These are "smart" channels that are mostly for entertainment but still teach you at least something:

• Stuff Made Here - fun engineering challenge videos
• Veritasium- math and physics explanations
• Mark Rober - kid friendly engineering challenges
• Technology Connections - everyday object explanations
• Steve Mould - science explanation of random concepts
• Outdoor Boys - outdoor survival
• Woodsbound Outdoors - outdoor survival
• Fireship - shorter, technology explanations
• Internet Shaquille - food and cooking explanations
• ElectroBOOM - comedic electrical engineering
• Company Man - light analysis of failed or successful companies
• Atrioc - comedic current events, marketing explanations

The outdoor survival ones are new to me, but for some reason I'm really into them.

How To Basic

Technology connections is good

Bill Hammack (engineerguy) - Engineering inventions and items explained. All videos are CC-BY-SA.

https://engineerguy.com/videos.htm

Others

Mend It Mark - fixing electronic items

Photonic Induction - Blowing up electronic items

decino - Doom videogame inner workings

Steve Mould (fun physics explainers)

Matt Parker (fun math explainers)

Linus Boman (fun visual design explainers)

I'll add more if I can think of more

Posy Very high production quality short videos about random stuff with lots of cool macro shots and custom made music

xkcd's What If? Cool absurdly stupid scenarios explained

Hyperspace Pirate "Fridge Guy" makin funny and cold science stuff

Veritasium is probably already in your list i assume?

BreakingTaps Precision machining stuff and general technical analysis (Has an electron microscope [very cool])

Bro, vsauce?

Just cherry picking from my sub list:

https://www.youtube.com/@chubbyemu Chubbyemu, a doctor who tells stories about strange/unusual medical cases and provides a lot of explanation for how various conditions affect the body.

https://www.youtube.com/@CorridorCrew CorridorCrew is a behind-the-scenes channel for Corridor, a visual effects studio who made a lot of classic YouTube CGI videos. They do breakdowns/analysis of visual effects in movies, showing how certain effects are made. They also do other edu-taining videos where they use CGI to visualize hard-to-describe concepts, like "What would it look like if you took every single ant on the planet and put them all into a giant ball, and what would the tidal wave of ants look like when the ball is dropped in the middle of New York City?"

https://www.youtube.com/@DarylTalksGames DarylTalksGames does video essays about various elements of video game design and philosophy. Not every video he posts is trying to make or prove a point of any sort, a lot of them are much more open ended and just kinda "thinking out loud".

https://www.youtube.com/@FredrikKnudsen FredrikKnudsen does the "Down the Rabbit Hole" series, which are deep dive videos about strange, disturbing, or viral topics. He doesn't upload much anymore (last upload was over a year ago, upload before that was three years ago), but the videos are still very entertaining. Some of his later videos may be a bit longer-form than you're looking for (he's done a few 2+ hour videos), but most of them are around 20-ish minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/@halfasinteresting Half As Interesting does short videos about strange, mundane, or peculiar things that you probably have never thought about, like how a dam in China has slowed the planet's rotation or how Michelin inspectors keep their identities secret when reviewing restaurants. The videos are generally pretty short (6-8 minutes), and the ad read always takes place at the end so they're easy videos to just hit Play and get comfortable.

https://www.youtube.com/@IntotheShadows Into The Shadows tells stories about some of the darkest, macabre, and gruesome events in human history. Unethical human experimentation, wars you may have never heard of, pandemics, natural disasters, etc. I should point out that this isn't a comedy channel, like some other channels that do similar types of storytelling, so this isn't one of those with memes and MSPaint drawings strewn throughout.

https://www.youtube.com/@JimBrowning Jim Browning does fantastic videos about the industry of scammers. He explains how a lot of scams work, how the people behind them operate, and also leads efforts in tracking and taking down scammer groups.

https://www.youtube.com/@LegalEagle Legal Eagle is a lawyer who breaks down legal cases in the news. While he doesn't necessarily hide his own opinions on the issues he talks about, the videos aren't about his opinion, so most of the focus is on how the law would be applied to a particular case, what arguments are likely to be made in court and why they matter, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/@sora_sakurai_en Masahiro Sakurai, the director behind Kirby, Super Smash Bros, and other Nintendo franchises, spent the last couple years making videos aimed toward people trying to create their own game studio or just getting into the game development industry. The videos are tailored more toward somebody in a managerial role, but he also talks a lot about the more hands-on tasks, as well. They're all pretty insightful, and even if you're not working in a related industry, a lot of the personal/interpersonal management tips he offers can likely be incorporated into your own workflow somehow. Granted, he takes a very Japanese approach to everything he discusses, on both the design and business sides, not all of which I would agree is conducive to a healthy work environment, but to each their own.

https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections Technology Connections does amazing videos about how various things around your house work, and often explains how they don't actually work the way you think they do. He breaks down the workings of appliances as simple as a $5 toaster, but manages to make it interesting and informative.

https://www.youtube.com/@Taskmaster Everything I've listed here so far has had some element of being educational to it. That stops now. Your mind needs a break. Put your feet up and relax, and watch clips or full episodes of the best game show ever created. It's funny, clever, and very unique. On Taskmaster, 5 comedians are given a series of bizarre tasks to complete, often requiring quick wits and creative solutions.

E: Typos.

Try this from technology connections

I like watching OddTinkering. They take broken stuff and refurbish it in ASMR style. Very satisfying to watch.

Practical Engineering is a great channel. Some of his videos are longer, but most are well under 30 minutes and if you have even a passing interest in civil engineering there's a wealth of information there.

ElectroBoom

Haven't seen this one in this thread: Joe Scott / Answers with Joe.

does things with a 3d pen no one would be stupid enough to do. He'll spend hours making a shape that could be done in seconds on a printer and it's extremely impressive.

I don't know what (newpipe) means, but I'm soon to start a channel explaining the rules of various tabletop RPGs in simple context, broken up into small videos.

It couldn't hurt to have more voices in that realm. My local tabletop group plays D&D, but we're thinking about switching to Star Trek Adventures.

Skibidi Toilet

You sound like you'd like the types of videos posted to /c/mealtimevideos@lemmy.cafe

Also these types of creators are commonly on nebula.tv, if you want to support them directly.