Down the YouTube Rabbit Hole
It’s easy to get lost in the sea of YouTube videos. You get sucked in by (often) misleading headlines or provocative thumbnails and, while you planned to spend 15-20 minutes surfing videos, at some point you look at the clock and realize you’ve been swimming for three hours.
But not all YouTube channels are created equal. The following are channels I find myself returning to, again and again. They are listed in no particular order. I apologize in advance if I overuse the adjective “fascinating.”
Tim Pool is interviewing Donald Trump tomorrow. He’s come a long way since the day I watched him blow a gasket over the movie Cats.
Travel stuff. Fascinating.
A young guy’s interesting takes on history and what it predicts about the state of the world today.
Bill Maher’s podcast is certainly flawed. Too often he does 90 percent of the yakking himself, with his guest serving as a captive audience. But as long as the subject of the moment isn’t named Donald Trump, the conversations are often engaging. And stoned.
I have no idea what country this young gal is from. But she’s charming and it’s good to get Gen Z’s perspective on cultural affairs.
A young couple from Romania who exist in YouTube’s world of “First Time Watching” movie reactions. He is from Romania, she is from the Philippines. They are fun and I want to live next door to them. But not in Romania.
If you dig movie reviews from an intellectual, uh — goth girl? — this is the channel for you. In her channel’s comments section, I once accused her of “recency bias” and she blew up at me. But I still watch her reviews.
If you enjoy snark and film reviews that attack wokeness with relish, the “Critical Drinker” is your man. He’s been popping up as a guest on Piers Morgan’s show, for whatever that’s worth.
This guy is the anti-Critical Drinker. He’s sunny and friendly and loath to say anything bad about the movies he reviews. But he’s into old Hammer and Universal horror movies, which is a nice change of pace (no “recency bias” here).
This couple living at the top of the world (Svalbard) sucks me in every week. Their videos are often repetitive — shovel snow, do housework, shop for groceries … repeat, repeat — but I find it all very soothing and comforting.
Cody Leach is a very persuasive podcaster. His specialty is horror movies, and his arguments for or against a particular film are very convincing. At least for a while. Often, five minutes after I watch his latest video, I will decide that I completely disagree with his opinions. But never while I’m watching.
An enigmatic guy who reviews films primarily from the 1960s and 1970s. He does a lot of background work on each film and finds juicy behind-the-scenes anecdotes. But for some reason he has disabled his comments section. Too bad.
I can’t decide if this guy is a real redneck or just pretending to be one. Either way, I find his travel videos about America and Americana to be — you guessed it — fascinating.
There are many prank sites on YouTube, but I think this channel might be one of the best. It’s creative and who doesn’t find chicks in thong bikinis to be fascinating?
**
I’m not interested in salacious stories about Diddy. I just find the blonde bending over in the bikini to be fascinating.
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