I love watching Lets Plays and HCBailly is the best let's player. His quality has only gone up over the years and his consistent upload schedule leaves nothing to be desired. He's under rated and deserves 3 million subs.

Technology Connections

Tom Scott

hbomberguy

CGP Grey

Technology Connections!

CAPTAIN DISILLUSION

• Some More News (Last Week Tonight-like political commentary)
• AngryTurtle (fallout 76 content)
• videogamedunkey (gaming/humor)
• Yahtzee Croshaw (game reviews/rants)
• Wendover Productions (random interesting education and air travel gameshows)
• Practical Engineering (how the world around you is built)
• Technology Connections (deep dives into engineering everyday gizmos)
• Tom Scott (interesting tech/education)
• RealLifeLore (explains geopolitics)
• Internet Historian (amusing yarns, discussions, and stories)
• LegalEagle (law)
• Kurzgesagt (explains scientific concepts, lots of what if scenarios, animated birds)
• Tasting History with Max Millar (historical cooking in a modern kitchen)
• Let's Game it Out (dude who breaks games in the most amusing way possible)
• My Name Is Andong (cooking)
• Chef Jean-Pierre (cooking)
• Economics Explained (economics)
• Matthew Berman (explores the latest AI/LLM tech)

LGR.

• The Bread Circus
  • They go through the Star Wars movies from a book lore perspective, point out flaws in the writing and lore-breaking, and offer suggestions on how the sequels could have been handled differently. They did The Last Jedi, and I really enjoyed it. They also have some cool videos on podracing, ships, and guns.
• Defunctland
  • History of Disney rides, takes the culture of the time into consideration, the video on queues is a must-watch, imo.
• Draw Like a Sir
  • Really solid drawing tutorials that aren't very complicated, takes the time to break down high-level concepts into simple exercises. Overall a really fun channel to watch, even if you're not into drawing.
• Fredrik Knudson
  • Long, deep-dive videos into internet history/culture. Rare uploads, but a banger every time.
• James Lee
  • Newgrounds-era animator with amazing compositing techniques and a very unique animation style where he inserts himself into his videos as a very animated caricature of himself.
• Lemmino
  • Like the History Channel but without the fluff. Cool topics, very nice animations, high production, high-quality content.
• MattKC
  • Known for a Lego Island decompilation project. Also does retro console repair from time to time — very fun watch.
• Paper Will
  • Rare uploads. but interesting video essay topics. High quality and a nice watch during lunch.
• Pecos Hank
  • A storm chaser who is Reed Timmer's ying to his yang. Very chill, documentary-quality footage featuring himself playing guitar and talking about the beauty and power of nature. You've probably seen his footage on the Weather Channel!
• Technology Connections
  • Great deep dives into random technology, old and new. The video on the popcorn button on microwaves is really good (I think that may be on his second channel?)

Primitive Technology

Low volume (not even 1 video a month), high quality, highly entertaining.

Beware of the copycats, though.

Primative Technology. A dude out in the bush building houses and tools out of mud, sticks, and rocks without speaking a word.

Tom Scott. Only gotten better with time.

3blue1brown

Makes great visual math videos. Without him I would have never studied electronics.

Practical Engineering - in depth presentations of civil engineering feats, concepts, problems, solutions

Joe Scott - just simple, entertaining discussions of interesting topics

Philosophy Tube - longer format, intensely well-cited presentations on philosophy related to current events (with theatrical costumes!)

Ryan Hall - who knew that a weather forecast could be so fun? Regularly updated weather forecasts for the entire United States with detailed coverage and livestreams of events like tornado outbreaks, hurricanes, and large snowstorms. With charity drives to provide supplies to people on the ground

PBS Spacetime, PBS Eons, all the PBS channels really

Plainly Difficult - consistent quality, often hilarious presentations of various disasters. I particularly like his entire series on radiological accidents, often involving lost radioactive sources that random members of the public stumble onto, which is terrifying.

Tom Scott

Curious Droid - lots of sci fi, technology content.

WaterlineStories - all sorts of nautical/diving disasters narrated by a South African chap with a lot of experience.

Qxir - Irish guy with a lot of weird stories told in stick figure form.

Plainly Difficult - a lot of disasters frequently nuclear.

Nile Red is still fun - and a nice dude. Chemistry

Vince Vintage is hilarious, great editing (like internet historian but not a jerk)

Also my homeboy Video Game Dunkey.

Dreading is good(sort of successor to JCS), very sober and tasteful host discussing true crime.

Consumer Tech: mkbhd, LTT, MrMobile, Dave2D, JerryRigEverything, UrAvgConsumer, GamersNexus

Geeky Tech: TechnoTim, ServeTheHome, Explaining Computers, Level1Techs, Jeff Geerling, , Low Spec Gamer, Modern Vintage Gamer, Wolfgangs Channel, Network Chuck, Project Farm, Tech Rules

Smart Home: Everything Smart Home, The Hook Up, Smart Home Solver, Paul Hibbert, Reed's Smart Home, NotEnoughTech

Popular science: Veritasium, Kurzgesagt, Smarter Every Day, Hank Green

Science: Cleo Abram, Physics Girl, Nile Red/Blue, Computerphile, NumberPhile, Minutephysics, The SciShow, PeriodicVideos, Sixty Symbols, Scott Manley, The Action Lab, 3blue1brown, Kyle Hill, Steve Mould, Fermilab, PBS Space Time

Engineering: Practical Engineering, B1M, Coby Explanes, engineerguy, Technical Connections, Simone Giertz

Entertainment with some science/engineering sparkled in: Colin furze, Mark Robert, Slow Mo Guys, Johnny Harris, TheBackyardScientist

Entertainment: CGP Grey, Tom Scott, Max Fosh, Lockpicking Lawyer, Legal Eagle, Kitboga, Not Just Bikes, Cheddar

Docutainment: Cold Fusion, Wendover Productions/Half as Interesting, Anything with Simon Whistler (Megaprojects, etc)

Programming: Fireship, The Primeagen, Tech world with Nana, freCodeCamp, Ben Eater, Jake Wright, Dreams of Code, mCoding

Electronics: Andreas Spiess, GreatScott!, Tall Paul Tech, EEV

Chess: Anna Cramling, Gotham Chess, Hikaru

Cars: Carwow, Out of Spec Reviews, TeslaBjorn, Throttle House, Engineering Explained, autoTrader, Donut, Hagerty, RSEV

Travel: HONEST GUIDE (the Prague guy), Pack Hacker, SV Delos, Tim Traveller, Trek Trendy

History: the fat electrician, historigraph, history matters,

Woodworking: Shaun Boyd, Blacktail Studio, Foureyes furniture

Late Night: Colbert, Meyers, Kimmel, Daily Show, Last Week Tonight

Russia/Ukraine: LazerPig, 1420 (Daniil Orain), Perun (edited to add)

If you speak German: HausbauHelden, FelixBa, Lohnt sich das, Finanzfluss, Next Move, Autogefühl, Smarthome yourself, Jonas Winkler, Held der Steine

Lemmino creates amazing documentaries about a wide variety of topics (DB Cooper, JFK Assassination, Jack the Ripper). He uploads very infrequently, but it's totally worth it when he does.

Barely Sociable is similar in style and uploads high quality pieces about various mysterious occurrences.

Drachinifel uploads frequent, well researched content about naval history from the age of sail to the 1950s.

Our Own Devices is a very small channel that feels similar to Technology Connections (another excellent channel). He uploads content about the history and inner workings of old devices of all sorts.

Throttle House is the best car channel on YouTube.

Jason Cammisa's Revelations series on the Hagerty channel has really good deep dives into the histories of some important cars.

Aging Wheels/Under Dunn are excellent car and/or wood project channels. Chickens make frequent appearances too.

Mentour Pilot has excellent analysis of airline crashes.

Jay Foreman uploads funny and informative content about maps (Map Men) and tidbits about the history of London.

Cathode Ray Dude uploads deep dives into weird computers, computer peripherals, and old cameras. I've watched his half hour video about modems at least 5 times.

Mustard uploads excellent content about crazy ideas in transportation (like the Soviet love affair with the ekranoplan).

There's plenty more, but here's a few of mine:

RedLetterMedia - Got pretty big on YouTube about 15 years back for their review of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, where they made an actual, honest critique of why the film (and later the other prequel films) didn't really work on their own merits and hid it inside a 1.5-hour skit about an elderly serial killer. They're, uh... they're not for everyone, but I like them. Also, Macaulay Caulkin as a recurring guest star. Worth your time.
Technology Connections - Did you ever want to know why ceiling fans start at max power when you turn them on? Because I already knew before I clicked on the video and I still watched the whole damn thing. I swear this person could make ANYTHING sound interesting, no matter how dry.
They've been mentioned already but Second Wind - I mean, Yahtzee Croshaw pretty much picked up his fanbase and moved it here when his bosses at The Escapist made the boneheaded move to fire, uh.. his boss? I think? I don't watch a whole lot of the other stuff, but I haven't had any complaints about anything of theirs I've watched.
Project Farm - This dude legit goes out with his own money, buys like 8 different items in the same category (mainly tools, though his most recent video is on space heaters) and subjects them all to fairly rigorous testing to see which one is the best for the money. If I'm looking to buy something, I'll check and see if Project Farm has a video on it first.
LGR (Lazy Game Reviews) - I think someone already mentioned this as well, but I thought I'd bring it up too. The channel covers more than just games now and just covers all kinds of (mainly 80s/90s) computer tech. Plus, Clint's a good dude.
Colin Furze - He's a bit extra but he started making Wolverine claws in his little garage workshop and now he's building a "secret" tunnel under his house. Following this man's videos are wild. He basically says "what if (crazy idea)" and then just... does it.

edit: omg how did I forget DankPods? Of course he has like five channels now. He's got a masters in music, he made a living playing jazz drums, he started a dumb YouTube channel about fixing iPods, and now he has a warehouse where he plays drums and games and fixes cars and all kinds of shit. Wade is great.

Kinda late to the party here but I'll share a couple of my favorites:

Melodysheep - video essays about science and science fiction with absurdly high quality animations and production value

Mustard - same as above, except about interesting and/or unusual real vehicles

Casually Explained - just a dude with a great sense of humor and crude artwork explaining random things to you

Sam O'Nella Academy - same as above, except covering very specific and much weirder topics

Biblaridion - his usual content is about conlangs (don't ask, I don't know either) but his ongoing Alien Biospheres series about speculative evolution is simply amazing

TierZoo - highly entertaining videos about animals and zoology, except it's all a videogame

LowSpecGamer - as the name implies, he used to make videos about making AAA games run on potato systems but has since pivoted into making (great) mini docs about the history of videogames and technology

Cyriak - he doesn't post often but the dude has been making the same kind of technically impressive and often disturbing animations for over 15 years now

Just look up what creators are on nebula. Almost all of them creat high quality cpntent.

Summoning Salt.

Not many people can make a 2 hr video about the world record progression of a game I've never heard of and have me absolutely invested in it all the way through.

Dude makes a video every 3-6months but god I love them. If anything they've improved over the years as his style has been refined and the videos got longer.

I’m late but a couple I didn’t see mentioned:

BeardMeetsFood - funny guy doing eating challenges, never thought I could like this kind of content, and the only one I watch in this category

Itchy Boots - Amazing travel videos from a Dutch girl riding her motorcycle through remote places on all continents. Very positive meetings with people all over the earth to give you back hope for humanity.

Nikolai Schirmer - Ridiculously high quality alpine skiing videos, mostly from Norway. Fantastic story telling and nature combined with too steep skiing. Shouldn’t be possible to get this quality for free.

Expedition Evans - very enjoyable videos of sailboat life for a couple and their two dogs.

Beau Miles - best story teller I know of. Adventurer that mostly make videos about local projects where he’s doing something that involves running very long while philosophizing about interesting topics.

Harry Mack - the most insane freestyle rapper ever, usually makes content on the spot for people on the street or online.

Sheena Melwani - Whenever I need a laugh. Her husband Trid is hilarious. Short videos of them laughing and joking basically.

Iron Chef Dad - wholesome videos with his son, for example making gourmet out of fast food.

Galdoc’s Tutorials - great DevBlog content from making a Factorio mod. Development, debugging, designing, Blender. Fairly technical. Great voice.

Stuff Made Here - great engineering channel, makes crazy contraptions like a moving basket hoop you’ll always hit, a hair cutting robot, auto-aiming bow etc.

Haven't seen Summoning Salt mentioned yet. He does great videos on the history of speed running a video game.

An example video would be Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit where the difference between a tool assisted speed run and what a human is capable is discussed. And how Super Mario Bros has an interesting mechanic allowing humans to be imperfect but still able to tie a perfectly executed speed run done using essentially a script of commands.

Scrolling through my subscribes, here are some of the ones mostly widely interesting I figure. In no particular order:

Civvie11- Retro gaming enthusiast.

Beware The Qu- Lots of speculative evolution content.

Big red 40TECH- Battletech lore guy.

BobbyBroccoli- Long videos about science scandals.

Mandaloregaming- Long form game reviews.

Seth Skorkowsky- Videos about TTRPG reviews and how to run TTRPGs.

Warlockracy- Russian video game reviewer with a bent to older games and weird Russian obscure mods.

Forgotten Weapons- Man on a life's quest to collect French ammunition.

Red Letter Media- Movie reviews and such.

Wargamer Fritz- Battletech tabletop tactics.

ReligionForBreakfast- Scholar who talks about religious history topics.

The Tank Museum- Tanks.

The Chieftain- Tanks.

Paper Skies- Channel on strange aviation stories, focus on Soviet military aviation.

Quinn's Ideas- Scifi review channel. Huge Dune nerd.

Olden Demon- Oldhammer channel. Talks about 2e and retells old 2e official battle reports.

oboeshoesgames- Like Dunkey but still funny.

Minisodes- Plays Oldhammer 2e in modern day and paints retro minis.

Grim Beard- Goth that reviews usually more obscure games.

Billiam- Watches and reviews a lot of trash TV.

Ancient Americas- History channel about ancient American (north, central, and south) history.

I'm subscribed to a lot of painting, DIY, instructional, and such channels which I find good but are very niche.

Things I haven't seen.

' Steve mould - does cool little kiddie explanations of physical phenomenons.

• Foureyes furniture - a bit asmr, but a woodworking channel. Guy makes neat stuff and talks about life while doing it.

• Wristwatch revival - alsp kinda ASMR, but guy takes apart and repairs mechanical watches. Very repetitive after the first few watches, but I keep watching anyway.

Summoningsalt

Etho

NeverKnowsBest For very in depth game essays. He has a 2:44:46 in depth look into the history of MMO's. 2:03:15 Elder Scrolls analysis. And he has an absolutely comforting voice that sweeps you along so easily that you don't even feel the time pass.

Mortismal He reviews games after he 100% them, makes guides, game lore, builds. His favorite genre is tactical rpg's but he'll to do others of people ask him to. The man is a consummate professional, and work horse. Puts out a video 5 days a week. He went from foster care, to being homeless to making a living doing what he loves. Used to put up posters offering to make game guides for money when he was a kid.

Lex Fridman He did long form interviews of really brilliant people. Novel prize winning scientists, mathematicians, biologists, philosophers, politicians, tech moguls, artists. The list goes on. He's not funny, but he is refreshingly sincere in his wanting to try and understand the topics, people, and life. He's a Russian-American computer scientist and research scientist at the MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems.I don't always agree with him, but I love getting to listen to the people he interviews.

Quinn's Ideas A wonderful fan of sci-fi that reviews and explore the worlds of great sci-fi novels, turning over the abstract concepts inside those universes. He has an extensive playlist on the world of Dune, Lovecraft, authors I've never heard of, and he also covers other nerdy things too. He has a wonderful voice that brings you down into the world he's describing. You can tell her really gets into the books he reads, the more mysterious or awe inducing the better.

Wes Roth I recently found this guy. He reports on current news on AI. He does a great job at explaining things you would be too afraid to ask about for fear of sounding stupid. He's not an AI expert he's just discovering AI advancements with you, for you. Calm, nothing flashy, and curious to see where this is headed. If you wish you had time to look up and read about what's new in AI, this is your guy.

The Big Lez Show An all knowing multidimensional immortal Aussie Sasquatch doing a bunch of drugs, also some humans and some aliens.

The Royal Institute Like TED talks but in Great Britain, much longer, more in depth and very scientific. The intended audience are scientists, but some talks are just too fascinating to miss out on.

Luetin09 Warhammer 40k everything. Really great lore videos that are darkly beautiful to watch. He is a veritable font of WH40K knowledge.

dslyecxi It's like watching a team of military professionals conduct missions in ARMA 3, and with all of the hilarious fuckery that ensues. ARMA 3 is a realistic military sim, nothing like the arcadey Call of Duty or Modern Warfare. Really great footage.

Edit: Mr Sunday Movies Movies, comic, and TV shows, shooting up your butthole. They're Australian, but they make up for it.

Kyle Hill. He's a science YouTuber and he has a series about nuclear energy that is very good.

Looks like there's some I can add:

We're In Hell Funny videos about reality shows that devolve into leftist madness, they're amazing

Blue Jay If Sam o Nella was a bird

Mr. Beat Ex history teacher and amazingly awkward dude, quite good at explaining US political stuff.

Second Wind Yahtzee Croshaw (ZP) and Cold Take, as well as a bunch of other ex escapist people and it rules.

The Vile Eye The series "analysing evil" is a pretty good dive into fictions baddies

The Stupendium Performs and writes songs based on pop culture, and is great at what he does

munecat cute British girl pours Beer really badly funny music lady debunks/discusses political shit

knowing better long form history content from an ex history teacher. Most recently had been doing the insane religious movements behind Kellogg's and whatnot

b2 studios videos about AI being trained in Unreal Engine, like teaching an ai to bowl or play ping pong. Also funny AF

your movie sucks movie reviews. Dude knows his shit and is pretty funny

Oh god why is my subs list so long and there are still so many to list and I'm too tired and high after work rn maybe I'll edit this later

TechMoan

• Cathode Ray Dude - goes over tech from the 80's, 90's and early 00's
• CloudCuckooCountry - Infrequent book reviewer
• Distant Signal - Like trains? You'll like Danny Harmon
• Great Art Explained - Does exactly what it says on the tin
• Jacob Geller - I'm not sure how to describe him to be honest
• Jay Foreman - MAP MEN MAP MEN MAP MAP MAP MEN MEN MEN
• Josh Strife Hayes - Reviews of terrible MMOs
• Mr Samuel Streamer - High quality Rimworld videos (has also played Terraria, Stardew Valley, Fallout NV and other games), has a bit of a motor mouth however
• PatricianTV - Extremely long video game reviews; his Skyrim review is 20 hours spread across two videos
• Technology Connections - Through the power of buying two of them!
• The Unlucky Tug - Mainly talks about Thomas the Tank Engine

Smarter Every Day

Mark Rober

Game Makers Toolkit (GMTK)

Here's some of my own, in no particular order:

Gotham Chess - also known for his catchphrase: "Sacrifices... THE ROOK!!!". Yeah, that guy.

Kyle Hill is a science communicator and makes awesome educational content; he also debunks conspiracy theories.

Jeff Geerling is a RasPi aficionado who's made tons of projects.

Louis Rossmann specializes in consumer tech (mostly computers); he's a great critic of corporations and DRM.

Jenna Moreci is a published fantasy writer and has great videos on what to do and not to do when writing fiction.

One Topic at a Time - shares LGBTQ memes found on reddit. His voice may sound annoying. (What can I say? It's an acquired taste)

Bits inside by René Rebe specializes in Linux and Open Source stuff.

Noralities is a girl who makes video essays about anime, and they're not trivial opinions They involve writing, stereotypes, romance, society, and stuff. She's done her homework.

EDIT: Added details.

Gamers Nexus

Hardware Unboxed

Technology Connections

MOONSHINE ANIMATIONS

EmpLemon

Internet Comment Etiquette with Erik

chubbyemu

I'm surprised he hasn't been mentioned yet. Haven't seen another channel that presents medical cases in such a good pacing and storytelling while being able to eloquently explain complicated medical stuff such that everyone can understand.

ashens is still making that quality brown sofa content 17 years later.

FortNine. It's a motorcycle channel, but even if you don't care about motorcycles it's a great watch. Top production values and great storytelling.

Example: why Harley Davidson is dying: https://youtu.be/EOwxxsPaogY?si=XHHZc_P1hAiRIhp2

This Old Tony

Food Wishes

Yes that's rightt, you're reading this in Chef John's voice now. Not only do I cook, which is my life's passion, and probably my second favorite thing to do, but I also tell jokes, because let's face it, it's a perfect opportunity to perfect my comedy routine.

Dunkey. Mind you, he just had a kid so I think he's put out some lower (but not phoned in) effort videos in the last couple of months, but his comedic voice and the banal way he mocks games and gamers has always been consistent.

Mighty Car Mods --> https://www.youtube.com/mightycarmods

Dudes have been making awesome automotive content since 2007. And Moogs sound tracks that he creates for the episodes (and especially the feature length stuff) is incredible.

Don't think they've had a single moment of boring content in 16 odd years, let alone anything objectively bad. Absolute units the pair of them.

Here are a few that I find have consistent high quality content:

The B1M... His videos seem to really get into the nitty gritty logistics of various large construction projects.

Caitlin Doughty (Ask a Mortician)... I feel like each video is better than the previous. The historical death documentaries are incredible.

Climate Town... Videos about climate change & has a really fun sense of humor.

Neo... Lots of really cool explanatory videos. The editing is really good as well! The recent video on the presidential motorcade was very cool.

And one more... Reckless Ben... IDK if it really fits within the prompt of this thread.. The channel is tough to watch with all the annoying humor & there is a lot of hit-or-miss videos, but at least lately, it seems to really be doing some very interesting things. I enjoyed his series on mckamey manor.

Since I haven't seen him mentioned, Michael Stevens aka Vsauce, great Philosophy and science YouTuber.
Sadly only makes like 2 videos a year :/
But his older videos are all still very good watches, I love to rewatch them.

EthosLab - the OG Minecraft Youtuber that other Minecraft Youtubers watch; somehow still innovating on redstone and technical builds to this day despite Minecraft redstone already pushed to its limits long ago, and his multiplayer shenanigans on Hermitcraft and Life Series is top notch.

Adam Ragusea - cooking videos made for actual home cooks who just want no-flair no-fuss recipes, as well as food science videos exploring and explaining different cooking methods and food chemistry. I'm particularly a fan of how he encourages you to measure and cook by feel rather than by strictly following recipes.

Red letter media

Sovietwomble has been consistently obsessed with the quality of his videos. He also consistently makes me laugh.

Kurzgesagt - Love their production and content

bigclivedotcom has been my favourite channel for almost a decade. Specalized on electronics and his soothing voice is pleasant to listen to.

StyroPyro

Cody's Lab

NakeyJakey

InfernoPlus

Kruggsmash

Your Movie Sucks

juliaplaysgroove

The 8-bit Guy

Code Parade

Adam Savage (via Tested)

Climate Town

Captain Disillusion

Naomi Wu

Karl Jobst for sure.

I still like Level1Techs. They don't put out nearly as many videos as they used to, but what do they put out is usually good.

Captain dissolution, doesn’t post often but makes up for it with insane editing quality

Joe Scott (Answers With Joe)

Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut)

Scott Manley (Scott Manley)

Clickspring makes some of the most beautiful, soothing, detail obsessed machining videos imaginable. Dude builds complex gear works from scratch, including a replica of the Antikythera mechanism which is still in progress after many years, though nearly finished now.

A bunch of my other subs have already been mentioned, so I want to add Caitlin from Ask a Mortician. She has demonstrated integrity and consistently high effort for her channel despite growing to over 2mil subscribers.

Jenny Nicholson is another that's been around and gotten big but her videos have only gotten more weird and interesting.

Climate Town has rapidly become one of my favorite channels and consistently puts out well-researched, informative and entertaining vids

Lets get Steve1989mreinfo out onto a comment... nice.

If you like guns, (I know, this is lemmy, but there must be a few of you) Demolition Ranch, Kentucky Ballistics, Edwin Sarkisian.

Brian David Gilbert has always made cool stuff, but as he spun off from polygon he's created some wild existential videos.

I would give a shout out to two makers, Frank Howarth and This Old Tony both do some amazing works in general. Tony does a good amount of metal work, while Frank is almost all about woodworking.

For some AI (sorta) stuff: Primer engaging way to learn about statistics I guess, I don't know the right way to describe them but I always leave with something new.

For car stuff: Rob Dahm who is known for a wild RX7. Also publishes a lot of public data for the rotary community.

Junkyard Digs who does lots of classic car "restorations" or repairs. Generally tries to do the most accessible methods or tools.

Tofu Auto Works does mostly custom body kits and so on, shown in step by step processes with tips and reasons/preferences for doing things a certain way.

For gaming I'll just throw City Planner Plays out there. He mainly plays Cities Skylines, and talks about how and why certain infrastructure is designed or used.

Editting to add: sorta (mostly) does gaming, also does other topics as well. Arch fantastic visuals and historical breakdowns of topics. Doesn't have many videos, but they are quite good.

And purely because I've met him IRL and think his channel is very under viewed, About Here discusses city planning, accessibility and so on. A lot of it has to do with housing and it's current issues, but has other city/civic related topics as well.

I haven't seen Forgotten Weapons mentioned, yet. If you couldn't tell by the channel name, it covers rare and historical weapons, mostly firearms, but does so in a straightforward, informational, and apolitical way. It's basically the kind of show the history channel should make. I think he's been putting out episodes since around 2011.

In no particular order:

• Mind of Watercolor - Steve Mitchell
• Paul Clark
• Escape to Rural France
• Mark Rober
• SloMo Guys
• Bear Essentials
• Primitive Technology
• Adventure Archives

There’s also a fair amount of surprisingly good fan films in various franchises.

Ian McCollum from Forgotten Weapons. https://youtu.be/THsDpGJcpk8?si=

Sam O nella Academy

Ethan Chlebowski does phenomenal cooking videos and deep dives into the science of food, specifically if some expensive ingredients are objectively worth the cost.

Fascinating Horror does unique videos in that they are discussions on all man-made or natural disasters. Great audio and video as well.

H0ser does fantastic videos on countries and economics with some humor, and cute animals to represent countires.

Horses does brilliant essays on a variety of topics, all of which are interesting and researched very well.

Nick Crowley does creepy, scary, and true crime like a lot of others, but puts a lot of effort into his editing and aesthetic.

Nexpo is largely the same as Nick Crowley, but with deeper dives and longer videos.

Professor Leonard has the best calculus series on YouTube.

I haven't seen him mentioned here:

Fact Fiend

I watch him a lot less than I did before, but it has nothing to do with the quality of his content (which has always been great) and more to do with me not watching YouTube that much nowadays (I used to have a very boring job, so had lots of downtime for watching videos)

Ahoy is still great, probably because it's just 2 videos per year; Scott the Woz is still funny, Silvagunner too.

Tom Scott, Sorted Foods, Mr. Barry Lewis, Freakin' Reviews, GeoWizard, Backyard Scientists, I Did A Thing, Stuff Made Here, Scott Stro-Solves.

Oh also Brick Experiment Channel for fun stuff with Lego.

• Lemmino. Quality only got better over the years. Started as a top 10 memes channel. Then became top 10 cool subjects presented like documentaries. Now it's actual documentaries.

• Gameranx. Watched them when they were still just two or three dudes just talking about games. All those years, they made it pretty big on YouTube, and they still didn't lose that vibe.

Surprised no one mentioned LGR/Lazy Game Reviews

Climate Town, Adam Something, Not Just Bikes, Contra Points, Hbomberguy, World War Two, The Great War, The Linux Experiment, CivDiv, The Thought Emporium, and there are some others that currently escape my mind.

I also have GioPizzi and Yotobi but their videos are in Italian.

MauLer - great film and tv critiques.

Defunctland - incredible documentaries about theme parks.

Adam Ragusea ftw and Kenji Lopez-Alt

Many A True Nerd has always made consistently great Fallout content, and he's only gotten better over the years. Been watching him since 2014.

I'm honestly surprised to have not seen Super Eyepatch Wolf show up yet. Because of him, I'll never look at Garfield the same way again. He might not put out content often, but as far as I've seen, it's all top notch quality.

Tokyo Lens is another I enjoy. Fun explorations of Japan, lots of cool informational stuff, stuff like that. A little bit Abroad in Japan, but somewhat less bombastically edited, and a bit more positive.

Clemps is another one that doesn't put out content very often, but does some great deep dives into older JRPGs, and some fantastic looks at Yoko Taro's games.

Then there's the ones that have been posted again and again: RedLetterMedia, Technology Connections, Tom Scott, Jacob Geller, Food Wishes, You Suck At Cooking. I'm sure there's more out there, and there will always be more new ones popping up, too.

Colin Furze (inventor with crazy ideas)

Anna Cramling (chess streamer)

Simon Whistler

Fall of Civilizations, though those are podcasts first. All of them are amazing.

Lockpicking Lawyer makes the best short videos. Not "yt shorts", it's just that it takes him 2-5 seconds to pick open the vast majority of locks, the rest of the video is his comment on the lock quality.

JoshStrifeHayes has 3 separate channels now, but that main channel that deals with MMOs still makes quality content in my opinion, but not as often. I also enjoy him playing the old games on JoshStrifePlays.

Good Mythical Morning has been around since before YouTube even existed and they still put out good shit. Even more so, with the GM Kitchen stuff (which I actually like more; those guys are fun as hell).

Forrest Valkai. He's a biologist who makes a mixture of educational content, videos debunking creationist claims (in an educational way rather than the "look at this fucking idiot" approach that much of atheist youtube seems to take), and just some silly fun in-between.

He doesn't have the insanely high production value of other channels named here, but he's the most wholesome person I've ever seen. His love for life and science radiates off of him and watching him passionately explain how cool something is genuinely makes me happy in such a depressing and pessimistic world.

Redlettermedia for sure, they may as well be YouTube dinosaurs at this point, but their content has only gotten better. If you're in the Lemmy minority like me and enjoy the NFL: ThatsGoodSports, Tom Grossi, UrinatingTree are all gems worthy of your time

I'll add GeoWizard to all the good answers already. He has some great adventure videos. He composes all of the music as well.

Oh, and anything by Brady Haran: Objectivity, Numberphile, Sixty Symbols, Periodic Videos, etc.

Steve1989MRE, chill and informative seeing how MREs have evolved. He eats all the MREs and only got botulism twice so he’s doing good.

For funny content badlandschugs is pretty entertaining and the videos are generally quick.

FutureCanoe: A cooking channel that doesnt take itself serious and is super funny.

Kara and Nate: The only Travel bloggers i can watch, from biking across America to visiting 9 Christmas Markets in Europe in 9 different countries in 9 days. Their content is always unique and engaging

Alex Novell: A great documentarian channel that has tricked Alan Dershowitz and Alex Jones into interviews and confronted them for the harm they have done to society

FD Signifier: One of the best video essayists on the Platform, making great socially concious content.

Marques Brownlee for tech.

He's also known as MKBHD, and he's amazing with his camera work.

Alpha Pheonix is a great channel with some really good electricity videos recently.

It's crazy scrolling so long and seeing no one say Markiplier.

Red Letter Media. Movies with Mikey, but he's starting to focus more on Nebula. Internet Historian, but his videos come out like twice a year.

Edit: Nevermind on Internet Historian. As folks mentioned below, the dude sucks. Also it turns out my favorite video of his was plagiarized.

I did a thing is fun.

IME the more focussed/narrow/niche the subject is, the longer the channel will remain quality.

More importantly I think is if the channel owner is someone who truly enjoys their content, or someone who’s just enjoying celebrity and found a way to do it.

This is like Green brothers vs Fein Brothers.

8 bit guy, Nostalgia Nerd, Modern Vintage Gamers…great channels by people who are passionate about their content, still giving out great videos year after year.

AVGN? Ass. Shit. Ass covered in diarrhea shit. He made his fame off being an edgelord and that only works so long. Still check in every now and then but when he had guest appearances by Gilbert Gottfried and Macaulay Cullen he really jumped the shark.

Bobby Fingers

GoodTimesWithScar ... if you enjoy Minecraft content the dude is a beast, so talented ! and also funny and entertaining

Transport Evolved (they are also on Peertube), RM Transit, Gamers Nexus, Climate Town, Not Just Bikes, JayzTwoCents, Techtesters, The Linux Experiment (also on Peertube), LowSpecGamer

Viva La Dirt League, their skits are still good as a decade ago

my fav youtubers are probably

• I did a thing
• Dank Pods
• Bringus Studios
• StyroPyro
• Posy
• fern
• A few others I cant remember rn

The Dungeon Dudes are always solid if you want DnD content. Even their episodes where you wouldn't expect great talking points they somehow pull it off.

acollierastro — Angela Collier

Astrophysics, science communication and random rants

I feel like Markiplier keeps improving, over time his videos have cut out a lot if padding and fluff that was the standard in old school let's plays, but it's not a smash cut fest like some newer youtubers are.

He also is diversifying his mediums, like the movie that he's currently making (not a "youtuber movie", an actual movie adapted off the game Iron Lung).

The only real controversy of his that I can think of was when he stood up for PewDiePie when he said the n-word. Mainly because they were friends. With how many years he's been going I'm surprised there's not more.

MrMobile(Michael Fisher) - His video presentation skills 10/10, I specially love his series named when phones were fun, where he fondly talks about yesteryear phones and gadgets.

Harald Baldr - I may not go to all the places he goes, but the way he interacts with different people irrespective of the barrier of communication is commendable. The way he presents himself in his videos, I believe that's him in real life as well. No fakery.

Berd, danooct1, Huggbees, Hugh Jeffreys, Michael MJD, NileRed, Ordinary Sausage, Sam O'Nella (barely), Tapakapa

At least that's what I find great.

Andrew Camarata and Foresty Forest are one of the few no-bullshit YouTubers that I know of who simply focus on making good content and nothing else.

EDIT: Steve Wallis and post10 aswell

I still get excited when I see a notification for Applied Science after several years. Breaking Taps doesn't miss, either. They both do really interesting stuff.

A lot of the old "Golden Age" League of Legends content creators have moved on to making really good content about other topics and games. Basically Dunkey and everyone who was at one point accused of being a Dunkey clone lol

Dunkey obviously still makes content and it's still good. I've never personally been a huge fan of the short length goofy one off gag style of his but I know people still really like his content.

Skooch does miscellaneous other games now (mostly Mario and sonic lately) but the content is the best it's ever been

Bricky does Warhammer mostly but also makes long form analyses of big AAA titles that are sequels to franchises from the 360 days

Keyori (now Barny/Maddy) rebranded, transitioned, and now makes literally the best World of Warcraft content I've ever seen

FrostPrime streams I know but I think his YouTube is literally exclusively just stream VODs now.

Outside of that group I still get a kick out of Game Grumps 10 years later but I know the old school let's play thing isn't really for everyone. Also Alpharad still makes good content, though lately it's been a lot of mid, sponsored or otherwise kinda forced out stuff.

Bobby Fingers. Drunk Mel Gibson has quickly become a classic amongst my friends.

https://youtube.com/@bobbyfingers

Probably one of the most creative and talented makers I have ever had the pleasure of coming across. Every single thing he's done has been fucking hilarious to boot.

ZeFrank

Welp, there goes several dozen hours or more of my free time.

Well, after looking through, I saw that some of my favorites are not on here.

Kraut: makes well thought out video essays on politics, history, culture and everything in between. He also tells you his reading list that went into making a particular video.

Adam Something: bit of politics, bit of urban planning, bit of shitting on Elon Musk, bit of shitting on stupid ideas.

The Great War: started in 2014 doing week by week of the first world War, 100 years after it began. Now is doing a similar series on the second world War.

The Operations Room: breaks down historical military operations minute by minute, incredible level of detail.

Korean Englishman/ Jolly: Josh and Ollie a couple of British guys introduce korean food to people and on Jolly they go get into other foods and hijinks

Townsend: showing what life was like in early colonial America

Nothing to add here, but wanted OP to know I saved this post for all the good info people are giving.

Cooking

https://youtube.com/@foodwishes?si=yI4JtmUn50uBBHTq Chef John is a treasure, every recipe I've followed of his has been a banger! Highly recommend

Guitar related

https://youtube.com/@EricHaugenGuitar?si=Ey2YYsjMmoss8XWE Eric Haugen is a fantastic guitar player/teacher, I love his mellow Bob Ross-esque vibe

https://youtube.com/@PhillipMcKnight?si=oHF6ndW08Z4uP9KU Philip McKnight is the god of the guitar gear heads. Has a ton of great videos showing how to do simple guitar repairs, reviewing gear etc.

Comedy/pop culture

https://youtube.com/@commentiquette?si=_s6NoLnG3oDCNPmz Internet comments etiquette is a hilarious channel that teaches how to leave respectful comments in this increasingly hostile and confusing online world.

https://youtube.com/@RedLetterMedia?si=el68vpczG7nP9JvF Red Letter Media - movie/tv critics with great skits and characters. Maybe the best thing on YouTube IMO

Board Games

https://youtube.com/@shutupandsitdown?si=WBR9bWjHv8-NbyaR Really great board game reviews, I've found a bunch of my favorite games here

Educational

https://youtube.com/@animagraffs?si=Dabm4scpS_pZEFFb Amazing 3d renders and walkthroughs of complex machines/systems. The video on the HMS Victory is inspired.

https://youtube.com/@ProfessorDaveExplains?si=j1_aVPIv7onfSuk4 Professor Dave does science education, great videos on many topics.

Motorcycles

https://youtube.com/@FortNine?si=GXooYCKjCYaMPgPF FortNine puts out the best moto content I've found on the Internet.

Wendigoon, he doesn't post as frequently as a lot of others but his videos are like an hour long and he researches the fuck out of a subject. He did one about the unabomber recently that he had to break into a two partner because one part was just an hour long interview with the lead FBI investigator on the case.

Anton Petrov

https://youtube.com/@whatdamath

Kurzgezagt - In a Nutshell

Thoughty2

Joe Scott

SomeOrdinaryGamers

Josh Strife Hayes / Josh Strife Plays

TheReportOfTheWeek

Whang!

CaptainSparklez

Hey all! Scott here

Ethoslab

Posy, I am surprised at que quality of his videos, they are incredibly artistic

• 3balsue1brown
• Kathy Loves Physics & History. I like that she stays in her lane and hasn't deviated from electricity and history.
• freecodecamp, each video is a course that's several hours long.

A few I haven't seen show up yet:

• Brick Immortar, bunch of good videos on maritime incidents
• Maritime Horrors, same category as above, great quality stuff
• Pulsar, Lemmino-style documentaries

Harry Mack. Greatest off-top freestyler ever (except maybe Juice WRLD, but that's apples and oranges). Folks are sad about the end of Omegle Bars, but I've always thought Wordplay Wednesdays is his best format.

XboxAhoy (The channel name is just Ahoy)

The Why Files

Calum https://youtube.com/@CalumRaasay

Barely Sociable https://youtube.com/@BarelySociable

Bright Sun Films https://youtube.com/@BrightSunFilms

Code Bullet https://youtube.com/@CodeBullet

Jet Lag: The Game https://youtube.com/@jetlagthegame

Half As Interesting https://youtube.com/@halfasinteresting

Mustard https://youtube.com/@MustardChannel

PaperWill https://youtube.com/@PaperWill

Peter Dibble https://youtube.com/@peterdibble

RetroBytes https://youtube.com/@RetroBytesUK

Ringway Manchester https://youtube.com/@RingwayManchester

Ruairidh MacVeigh https://youtube.com/@rorymacve

SideNote https://youtube.com/@SidenoteChannel

TheEpicNate315 https://youtube.com/@TheEpicNate315

Tom Scott https://youtube.com/@TomScottGo

Techmoan https://youtube.com/@Techmoan

Wendover Productions https://youtube.com/@Wendoverproductions

Modern Vintage Gamer

A few comes to mind.

Ordinary Things is great and Michael Fisher is good and usually doesn't hype stuff up.

Too many to name. I'm easily on YouTube 2+ hours each day and there's not exactly lack of quality content

Late to this but I'll drop a niche list. They've all done fighting game content.

• Core-A Gaming
• GuileWinQuote
• TheoryFighter
• Leon Massey

Would like to throw in Atomic Frontier, he makes on-location video essays about random science and engineering topics that are edited with great supporting infographics