Underappreciated YouTube Channels You Want to Share

[Melooon]

I'm surprised no one has posted vihart yet!! 

[xwindows]

For the love of all things holy, since YouTube started waging war against its viewers, I should have stopped having anything to do with that platform any longer. But for people who are still having both feet in there, I may as well point you guys to something of... substantial value there:

• Honest Ads: like midnight infomercial, but advertises sinister aspects of everyday products and services.
  Ones I recommend watching for PSA values are:
  
  • If Smart TV Ads Were Honest
  • If Mobile Games Were Honest
  • If Amazon Were Honest
  • If Recycling Were Honest
• Technology Connections: explaination everyday technologies, imagined as 1990s PBS show with outro music to match.
  In many people eyes, this one might not be "obscure"; as it has been on Trending front page on YouTube at least once. My most-favorite episodes are:
  
  • The Antique Toaster that's Better than Yours
  • The Antique Microwave Oven that's Better than Yours
  • The Time-Lapse VCR
  • Old-Fashioned Rice Cookers are Extremely Clever
• Techmoan: long lost appliances, gadgets, and audio formats from the past you never know you'd be interested in.
  (I think this channel originally went viral when it featured German looptape-phonograph player Tefifon from 1950s)
  
• Big Clive: one moment please! then all marvelous tricks and death traps inside Chinese-cheapo electronics shall be revealed! Scottish-style.
  (Note that this guy was already relatively well-known on the Internet even before his videocasting days. Also one of his well-circulated DIY tricks involves Dubai-ing LED lamps)
  

P.S. Protip: For privacy lovers, I recommend following a YouTube channel with your feed reader; by pointing it to an RSS feed URL:

Code

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=THATLONGCHANNELIDGIBBERISH

^ Where `THATLONGCHANNELIDGIBBERISH` being a gibberish you're seeing in the channel URL.

[Melooon]

If you are into computer science then Usagi Electric is essential viewing, he has been building a vacuum tube based computer from scratch, and his general enthusiasm is really contagious! 

[candycanearter07]

P.S. Protip: For privacy lovers, I recommend following a YouTube channel with your feed reader; by pointing it to an RSS feed URL:

Code

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=THATLONGCHANNELIDGIBBERISH

^ Where `THATLONGCHANNELIDGIBBERISH` being a gibberish you're seeing in the channel URL.

It keeps returning "Server responded: Not found"

[CATBYTE]

truthfully i don't spend a whole lot of time on YouTube, but a channel i've been enjoying as of late is Not Buying It (16k subs). it's centered around analyzing and poking fun at advertising/marketing. i find marketing resistance to be an increasingly important subject, especially as someone who spends a good amount of time online, i also find the channel just being entertaining to watch as i work.

[xwindows]

It keeps returning "Server responded: Not found"

I'm curious, what exact URL you actually tried though?

Maybe I wasn't completely clear about it in my original post, but I will elaborate here for a record-- there are 2 categories of YouTube channel URLs: ones intended for human to read, and ones intended for machine to read. Don't mix them up.

The URLs of the first category would look like these:

Code

https://www.youtube.com/user/CHANNELNAME
https://www.youtube.com/c/CHANNELNAME
https://www.youtube.com/@CHANNELNAME

What are the differences between these, you ask?

They come from each different era of YouTube. The first one is the oldest kind, which comes from the olden age back when each "channel" was actually each individual user. The second one came around when YouTube started to allow single user to create multiple channels (a decade ago, if memory serves me right); but you're likely to remember it more as a period where Google tried to push Google+ integration on YouTube. The third one however is the newest; it comes from the current "branding era": I don't know what these requirements are, but you are allowed to choose "branding" short URL which is starting with "@" for your channel.

One important thing to note is these styles of URLs are not interchangeable; you cannot copy a channel name and paste it on a different URL style. The following are example URL for each style:

• https://www.youtube.com/user/JefferzKM
• https://www.youtube.com/c/technologyconnections
• https://www.youtube.com/@Honest_Ads

I'm mentioning all these, just to let you know that none of these URLs contain gibberish channel ID that you need for finding the RSS feed. The channel ID always exist however, and used to be more visible than this, even that YouTube these days is reluctant to show it.

There are few ways to find it (use the way you deem most convenient)... by going to the channel in question on YouTube website, then:

• Look at the channel's info card on the top of the screen under the channel's banner image; you would see a mysterious floating text thingamajig which says "...more" on the right. Click on it, and it would show an "About" pop-up; scroll the pop-up down to the bottom, and you would see "Share channel" button. Clicking it would reveal a menu which shown few sharing options: click on "Copy channel ID" item on it. Or...
• If your browser allows you to see the page metadata, then instruct your browser to show page's metadata (2), and find a metadata field named "twitter:url" (failing that, look for any metadata value that starts with "https://www.youtube.com/channel/" and doesn't have any "?" inside).
  
  The value of that metadata field, minus the "https://www.youtube.com/channel/" on the front, is the channel ID. This method works even when YouTube doesn't run on your browser (it doesn't run on my main browser).

Once you know that gibberish channel ID, then you can now add "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=" on its front and it would become the RSS feed URL you can put in your feed reader. Here are the corresponding RSS feed URL for the 3 example channels I listed above:

• https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCZEToMNeDh49WetzKqIq_fg
• https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCy0tKL1T7wFoYcxCe0xjN6Q
• https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC-0dXntqR76zT7b3-iB7Q1g

P.S. Last and not least: you can also access that channel on the browser by using gibberish channel ID too; by using URL like this:

Code

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

This URL style what I referred earlier as "ones intended for machine to read". The corresponding URL for the 3 example channels I mentioned above are:

• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZEToMNeDh49WetzKqIq_fg
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy0tKL1T7wFoYcxCe0xjN6Q
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-0dXntqR76zT7b3-iB7Q1g

(1) I assume moderate level of YouTube and browser-savvyness-- which such people would have known about the required distinctions already.
(2) On Mozilla family browser --including Pale Moon--, go to Tools > Page Info. But if you haven't re-enabled classic menubar on your installation, your Konami Code is Ctrl+i.

[fauxclore]

I hope everyone who stumbles on this thread visits Snow. This is one of those channels I found out when taking a long walk. I don't know how or why I opened one of their videos, but it just sucked me in. It's one of those semi-longform channels where it appears to be talking about a very specific thing, but then it takes a turn and ends up making you feel something about yourself, about life, etc. I don't leave their videos always on the best mood, some of them are kind of downers, but of all the channels I follow on YouTube, this is one of the few I wait with bated breath for new uploads.

[xolta]

If you are a miltary history buff or enjoy a good history shit post I highly recommend Lazerpig. For history of videogames epically from a British perspective Kim justice.
English and linguistics I recommend Name explain. 



  And of course shameless self shilling. 

[KibbehTheKib]

very excited to check out some of the channels recommended here! I'll toss in some I haven't seen mentioned yet:

hana hyperfixates - they make gravity falls video essays, ranging from queer analysis to fandom retrospectives to a deep dive on one of the biggest episodes of the series. insightful while also being very funny :)

lyra made a website - he's trying to achieve a living dex in every generation of pokemon, talking about his experience and some more obscure details (like the safari zone mechanics) along the way. really interesting!

lowart - among other things, he made an incredible archie sonic retrospective going through all the ups and downs of the comic's lifespan. hilarious and thoughtful while showing a clear love for the comic that convinced me to read it for myself!

droomish - discusses obscure or overlooked parts of the pokemon games, often focusing on gen 3. definitely recommend if you're into that sort of trivia! I also recommend etchy, who makes similar content but focused on gen 4

[Trench_Man]

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

This channel is amazing, it's a videogame music orchestra channel that somehow only has around 200 subscribers, yet the content they put out is absolutely amazing and I highly recommend you give them a listen

They're like a proper orchestra too, not just someone who uses a program to make orchestral covers, but a wholly physical team of instruments and people

[Corrupted Unicorn]

LyricJ, who puts lots of effort on making cartoons from the 20s to the 70s available on Youtube (plus some cartoon-adjacent stuff such as beta footage for Cuphead and all video material for Cat Burglar, an interactive Netflix cartoon that no longer works).

My personal favourite at the moment is all the compiled found segments of "A Moment with Walter Lantz", where the creator of Woody Woodpecker shows how animation was made back in the era, with all its aspects and stages, teaches viewers how to draw Woody or how to find ideas for cartoons, and sometimes the Woodpecker himself butts in 

Editing this post to also mention Struthless, a self-help channel (but it feels weird to call it like that, the vibes are entirely different) with an emphasis on things you can put into practice. I really enjoy hearing this man's stories, and he also makes good art/animation to illustrate them. Lately he's also making mini-documentaries/essays on current topics (gamification, doomscrolling, etc.) but also some off-baller ones (art meant for aliens, the history of fonts, etc.)

He's published two books, I read one of them online (ahem) but I'd like to purchase them. Overall, I enjoy his casual, down-to-Earth approach. 

[Tadpole]

Here is a video by a creator called endvertex that I found by luck. Watched this video this morning while having breakfast and it inspired me to download blender and work more on my website again. Excited to see more from them!!!! Video!!

[Seren]

I think that TimDeMoss in a really underrated channel, he makes a lot of really awesome videos about encouraging people to read,

I really liked this one personally,

But he has so many video that really changed my outlook on life or just inspired me to do something new!

[BlazingCobaltX]

Always recommending imablisy for people who love 2D Pokémon and especially Gen 3, as they have developed several DLC for those games.

Afrikafestival Hertme uploads high-quality recordings of performances at the festival. Great if you're interested in diving into music genres from the African continent.

Recently discovered the channel Bowl of Lentils, which seems to be focused on documenting the history of the visual novel genre.

OM The Rails reviews high speed rail networks in Europe and sometimes in other continents too.

Finally, hongkongmap, which I watched a lot after I came back from my own Hong Kong trip.

[gregmoondancer]

Definitely gotta reccomend https://www.youtube.com/@ChasersDelight, she doesn't have all too many videos at the moment but the ones that do exist are literally so fun to watch and just encapsulate the early youtube vibe of just making whatever videos u want and uploading them simply cuz u can, not to mention the Chaser's delight album is lowkey peak imo
Another channel u guys should totally check out is https://www.youtube.com/@sylv_888, he currently has an ongoing webseries called STAR-KROSS'D which only has one ep as of writing this but I already love it so much if ur a fan of unique/strange visuals and animation as well as just space in general u should def check it out, all the animations that they make as well as their artstyle is just so cool and I would love to see more of it