I'm amazed none of these have been mentioned yet. Here are some of my faves

Explaining stuff that's happening

• Real Life Lore (I'm almost signing for Nebula because of him, gorgeous map graphics)
• Cold Fusion
• Wendover

History stuff

• Fall of Civilizations - Hands down the best documentary-like content I know of. Takes forever for new stuff to show up (because research), but it's so fucking worth it!
• Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages
• Kings and Generals (the narrator butchers every non-anglo name, it really grinds my gears)
• Heroes and Legends - The long form, documentary-level videos are amazing. Watch the ones on Gertrude Bell and Voltaire

Gamurrs

• Basement Brothers - Almost monotone narration, but possibly the only channel in english that plays and shows several details of old Japan exclusive PC games (PC88 and PC98 mostly)
• Russian Badger - There's a very high chance you've seen some of the memes straight out of his videos. Start with "Heavy flamer heresy" if you've never seen any.

Red Letter Media! <3

(Yo, cake day lol)

Kris Harbour Natural Building - Guy building a homestead in rural Wales. He does some cool hydropower stuff. Built his own house and workshop. He’s currently building a timber framed barn of his own design for his equipment and the animals he raises using lumber he milled on a band saw mill that he also built (and I think also designed). This stuff is all documented on his channel. Dude seems really chill and down-to-earth.

The Action Lab easily my favourite

Vacuum Wars! He tests, reviews, and compares vacuum cleaners. And he's very thorough and scientific. His standard, but not only test is to measure sand by mass, put it in a carpet, run the vacuum in question over it, and weigh the remainder. That gives him a benchmark for all of the. He also does electric mops, carpet cleaners, air filters, robotic vacuums etc. If you are ever in the market for a new vacuum cleaner, check it out!

Dust ups: growing a forest in the TX desert

Bamabass: rich pnut farmer essentially builds a bass pond but it spirals out of control and now he runs a beautiful wildlife sanctuary

Fabrats, trail mater, tom toms, RAD etc.

Aussie bonsai bloke

Vampire Robot. Love me some B-roll.

Currently, Roll for Sandwich/Adventures in Aardia and No More Jockeys. Also love me some J. Kenji López-Alt, with a bit of Henry's Kitchen for contrast.

Any Austin. Super chill, slightly autistic & fairly unique gaming content, just what I need on any given day https://youtube.com/@any_austin?si=ZKlpL3k8YvWZEfoZ

Nicknamethe1st - makes stickfigure fights and was inspired by Zeurel82mk2

Neurotic goose - plays modded minecraft challenges

Vinesauce

Some of my fave videos

not fav, but deserving a mention is Sabine Hossenfelder she's certainly weighed in on topics she probably should've stayed out of. But her ability to cut through science/physics bs is pretty high. As with everyone, you have to take and leave certain perspectives they offer.

Many channels I watch have already been mentioned, but one comes to mind that hasn’t been: if you like Stuff Made Here and NileRed, you’ll love The Thought Emporium. Dude is a mad scientist, for real. His current long term project is trying to make a neural net that can play DOOM… except he means real neurons. Biological neurons grown in his self built lab, sourced from rats.

A couple that I haven't seen yet: Foolish Baseball for a zillenial take on baseball, Hagerty, Throttle House and savagegeese for quality car YouTube and Scott Manley, BPS Space and Vintage Space for some good rocket science and history, and languagejones and Dr. Geoff Lindsey for linguistics.

I really like Curious Archive, their video "I Hope It Ends With Monster" is one of my favorites.

• Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't - field botany with a side of misanthropy, mostly in the texas / southern us but he does occasionally visit places all over the world
• Natural World Facts - incredibly high quality documentaries on the deep ocean, every time nwf uploads is worth celebrating
• History of the Universe - goated space science documentaries

https://youtube.com/@InSearchofLostFlavors the aesthetics, the food, and the slight asmr

https://youtube.com/@lukehumphris - does nice lil animated shorts

https://youtube.com/@darksimpsons - Uses recut Simpsons footage to make dark edits

Outside of large channels with millions of subs that now only get thousands of views, Stumpt in general for clean fun and HeroVoltsy for their pokemon fangame/rom hack content. Voltsy's how I discovered almost every single pokemon fangame I have ever played.

theuppermostinlife - It's just one person scooping up all of the music they like and curating a bunch of compilations. I've found lots of music I listen to regularly thanks to their efforts.

Tally Ho A boat builder named Leo Sampson rebuilding a wooden sailing yacht with an incredible love for detail. Started seven years ago with a wreck, and is now finally sailing!

Escape to rural France An English gardener rebuilds a French castle that had burned down 40 years ago.

Cutting Edge Engineering For those who love "Inheritance Machining" - Curtis does machining of large parts professionally and commercially.

Songs for Littles (Ms. Rachel) - Really good Prek content for my kid.