Recommend some lesser-known Youtube critics?
October 8, 2020 11:26 AM   Subscribe

Looking for Youtube critics and essayists that aren't as well-known.

While I love me some Contrapoints, Red Letter Media, Super Eyepatch Wolf, Lindsay Ellis, etc. these are all very popular, established channels with about a million followers apiece.

I'd be interested in hearing suggestions of critics that the algorithm might not be showing me. My main interest is media criticism, but I'm flexible if it's sufficiently well-made (I'm not especially into anime, but Eyepatch Wolf is so good I watch his stuff anyway). Political content is fine, so long as it's not straight punditry.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

Yhara Zayd
Jack Saint
Filmcrithulk (he's been writing for a while, but he's new to Youtube)

If I can be even more picky, I also have a preference for creators who take time to really think through their videos and release them less frequently (as much as I like Jim Sterling, I can't keep up with his release schedule).
posted by Ndwright to Media & Arts (6 answers total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: A few channels I like:
posted by Lexica at 12:06 PM on October 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


Game Maker's Toolkit does analysis of video game design theory; I'm not in game design, but the videos are always clear and informative enough that I'm consistently fascinated and entertained (much like your experience with Adam Neely).
posted by DiscountDeity at 12:48 PM on October 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


So YouTube recommended Ladyknightthebrave to me after watching Lindsey Ellis's entire catalog - twice - and YouTube was right. She's newer and has a smaller stash of videos, but they are VERY well done. I haven't finished them all, because her Jojo Rabbit one wrecked me, but I've appreciated them all so far. She's done a bunch of genres in her essays - movies, games, TV, podcasts - but her core theme is about storytelling, and how it works, and why.

Watching this thread with interest!
posted by bowtiesarecool at 12:57 PM on October 8, 2020


If you're into rock-ish music, I found Rick Beato's What Makes This Song Great series via Metafilter, and it's pretty interesting.

Todd in the Shadows does more pop music stuff, and I particularly enjoy his One Hit Wonderland series.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:23 PM on October 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


I like the short-and-sweet videos of the "No Small Parts," series, in which Brandon Hardesty spends 2-5 minutes discussing the film, TV, and sometimes stage work of up-and-coming actors, essentially very short biodocs, made entirely of footage of the previous works. The series was purchased in some sensed by IMDB, so you can find it there as well as Youtube. You'll quickly detect that the people in focus for each new episode is someone who's in a popular TV show or movie (e.g Jurnee Smollett is the latest on youtube; she had a blockbuster movie role and has a current TV series; meanwhile the latest in IMDB is Jason Schwartzman, who is in Fargo this season) so there's some sense of this being promotional material, but it's actually great to discover the earlier works of someone who's big now. Often you'll find out that you've been seeing someone in the past much more than you realized.
posted by Sunburnt at 1:39 PM on October 8, 2020


Response by poster: Thanks, everyone!
posted by Ndwright at 11:58 AM on October 10, 2020


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