of managing money to people. Plus she does fun videos about things like giving financial audits to Michael Scott and breaking down people's wish lists. Idk I always enjoy her videos.

https://youtube.com/@thefinancialfreedomgirl

Learn Linux TV. Great educational channel for all things Linux.

Adam Conover - the guy who shattered my reality back in the days with some college humor videos https://m.youtube.com/@TheAdamConover

Windette - Gaming with insults https://m.youtube.com/@Windette

Adam Millard - game mechanics and fundamentals https://m.youtube.com/@ArchitectofGames

Daryl talks games - games dissected by a psychology guy (I forgot what he did) https://m.youtube.com/@DarylTalksGames

Rationality rules - mostly religion debunking

Applied Science - Varying videos about science phenomenons and use cases

LaurieWired - Cyber Security

Veronica Explains - Mostly Linux.

James Lee - animated videos

Awesome open source - videos and tutorials about self hosting and open source software

fly with Greg - paragliding videos

Mary's Test Kitchen - awesome vegan and keto food

AlphaPhoenix - Science Videos

the hated one - privacy videos

crackermilk - comedy skits

Theramintrees - psychology videos

Weird fruit explorer - exploring fruits and vegetables from all over the world

Earthling ed - videos about veganism and animal welfare and rights

I'm shocked nobody has mentioned Bobby Fingers (266k subscribers at this time). He's a sassy Irish man with a really deep voice who makes incredibly detailed dioramas of weird moments. My favorite diorama is the one he made about Fabio Lanzoni (the sexy guy on the cover of hundreds of romance novels) getting hit in the face by a goose while riding a roller coaster: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2RIEPKEhE2s

It's absolutely spectacular. He sculpts the faces out of clay in 1:1 scale, scans them, 3D prints them in miniature, and just goes above and beyond. The videos are funny as all fuck too, with tons of jokes with long setups. I'd highly recommend them.

Lost in the Movies - fewer than 10k subscribers, but he deserves so many more.

His work is generally on movies and TV, usually with a more art house feel.

His major piece of work though is his 30-40 part video series (and also podcast/blog) on Twin Peaks.

None of your, "Here's the explanation of EVERYTHING," nonsense here though.

Instead he looks at the show, its characters and its arcs with a contemplative eye, picking out interesting visual and narrative parallels, examining the show and film as a piece of art rather than as a puzzle to be 'solved'.

It's exceptional and it mystifies me that it's not more well known. He's been doing it for about ten years now I think. If you're a Peaks fan, it's an absolute must IMO.

Alexander the Ok - 101k subscribers, does some great hour long engineering / computer science videos. F-14 central air data computer (first microprocessor), Minuteman missile (led to the first desktop computers), B-29 turret system (networked mechanical computers), and Buran (not really computers, but a really good video anyways).

For music fans, I highly recommend Trash Theory. Very thorough deep dives into songs and bands that leave you with a much better understanding of music history.

For commentary on modern popular music I recommend Todd in the Shadows and Mic the Snare.

Oh, there are so many.

Just Have a Think: Energy, electricity, fuels, batteries, renewables

Engineering with Rosie: electricity production, transmission, storage etc.

xkcd's What If?: physics, silly questions, silly answers

Applied Science: Science, technology, DIY lab stuff

Elina Charatsidou: Nuclear physics

Future Proof Health: anything health related

AlphaPhoenix: Material science, physics, technical stuff

Design Theory: In-depth explanations on why items are designed to look a particular way.

Luetin09 apparently only has 901k subscribers.

SomeMoreNews is at 884k.

DoshDoshington is at an unacceptably low 309k.

Atrioc is up near 706k.

And everyone should be subscribed to YoungScrolls but sadly only 269k people are.

The Tim traveller : https://www.youtube.com/@TheTimTraveller/videos

Hakim

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPPZoYsfoSekIpLcz9plX1Q

Hakim is an Iraqi Marxist-Leninist YouTuber. He covers a wide variety of topics including socialist history, the negative effects of capitalism, and other-related topics. He also does response videos to various right-wing figures, such as PragerU, Misha Petrov, and Jordan Peterson.

CuriousMarc:

Videos documenting restorations of exceptional vintage electronics and early computers, space hardware and the odd mechanical calculator or Teletype. It often showcases my Hewlett-Packard test equipment collection and, from time to time, my R2-D2 robot build. Things rarely work when I start, but almost always do when I end. A nerdy place for your inner engineer, to celebrate engineering exploits of our predecessors, and learn a lot from it.

Ghostcharm. Casual video game analysis

Drue Langlois - animator/filmmaker who makes absurd and fun videos. One of my favorites

Wigglewood - another animator who's in the process of making their own little shared world of silliness.

Oboeshoesgames - streamer who has a decent sense of humor and is actually pretty creative with coming up with little parody songs for the games he plays. He also knows a SHITTON about Bionicle and will throw in references sometimes, which is always nice to see.

RudeJackArt - artist/animator behind this masterpiece

SplinterChalk - very small YouTuber who does challenge runs in games, similar to MittenSquad (RIP Paul), but mostly focusing on the Batman: Arkham games. He does play others though.

ChadCat - he condenses other long-form YouTube videos (i.e. videos over 10 minutes) down to their most important details, usually taking up to about 20 seconds to a minute each time, calling them the "ADHD Versions."

Venjent - DJ/producer who makes badass beats using sounds he finds out in the world, such as a squeaky door

2 Guys and A Cooler - family-run cooking channel where they make different cool things. Their video on pemmican got me interested in them.

CharlieBo313 - basically a modern anthropologist who goes to the 'hoods and ghettos of America and talks to the people who live there, and showcases what life is like.

Poe's Sketchbook - stop-motion animator behind this badass fight

Luka Big Pants - strange guy who makes videos in that weird stuttery FMV game style. It's all weird and absurd but it's all really good.

Crazy Korean Cooking - a Korean family eating food, pretty much. They try different foods they never have, like Mexican and Jamaican foods, then they'll experiment and try mixing the new stuff with their Korean food and it gets pretty fun. The parents are honestly super fun to watch because they just enjoy it all.

BM Cartoons - an animator who just makes silly little cartoons.

Edit: oh there's more.

Fearnley Fitzroy - the animator behind this absolute masterpiece and other fun souls-like dance videos.

GilGamesHello - gamer who plays a lot of physics-based games like Exanima and Half Sword.

Spine_apples - Saruman the Stupid

TRYBALS - a very cool channel that shows western media and such to tribal villagers from Pakistan.

Bill McClintock - someone who mashes up songs from wildly different genres and somehow makes them sound fuckin awesome. Stuparena (a mashup of The Macarena and Stupefied)

Bushy - another challenge gamer, but he focuses on Elden Ring and other Souls-likes.

Bax Taylor - a musician who makes his own original songs, but also does silly covers of others like Toto doing Apple Bottom Jeans, or Frank Sinatra's Balls In Yo Jaws.

Media Zealot - he breaks down different civilizations/organizations/other groups from different popular IPs and says why they wouldn't be able to work in reality. Like "villains too stupid to win" and so on.

Corey Laddo - an SFM animator who makes funny shorts, based around G-man and Gordon interacting and playing out a meme or something.

The US Chemical Safety Board- does indepth non-politcal analysis of industrial accidents.

GothicLordUK a gaming YouTuber who plays a variety of rouge like and puzzle games.

Terrasteel a YouTuber who explains quirks and fun facts about Terraria.

Lance Hedrick makes really cool data driven videos about coffee.

Etchy makes videos about generation 4 of Pokémon

Engels Coach Shop. Dude rebuilds wagons and other horse pulled things from piles of rubble. Really nice calm guy out in Wyoming.

Pat Finnerty breaks down bad songs in hilarious fashion.

Alpha Phoenix is a good science channel

Kari, she’s a retro gaming nerd, really young but absolutely knows her shit

Look Mum No Computer. An extremely talented musician who does videos around analog electronic music gear.

Mbmmllc. They do mining videos. The Kenya video is unbelievable and I learned so so much about the world from it.

Periscope Films. Stock footage that varies wildly

These are my picks.

Bobby Fingers. I promise it's worth the time and wait between videos.

Jeremy Parish has less than 100k, and constantly puts out great retrospectives on the nooks and crannies of retro game history.

While the Retronauts podcast he's involved with is well known, I feel like his YouTube kinda flies under the radar.

Some channels that I can remember:

Archeology:

AncientCraftUK

Archery:

Armin Hirmer, he does a lot of reviews of bows and equipments and I personally don't like that type of content but the other videos are really good and I like the vibe of the videos.

History:

Fandabi Dozi is more than history that's a lot of survival and bushcraft but I really like the channel as a whole

Modern History TV

All this channels have a vibe of showing the stuff they talking about, recreating things and so on. For the video format is the type of content that I really like.

If you want to watch an Irish dude play and talk about a variety of obscure PS1 games, everyone should definitely check out Sean Seanson (currently at 44k subs). He has 2 ongoing series where a game is picked at random and he checks it out, one for western releases and another for japan exclusive PS1 games.

Majuular (166k subs) also does videos on mostly obscure or forgotten games. I really enjoyed watching his "I played every RPG on the <console>" videos, the one for the Saturn showed up some real gems.

Moon Channel (182k subs) is one of the "slow content creators", which makes nearly every video he posts a great watch. He has great stuff like "Why do Japanese games love Brazil?" and "Gacha Games and the Korean Gender Wars" - the latter an incredible look into how and why Korean culture is the way it is today.

NeverKnowsBest (329k subs) is yet another gaming channel, focusing on very long videos. One that I do recommend to any Bethesda fan is "Lies, Hate and the story of Emil Pagliarulo" (it's an eye opener and I am guilty of having joined the "it's all Emil's fault" bandwagon due in no small part to the videos he references). If you want to keep it to genres, his 2 most recent videos are "The Entire History of Japanese RPGs" and "An in-depth look at Romance in video games" - the latter shows up a number of famous dating sim games.

Basement Brothers (33k subs) is a channel devoted almost entirely to 80s and 90s Japanese computer games. So, if you were ever curious about PC-88 and PC-98 games, or the origins of franchises like Ys or Legend of Heroes, this is the place to find that.

As a bonus, SAMA Study of Antiquity and Middle Ages for history stuff. It's very well researched stuff, often citing studies that follow DNA heritage among human groups to get an idea of when they migrated from one place to another.

Permanently Deleted

I watch one of these videos every day when I wake up. Every piece is improvised on various instruments. Some are fantastic, some are kinda so-so like today's. They're always calm and a great way to start the day. Haven't yet heard her speak.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwVc3MI_0RQ

James Lee animation

The New Enlightenment does awesome theory heavy videos on economics, politics, game theory, etc. It's like a free economics course and it sparked an interest in the subject for me.

https://youtube.com/@thenewenlightenmentwithash8465

https://youtube.com/@bad_puns always unique, always interesting indie animations.

My big two are:

Jreg, makes satirical comedy vids, but behind that as a surface level, there are some very personal works that are some of the best art I have every experienced. For me at least. Watch his Centricide series, and go full in on EP 7, there's lots to it and it means so much to me

The other is DJ Peach Cobbler, used to do video essays on games, and his style is just perfect. Schizo-autist stuff, speaks to me. Lately he has transitioned to doing historical overviews of what groups thought of each other, and I am all for it. "What the Romans thought of carthage" is a fav of mine. My fav vid by him is "Feminist for Clout: The Story of Unbiased Katie"

Perun does some excellent defense economics and analysis. Probably one of the channels I have learned the most from.

Jake Broe does regular updates on the Russo Ukraine war which I always find helpful.

And finally, Zeihan on Geopolitics, does, well, what the name says. I find he brings ideas I hadn't thought of, or that are not well explained, into clarity.

Mindshift and Kristi Burke both do interesting philosophy/ex Christian videos. So does Genetically Modified Sceptic, although he's closer to 1M.

Rational Animations has really interesting animated stories about AI safety. Robert Miles also makes quite frightening videos about AI safety.

CodeParade makes interesting videos about game dev with weird geometry and also maths.

legomasta99 and Pinu both have cool Minecraft videos in different ways, although neither have uploaded much recently.

Salmence is a popular Stardew Valley YouTuber.

Imagine watching youtubers with subscriber counts so high, youtube needs to hide part of it

https://youtube.com/@aetthefurry

https://youtube.com/@luigiman_

https://youtube.com/@myth1cal_

https://youtube.com/@markblyy

https://youtube.com/@tastybread2

Honorable mentions:

https://youtube.com/@aarthificial

https://youtube.com/@ethyriely

https://youtube.com/@firerama

https://youtube.com/@marijke-perry

https://youtube.com/@nicknamethe1st

pretty much any Japanese band