For me it’s Skallagrim. This is a channel of a guy who specializes in ancient armory and weaponry, he also reviews swords and stuff that’s sold online and tests them. Pretty cool.
But then I started to not like him for some reason and it took me a while to put my finger on it. Until I saw the video where he tried criticizing weapons in video games. Then that was where I found problems with him as a channel.
His personality comes off very pretentious and one of those pseudointellectuals you know, who try sounding smarter than they really are. He even has the voice tone to back that with.
So yeah I really once loved his channel. Though whenever he goes on tirades about things that are meant for fantasy purposes which aren’t supposed to make sense when translated to reality, as well as try to poke at fictitious things that borrow from ancient history, I feel he misses the plot of his entire channel and why people like me once subscribed to it.
We didn’t subscribe to your channel for your stupid takes on - anything. We subscribed because you seem to know your melee weapons and historical backgrounds of said weaponry. Stick to those.
What was the animated youtube channel that was someone rant blog? Started fine because it was about harmless stuff like shopping carts and shit, but they went on a break and came back in the middle of covid ranting about vaccines and restrictions. Under something?
Not sure how many of you will know about Tom from the Geowizard channel, but I recently learned he’s a reform voter (UK’s trump-style party, Nigel Farage) and honestly I was kinda devastated. Took me completely by suprise too, considering he never talked about anything political and the nature of the content and his actions would’ve never suggested it. In hindsight there were a few small tip-offs that I brushed out as him being a bit old-school/rural and not very plugged in to internet culture and modern no-no’s. I found out by listening to an album he recently released and one of the songs is about the replacement theory conspiracy…
pretty much all of the ones that got bought out by PE. the biggest offender of that in my realm is veritasium
AvE used to be good but a while back starting saying dumb right wing political stuff. not dumb because it was right wing, to be clear. just that it was right wing and also was dumb. I still have thisoldtony though, he’s better anyways. AvE mostly just had funny quips with a bit of knowledge. ToT has funny scripts and a lot of knowledge.
Scotty Kilmer was always a character, but I stopped watching years ago because idk I guess he just started putting out crappy clickbait content? idr
most Minecraft channels simply ran out of content to produce. the best two, to me right now, are mahjongblonsky and bigbooty17
what else… there’s a ton of those informational sciency type channels that I no longer like because they’re just too big budget trying to appeal to too many people. smartereveryday lost appeal to me — though I cannot say if quality has declined. it just lost appeal to me. mark rober, similar situation. haven’t seen a video from either of them in a year, but been phasing it out for several now. I disliked when a bunch of channels did promo stuff with the US military, too.
oh, MKBHD — turned into a shill for excessive-tech-having cars. at least he made a separate channel for automotive content. I think? still, another situation of somebody speaking in your area of knowledge — I couldn’t take him seriously or hear the shitty opinions any longer. as a counter, UnderDunn made a separate channel for his automotive content, and while not my favourite stuff to watch, it’s not shill crap like MKBHD.
I tried scrolling through my YouTube subscriptions to see what other channels fit the bill, but I’ve already unsubscribed from them…
Lunduke and Sabine Hossenfelter took similar paths downward towards more money in the rage economy.
In my opinion Game theory has degraded quite a bit, partly because they grew too big and started bumping out more and more content on multiple channels which in my opinion saturated quite a bit. It doesn’t help that there exists now long form video essays that go much more indepth in certain aspects of games and other forms of entertainment. MatPat leaving did also leave huge void that they can probably never fully replace.
Jimquisition or now rebranded as ‘Stephanie Sterling’ channel has also degraded quite a bit albeit there are some highs here and there. I liked their game coverage and loved the “Squirty Plays” and “Jimpressions” where they played and made fun of numerous sloppy games but they seem to no longer make them (maybe twitch? but I don’t watch Twitch). But Jimquisition has become quite repetitive with its ramblings and I don’t really care all that much about any of the LGBTQIA+ or wrestling stuff. Still following the channel though for those better videos that do occasionally pop up.
Similarly YongYea is one of those channels I’ve started to watch less. It’s one of those channels that try really hard to please the audience by telling them what they want to hear instead of having more nuanced takes. Not only that many of his videos are overly long while providing very little substance. Nowdays I prefer Bellular News and Second wind more, and If I ever watch YongYea i’ll ususally just jump a head in the video immediately when I hear him start rambling instead of focusing on actual news.
This may be hot take but Hbomberguy has degraded not necessarily in the quality but in the quantity department. I’d much more prefer smaller more concises videos more frequently than 1-3 hour long mega essays that get realeased like every other year. While many of these can be bangers I am not sure if they’re overall worth the wait. These could at least be split to multiple smaller videos to spread out the content a bit and make them easier to digest. It’s also huge risk if the topic is not something that doesn’t interest you all that much. Similar could be said about ActionButton a.k.a Tim Rogers who took more than 2 years? to make 9 hour video about La Noire? Which I can’t be bothered to watch because it’s age restricted in youtube which would require me to log in.
Everything on YouTube apart from niche special interest content creators has gone to shit because all these high viewership channels got bought out by private equity.
I no longer get excited about a new Veritasium video.
I also don’t get excited when the title and thumbnail change 5 times in a week.I stopped watching veritasium years ago after watching a couple videos that were basically an ad for whatever company and him being smug.
He got bought by a private equity firm, don‘t be surprised
Youtube has a feature to ABC test different thumbnails to test which one will be the most popular. You might see one or all of them depending on whether you click right away. Eventually the channel will choose the most successful one.
Kurzgesagt is pretty bad for that.
I have a browser extension that blocks thumbnails on YouTube because I got tired of seeing people’s creepy facial expressions.
Same for me. There’s still the occasional really good video, but there’s too many that are basically ads for some big tech thing
Why? I still love their stuff. The thumbnail shit is annoying though, he’s said in the past they do it to boost engagement or something.
A lot of the videos aren’t even made by him anymore.
That’s true and a bit of a bummer but I think those videos are still great. I don’t care that much who makes them as long as the quality is good.
The ones made by his producer (the blonde Nordic looking one) are really good tho
New thumbnails mean people are more likely to click thinking it’s a new video
Yesnt. Channels are A/B testing different thumbnails to see which ones work better. It can have massive effects.
It’s not a simple “thumbnail gets changed, get more clicks”
Yea he said they do basically A/B testing and their user base is so large they get to see in real time what works and what doesn’t.
I did this on one of their videos just last week. Annoyed the piss out of me. I think they changed the title too.
Wouldn’t surprise me to know they changed the title. I haven’t seen it personally as the people I follow seem to be honest. But it doesn’t surprise me given that clicks increase revenue.
Even news headlines change if they’re not seeing uptake at what they think they should be for a particular story
I enjoyed their recent video on power law distributions and why they dramatically change how you should operate in those domains.
They also did some good content a short while ago explaining why Monsanto and Dupont are problematic.
That said you are right about the thumbnails since when I looked at the channel to double check that it was veritasium I was thinking of the title and thumbnail are completely different for all of them.
Their most recent video on Dirac was also super interesting to me.
Dirac was his own person, despite having Charles Boutin’s consciousness in his brain.
That PFA video was wild. That stuff messed me up good.
Mark Rober
He’s been going harder and harder into the Mr Beast format, and it’s off-putting. I’m still subscribed for now, but I almost never watch his videos unless the topic seems interesting.
I cancelled him when he faked the porch pirate videos years ago.
I dislike Mark Rober.
Here is Mark Rober shilling for Anduril, an AI weapon company.
anduril is one of THIELs creation too, for people not aware.
I gave up watching Rober when he proclaimed he loves his Tesla and will buy another one. This is was said well after Musk went full Nazi dirtbag. Rober has enough money to buy another electric, he doesn’t have to support that man.
The one Video I’ve seen of him was a sponsored look at an Anduril combat drone. Never bothered looking at anything else he did after.
Yeah that was uh
Yeah, his more recent videos seem to be more about the spectacle, rather than the education or interesting subject matter.
He’s just part of a huge machine now. And he looks tired as hell sometimes.
If he stopped SHOUTING ALL THE FUCKING TIME, his content would be just about tolerable.
He creeps me out. Some uncanny valley thing, like maybe plastic surgery?
He’s definitely been working out a lot, potentially juicing.
i took a glimpse at one of his recent videos, collabing with christiano (a questionable characther thats tied to SA and panama papers) he definitely look like beefed up
Are there any good science/education channels left? Veritaism, smarter every day, Kurzgesagt all seem to have fallen off. Didn’t like Johnny Harris from the start.
3b1b, perhaps?
Depends on what exactly you’re looking for. Technology Connections, Steve Mould, ElectroBOOM, Practical Engineering, Hank Green’s various enterprises, Cody’s Lab, and the various “mad scientist” types like StyroPyro, NileRed, and the various people William Osman hangs out with.
Technology Connections is brilliant. You truly learn something when you watch his stuff.
I know it’s his brand, but it’s mostly useless stuff that you learn. His recent video about 8-tracks was fascinating, but I can’t imagine a single scenario where that info will be useful.
That said, I still recommend it to everyone.
Tech ingredients is really good too. The anti drone laser, radiant cooling, and various diy evaporative cooling projects especially. Homemade hootch too, but I tend to doze off during those.
They also got better during the pandemic, instead of worse, like AvE and some of the bigger channels. And have had some good protester related experiments like protecting from microwave and audio type police dispersal weapons.
Me getting a 1 hour long crash course on dishwasher powder (I do not use dishwasher powder) and enjoying it
I saw a great comment that he really enjoys boxes that make things hot/cold/wet/dry
A great channel that ive been really enjoying is alpha phoenix. His old videos inside his crystal growing lab are super cool. I’d recommend air tight vs vaccumn tight that was cool
so, just scrolling through my subscriptions. this isn’t a list of just science channels, lots of maker/diy stuff in here, but sometimes there’s videos from those channels that overlap with the topics the more educational-type channels might have
technology connections Chris Boden Louis rossman Steve mould good work Mike Boyd this old Tony Matthias wandel bigclivedotcom fortnine Marius hornberger essential craftsman everyday home repairs project farm mujin pask makes superfastmatt Marcin plaza notanengineer inheritance machining John heisz ibuildit Michael Reeves blondihacks Laura kamph UnderDunn
also shout-out to Hunter Direction for just making amazingly beautiful videos lately, the algorithm delivered him to me recently and holy shit does his newer stuff just tickle me in exactly the right spot
yea i follow some science channel, mostly around biology, paleontogy, not huge influencers. im not “fluent” in physics content so i barely follow those.
All of those are still pretty good, honestly.
I feel exactly the same. I’ll still watch his glitter bomb videos, or if he makes another squirrel obstacle course, but his stuff has become very child oriented recently.
oh yea i saw the thumbnails, it seems to eerily like mr beast, i dont follow him. but his thumbnails are starting to resembling the “reaction channel” influencers thumbnails.
Since he started that subscription box company his focus shifted from telling a cool story through a creation or robot to creating a video that can sell the most boxes for him
That hotel demolition video could have been really cool
Instead it was just… Boring and weirdly edited
I saw Markiplier do a lets play for some indie roomba game many many years ago, he proceeded to have an almost religious experience, and I was like “fuck yeah, this guy gets it”
Fast forward and he promotes shit like No Mans Sky and TikTok, I automatically unsubscribe from anyone and everyone who promotes TikTok, and he’s got this whole survivorship bias like “ANYONE can make a successful movie or webseries. Anyone! A Heist with Markiplier was only like $30,000 dollars production value… well, okay, thats a lot of money, but still!”
He’s lost touch with reality and now he’s just another salesperson.
Another one that’s kind of downhill is Kurzegast, their recent AI video was really hollow and vacant of all the reasonable criticisms about AI and its immediate effects, some people have theorized that channels like theirs are being sponsored by a company called “Control AI” to muddy the waters and move the discussion away from things like holding companies accountable.
Not sure if this counts, but CGP Grey. The frequency of the videos was always a joke, but the most recent video is a 3 month old paywalled vid of an early preview for a video still unreleased publicly. I still enjoy the videos when they’re released, so it’s not the quality, but the channel is clearly on autopilot. I hope everything’s ok with him and maybe he’s just using YouTube as passive income now that he hit it big?
I don’t know if they degraded over time, but I unsubscribed from SmarterEveryDay because 1.) he kept trying to slip religious BS into videos and then I couldn’t unsee his whole generic youth pastor schtick, 2.) he kept posting weird Physics Girl health update stuff. It just lost me. Not for me. I feel like the glory days of vsauce are also well behind us.
My only problem with vsauce is that they post only once every 2 years now. But when a new video drops I still like it a lot.
Agree with point 1.
His holier-than-thou attitude is exhausting. Stop trying to spread your fantasy friends around, we don’t want them.Yeah I have the same impression. In one of his last videos, the one about Pompeii he advised against kids watching because a cartoonish dick showed on a wall. I’d agree, kids shouldn’t watch, not because the dick, but his sickening puritism.
I wasn’t an avid watcher but did enjoy his content until the Pompeii video. I get that in his mind he was giving context, but when he sat there reading directly from the bible I felt pretty gross. How people juxtapose heavy religious belief with scientific method astounds me.
So it is because of the dick… narrating\hosting.
He was very butthurt about Roman brothels and acted like Christianity ended them yep.
It wasn’t the dick that was the problem. It was the menu of sexual positions that you could pay for in the brothel. He went a bit into the people who worked there, slaves.
So it wasn’t the dicks, but the idea that pictures were a menu so foreigners who didn’t speak the language could order sex acts from slaves.
The one that got me was trying to make a grill scrubber made entirely in the US, failing to source all the parts domestically, being somewhat xenophobic in the process, and then having the audacity of selling the thing for $80 (or more) when the exact product exists already for half the price. At some point the whole point of the video changed from “rebuilding manufacturing in America” to “China bad”. I assume the attempt was in defense of the Trump tariffs, but the takeaway is the US is not in a position to manufacture things on a small scale, and throwing tariffs on it won’t change and people will just have to pay more to import items since they can’t be made locally.
Especially funny since grill scrubbers in Latin America is half an onion sliced in half and does the job
Not just Latin America. I’ve seen almost everyone do this.
I was somewhat hooked by the chainmail idea, and then I saw my in-laws cleaning the grill with half an onion… that saved me.
Shit is fucking delicious right‽
half an onion sliced in half
So a quarter of an onion?
The thing that killed me about the grill scrubber was them bringing up Amazon ripping off products that are listed on its site (valid) but like you said the product they came up with is a clone of many others already on the market. The way he presented it is going to give people the impression that the preexisting ones are the imposters. You just know there are going to be fans review bombing competitors who predate his brush.
He went through something before trying to capitalize on privacy. Ended up trying to sell someone else’s reskinned VPN. Seems like he isn’t above exploiting the trust of his viewers.
I’ll always appreciate the videos he did on the eclipse though. Got me convinced to go see the 2017 eclipse and it was fucking amazing.
I agree with his premise that the knowledge and ability to manufacture stuff needs to be maintained. Not from a xenophobic/sinophobic position, but for practical reasons. If it’s forgotten then no one can compete to make a cheaper or improved/different product. There’s also an issue of if a war breaks out and supply lines are stopped (whether that’s war with China or someone else who can attack supply lines). It’s best if everyone in the world has access to manufacturing so people can have access to different jobs they may be better at or having the capability to create things that they couldn’t otherwise.
Now, there is an argument that a reliance on international trade prevents war. That is something to consider. China and the US are reluctant to go to war because they’d both be crippled by it even without considering combat. I don’t think this is great justification though, but it is something to think about.
Braille Skateboarding. Dude shut it down without letting his team know beforehand because he’d fallen deep into Scientology.
Pretty much any channel once they make it big. I have watched so many channels that just starts out as a person in their basement, or bedroom and make great but simple content. Then they catch on, get a lot of subs and starts making content for the algorithm instead of their existing viewers. They go full time, hire an editor, a cameraman etc. And the content moves further and further away from what made it good to begin with.
A turning point is usually when they quit their dayjob and go full time, that’s when the pressure to perform well really begins.
Some exceptions of course, like LGR and Explaining Computers, who just keep chugging along solo. And I still enjoy them because of it.
The only one that I unsubbed to pretty fast was the 8bit guy. I generally enjoyed his videos and then in one of them, he had a fairly rare IBM PC and for some reason, he sticks a screwdriver into the power supply and blows a component.
But what really turned me off was when footage of him turned up on Reddit, taken by himself, of shopping in a place like Costco with his assault rifle on his back. I think he was taking pleasure in scaring some of the customers too.
(I think I’ve remembered that correctly)
Anyway, never went back to his channel after that.
EDIT: I found this Reddit page where someone asked what he did. Didn’t realise that was 5 years ago now!
What the fuck
Smashing that unsubscribe button now. Like, fucking ew dude, don’t fucking open carry at Costco you numpty fuck. Ugh…
You make a good point. I should really unsubscribe from all US content.
Jesus. I always thought that guy was a shoddy self-centered Texan dweeb who always did totally half-assed projects, but I had no idea the extent of his shittiness as a person. People who treat weapons like toys are the last people who should have them.
That video was the exact one that made me stop watching him too. Hadn’t heard about the rifle thing, what the fuck
I remember the backlash he got from that with the IBM PC prototype. He didn’t handle the reception well if I recall, having made one big or two ‘woe is me’ videos.
There’s something about that guy’s demeanor that I never liked, like he fits the quirky, socially inept, wimpy kind of a nerd. It’s astounding he even has a wife at all, much less one he fucked to have a kid with.
He never shuts up about his crappy games too.
What a fuckwit.
Just unsubscribed as well.
Yup, that’s the video that made me instantly done with him. I have Adrian and his Digital Basement to get my vintage computer content and unlike David, Adrian actually knows what he’s doing and doesn’t wreck his computers.
I still cringe about the moment he used a Dremel on that old prototype because he couldn’t be bothered to get the correct screwdriver
I used to love that channel. Such a shame.
Oh, I always sensed something was off there. Oof.
Binging with Babish - used to be a fantastic set of recipes and takes on cooking that I really enjoyed trying to make, then got into the serious money and jumped the shark, both in “I bought my brother a Tesla/fulfilled a fan dream” and “this week we’re using this dehydrator” ways (that meant I just wasn’t going to be able to even imagine using the techniques and knowledge on show).
I loved his channel when it was simpler and was just about trying to recreate recipes. Granted, he was going to run out of movie/tv ideas eventually. 💀💀
I stopped watching once most of the videos became “watch me rate and eat every Mac and cheese.” At least the episodes marked “Anime with Alvin” still featured cooking.
It was the migration from cooking demonstrations to celebrity presence content (Babsih tries every X, Babish ranks every Y).
Cooking demos keep the focus on the food; techniques, presentation, and results. Plus having an entertaining and charismatic host.
Now those videos lean on the now-recognizable host being entertaining and charismatic, and doing… whatever. And it kind of makes sense in a marketplace-y sort of way. I can watch anybody cook, but Babish has the corner on Babish content, so why not lean into that? Also I’m sure the guy gets tired of making the same content over and over again, so he’s trying to find something interesting that catches on.
I see Nat from Nats What I Reckon doing the same thing. And good on them for trying new stuff.
Babish did recently do a bit of a “Yeah, even we’re bored with this now” video and has gone back to his roots a bit.
It looks like he also spun off another channel to host the “Ranked By Babish” style content called Beyond Babish
Which is a fine alternative. Sometimes I want food content, sometimes I want food adjacent. He is very good at both IMO, but the reasons we gave a shit about his opinion isnt because he makes ranking lists.
That’s the best path forward, honestly. Keep the shit people liked originally on the main channel, and explore your style/be goofy on a secondary channel.
Alton Brown is making a comeback to YouTube though, there’s someone who hasn’t changed since ever 😁
Yeah but Alton Brown hates fat people. As a fat person I can’t make myself watch him.
People throw around the word “hate” pretty quickly these days.
[citation needed]
Ohhh same. I use to love his stuff then realized I hadn’t watched for awhile. I went to the channel, saw the videos and remembered why I stopped lol
