danooct1 - A guy who demonstrates computer viruses on OSes like Windows and DOS.

WrestlingWithWregret (For wrestling fans) - This guy does various wrestling content but some of his best is PPV Classic reviews. Charming personality.

Bobby Fingers. I promise it’s worth the time and wait between videos.

Engels Coach Shop. Dude rebuilds wagons and other horse pulled things from piles of rubble. Really nice calm guy out in Wyoming.

Pat Finnerty breaks down bad songs in hilarious fashion.

Alpha Phoenix is a good science channel

Kari, she’s a retro gaming nerd, really young but absolutely knows her shit

Look Mum No Computer. An extremely talented musician who does videos around analog electronic music gear.

Mbmmllc. They do mining videos. The Kenya video is unbelievable and I learned so so much about the world from it.

Periscope Films. Stock footage that varies wildly

These are my picks.

Lost in the Movies - fewer than 10k subscribers, but he deserves so many more.

His work is generally on movies and TV, usually with a more art house feel.

His major piece of work though is his 30-40 part video series (and also podcast/blog) on Twin Peaks.

None of your, “Here’s the explanation of EVERYTHING,” nonsense here though.

Instead he looks at the show, its characters and its arcs with a contemplative eye, picking out interesting visual and narrative parallels, examining the show and film as a piece of art rather than as a puzzle to be ‘solved’.

It’s exceptional and it mystifies me that it’s not more well known. He’s been doing it for about ten years now I think. If you’re a Peaks fan, it’s an absolute must IMO.

Here’s my list, included snippets of their own youtube descriptions.

Angela Collier theoretical physicist.

Andrew Millison is a permaculture teacher and practitioner.

Climate Town Rollie Williams and a ragtag team of climate communicators, creatives and comedians are here to examine climate change in a way that doesn’t make you want to eat a cyanide pill. Get informed about the climate crisis before the weather does it for you.

Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t A Low-Brow, Crass Approach to Plant Ecology & Evolution as muttered by a Misanthropic Chicago Italian. We study plants through the lens of ecology and evolution, rather than what supposed anthropocentric uses they can provide (as if holding up the biosphere wasn’t enough).

Dr Fatima i went to grad school and all i got was this lousy understanding of systemic problems in science.

Meditations for the anxious mind

Noah Daniel interior & spatial design

Stewart Hicks Takes on Buildings and Cities.

For music fans, I highly recommend Trash Theory. Very thorough deep dives into songs and bands that leave you with a much better understanding of music history.

For commentary on modern popular music I recommend Todd in the Shadows and Mic the Snare.

GothicLordUK a gaming YouTuber who plays a variety of rouge like and puzzle games.

Terrasteel a YouTuber who explains quirks and fun facts about Terraria.

Lance Hedrick makes really cool data driven videos about coffee.

Etchy makes videos about generation 4 of Pokémon

The Tim traveller : https://www.youtube.com/@TheTimTraveller/videos

The US Chemical Safety Board- does indepth non-politcal analysis of industrial accidents.

Rationality rules - mostly religion debunking

Applied Science - Varying videos about science phenomenons and use cases

LaurieWired - Cyber Security

Veronica Explains - Mostly Linux.

James Lee - animated videos

Awesome open source - videos and tutorials about self hosting and open source software

fly with Greg - paragliding videos

Mary’s Test Kitchen - awesome vegan and keto food

AlphaPhoenix - Science Videos

the hated one - privacy videos

crackermilk - comedy skits

Theramintrees - psychology videos

Weird fruit explorer - exploring fruits and vegetables from all over the world

Earthling ed - videos about veganism and animal welfare and rights

Ghostcharm. Casual video game analysis

Drue Langlois - animator/filmmaker who makes absurd and fun videos. One of my favorites

Wigglewood - another animator who’s in the process of making their own little shared world of silliness.

Oboeshoesgames - streamer who has a decent sense of humor and is actually pretty creative with coming up with little parody songs for the games he plays. He also knows a SHITTON about Bionicle and will throw in references sometimes, which is always nice to see.

RudeJackArt - artist/animator behind this masterpiece

SplinterChalk - very small YouTuber who does challenge runs in games, similar to MittenSquad (RIP Paul), but mostly focusing on the Batman: Arkham games. He does play others though.

ChadCat - he condenses other long-form YouTube videos (i.e. videos over 10 minutes) down to their most important details, usually taking up to about 20 seconds to a minute each time, calling them the “ADHD Versions.”

Venjent - DJ/producer who makes badass beats using sounds he finds out in the world, such as a squeaky door

2 Guys and A Cooler - family-run cooking channel where they make different cool things. Their video on pemmican got me interested in them.

CharlieBo313 - basically a modern anthropologist who goes to the 'hoods and ghettos of America and talks to the people who live there, and showcases what life is like.

Poe’s Sketchbook - stop-motion animator behind this badass fight

Luka Big Pants - strange guy who makes videos in that weird stuttery FMV game style. It’s all weird and absurd but it’s all really good.

Crazy Korean Cooking - a Korean family eating food, pretty much. They try different foods they never have, like Mexican and Jamaican foods, then they’ll experiment and try mixing the new stuff with their Korean food and it gets pretty fun. The parents are honestly super fun to watch because they just enjoy it all.

BM Cartoons - an animator who just makes silly little cartoons.

Edit: oh there’s more.

Fearnley Fitzroy - the animator behind this absolute masterpiece and other fun souls-like dance videos.

GilGamesHello - gamer who plays a lot of physics-based games like Exanima and Half Sword.

Spine_apples - Saruman the Stupid

TRYBALS - a very cool channel that shows western media and such to tribal villagers from Pakistan.

Bill McClintock - someone who mashes up songs from wildly different genres and somehow makes them sound fuckin awesome. Stuparena (a mashup of The Macarena and Stupefied)

Bushy - another challenge gamer, but he focuses on Elden Ring and other Souls-likes.

Bax Taylor - a musician who makes his own original songs, but also does silly covers of others like Toto doing Apple Bottom Jeans, or Frank Sinatra’s Balls In Yo Jaws.

Media Zealot - he breaks down different civilizations/organizations/other groups from different popular IPs and says why they wouldn’t be able to work in reality. Like “villains too stupid to win” and so on.

Corey Laddo - an SFM animator who makes funny shorts, based around G-man and Gordon interacting and playing out a meme or something.

So…so many.

Politics:

• Some More News

• The Kavernacle

• Adam Connover

• Tom Nicholas

• Molly White

• Rebecca Watson

Sociopolitical:

• Salari

Trans Rights/Philosophy/TV Reviews:

• Jessie Gender

• Sophie From Mars

• Aranock

• Lilly Simpson

• Bennie Carollo

• Council of Geeks

Anarchist Philosophy:

• Anark

• Zoe Baker

• Andrewism

Tech:

• The Primetime/The Primeagen

• Casey Muratori

• Tsoding Daily

• Wittcode

• Low Level

• TJ Devries

• Veronica Explains

• DJ Ware

• NeetcodeIO

Animation Reviews:

• KittyMonk

• Georgia Dow

• Offbeat Kiki

• Johnny2Cellos

• ToonrificTarique

Philosophy/Pop Culture:

• Jared Bauer

Niche Product Reviews:

• Ben Vallack

Horror Movie Reviews/Synopsis:

• Ryan Hollinger

Comedy:

• Dr. Jordan Breeding

• Michael Swaim

• Barry Kramer

Chemistry/Psychedelics:

• Hamilton Morris

Worker’s Rights:

• Joshua Fluke

SciFi/Fantasy Book Reviews:

• The Book Guy

Tabletop RPG Reviews:

• TheBurgerkrieg

Star Trek Analysis:

• Orange River

Privacy:

• The Hated One

Musicians:

Country:

• Adeem The Artist

Synthwave:

• White Bat Audio

JRock:

• Asian Kung Fu Generation

This is a fairly niche answer, but Noah Caldwell-Gervais.

He does very smart critical analysis of video games as a medium, often in multi-hour long retrospectives of entire franchises. They are all split into chapters, so it’s easy to watch in parts. The visuals and editing are not very flashy, pretty much just footage of the game he’s talking about, but they are so well written and thoughtful I find them extremely compelling. There’s also road trip travelogues, but I’m not as into those.

I like tech, old and new, so: https://www.youtube.com/@CathodeRayDude

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I"d also suggest Jeff Geerling but he’s close to a million subscribers.

About trains, cycling, transit, and urbanism:

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

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

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

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

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

And about hiking, camping, outdoors stuff:

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

Oh and on languages and etymology:

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

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

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

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

https://www.youtube.com/@Linguisticae (in French)

https://www.youtube.com/@Linguriosa (in Spanish)