Shameless plug of my playlists:
Long video game essays (30min - 1h)
Longer video game essays (1h+)
Edit: Yes the playlists are very much still incomplete and a work in progress. I promise I'll eventually add the recommendations yall made!
I mean, you gotta learn about the failure of the Star Wars hotel!
I didn't wake up planning to watch a 4hr video in the failure of the Star Wars hotel but I'm weirdly glad I did
Jenny’s video was so damn good, I’ve started watching her back catalog.
My wife: we're not going to watch a 4hr video about the Stars Wars Hotel.
My wife, 3hs50min into the Star Wars Hotel video: I need to know more!!
Technology connections.
Ahoy.
Also Cathode Ray Dude
And then for a hat trick, throw in Big Clive.
He’s the perfect size—they shouldn’t make YouTubers bigger than that
My favorite is summoning salt.
Yeah me too. I had no idea I could be fascinated by something I had absolutely no interest in.
I thought hbomberguy uploaded :(
Yeah ditto :( but Jenny Nicholson released a 4 hour video on the Star Wars Hotel just recently.
And it's so ridiculously good. The NYT even wrote an article about it.
Wait, that's awesome! I'll have to check that out :)
YT pushed me her Evermore one last night, was the first I ever heard of it. Good video, accurate meme
In case you didn't know, Münecat recently uploaded a three-hour video debunking evolutionary psychology: https://youtu.be/31e0RcImReY
I figure the overlap between hbomberguy and münecat viewers in the Venn diagram is basically a circle, so that should help if you have an hbomberguy craving.
Sorry to give you false hope 😔
But I still believe that we'll get at least one video this year! 😭
Why are you teasing me like this? He didn't upload anything.
*Riloe
*Architect of games
*Nakey Jake
*Gamer makers toolkit
*Curious archive
*Lemino
*12 tone
*AI and games
*Alpha Phoenix
*Barely sociable
*Be smart
*Branch education
*Brick immortar
*Bytebytego
*Cgp grey
*Coffeezilla
*Defunctland
*Eckharts ladder
*Electroboom
*Every frame a painting
*Lessons from the screenplay
*History of the earth
*History of the universe
*Internet Historian
*Kurzgesagt
*Lockpickinglawyer
*Markrober
*Mustard
*Cold fusion
*Polymatter
*Minute physics
*No clip documentaries
*PBS spacetime
*Pursuit of wonder
*Real engineering
*Scishow
*Secret base
*Stevemould
*Technology connections
*The b1m
*The history guy
*The squidd
*Throttle house
*Tom Stanton
*Tom Scott (retired now)
*Veritasium
*Vsauce
*Wendover productions
Edit: things I forgot or didn't know about and had suggested to me below
*Half as interesting
*Undecided with Matt Farrell
*3blue1brown
*Numberphile
*Mathologer
*Miniminuteman
*Sam o'nella
*Alternate history hub
*Road guy rob
*8-bit guy
*Modern vintage gamer
*Bobby Broccoli
*Jenny Nicholson
*Animagraffs
*Captain disillusion
*Driving 4 answers
*Engineering explained
*Jeff geerling (raspberry pi type projects)
*Kings and generals
*Michael Reeves
*Noah caldwell-gervais
*People make games
*Pointless hub
*Smarter everyday
*The engineering mindset
*The great war
*The operations room
*The modern rogue
*Zack Freedman
*The backyard scientist
*Brew
*I did a thing
*Neo
*Stand up maths
There i think that's it. That's a ton of stuff but I really follow more quality YouTube than anything else and I like sharing great YouTube channels. If you enjoy interesting YouTube I would honestly just check a couple of these out and see if the topics fit your interests.
These channels range from science, space, physics, to history, sports, cars, to tech, movies, games, to makers who build stuff seriously as well as builders who make stuff silly.
Not everything here is video essay, but it's high quality content imo
Based on the names I know on this list, I am super excited to check out the ones I don't. Thanks!
Also check out miniminuteman too. Good pseudoscience/conspiracy theory debunking.
How you gonna have Wendover and not Half as Interesting (his shorter form side-channel)?
No Road Guy Rob? Or Practical Engineering?
No Extra History? (I only know him from Nebula but I think he's on YouTube too)
Also recommend 8bit-Guy for retro computing and Modern Vintage Gamer for retro gaming.
Missing all the mathematics channels smh. (Numberphile, mathologer, 3blue1brown...)
I only get sucked into these if I like the narrator's style. Some people just have a natural way of talking that can keep my attention no matter what they're talking about.
Defunctland has some of the best researched stuff I've seen. His dive into the Disney Channel Theme is absolutely incredible.
It seems like I will only watch either a 15 min video or a 4 hour one. I just don't seem to like the very short form video format. It does allow enough time for even a single subject.
With one exception, I'll watch a lockpicking lawyer at any length.
Where's pannenkoek2012's Super Mario 64 invisible walls explanation video on your list?
Video essays somehow skip past my eternally short attention span
Only when they become a recap of the subject for 90% of it do I get annoyed, lol.
I've never even thought to look into JP lore. But this is my front page now
I blame my office job
There's a lot of YouTubers that started doing big videos like that and i just don't have the time to watch something like that and give it all my attention. Same with caddicarus, used to watch both of these a lot but since they started having massively long videos i just haven't bothered with them in ages
You definitely don't have to watch it all in one go. I usually just watch however much of it I want to watch that day and then send myself a time stamped link to pick it back up whenever I have the time and interest again
Of course if you're just not interested that's totally fair
I usually have those kind of things in the background while I cook or wash dishes.
I would guess 80% of the people who watch these aren't actually watching them. Hell, background play is the real reason I pay for YouTube Premium. Not having to worry about ads is a nice bonus.
The real commitment is when somebody like Plainly Difficult uploads an annual omnibus of all their videos for the year. I watched them all individually, then I watch them again in 9 hour form.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I think you'd also like NakeyJakey's game design essays and infernoplus on halo modding.
Thank you for sharing your playlists!
If you want a rabbithole watch mort theory
Also sponge bob skin theory. Dude had a little video putzing around, then a couple years later dropped a couple hour long video to convince people of some absolutely wild shit about sponge bob, then just disappeared.
Short list of favorite long YouTube "documentaries":
All of these are very good
Damn, these playlists are gold, some of the things I watched are included.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/fIuhg0bjvQI
https://piped.video/Qe5WT22-AO8
https://piped.video/yXbJe-rUNP8
https://piped.video/0twDETh6QaI
https://piped.video/suRdLbdfdhA
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I have never played genshin impact and I object fundamentally to gatcha games. But I like video games a lot. Should I watch?
Bobby broccoli! So good
Also check out Fredrik Knudsen's DTRB
I have not been able to get up from a single one of his videos. They're all addictively well-paced and written. All great vids.
The 6 hour video about EVE Online was a ride.
One of my absolute favorites!
dude I'm supposed to learn how to taxes, not be reminded to crawl back into the rabbit hole of how to sharpen a knife on a whetstone by hand