Young and Full of Fluff

Wait in the Wings does mini-documentaries on Broadway shows, more leaning toward the cult classics than the ones that have gotten mainstream attention. In this episode, he goes through the history of the Evil Dead Musical, which I did actually see. We did not sit in the splash zone, though.

Today I Found Out puts out a stupendous amount of content. They have daily videos from a single host, who also hosts several other youtube shows. This means that it is sometimes obvious that he doesn’t understand the script—I would stay away from any of this channel’s science content. It is a channel of random facts, with a heavy tilt toward dude bro. Lots of WWII, lots of flatulence. For all that, though, they pull up enough esoteric stuff I hadn’t heard of for me to keep them around. Like when people used to mail children because it was cheaper than train tickets.

The Art Assignment is on permanent hiatus, but the existing videos are a great explanation of different art movements and artists with a focus on modern art, as the host is a curator of modern art. In this video she explores Yoko Ono. If you’ve only ever heard about Yoko Ono as the punch line in a joke about the Beatles, it’s worth taking the time to explore her work as an artist in her own right.

T1J does a lot of great videos about race and racism. He’s doing the work of educating people about why “good” stereotypes are still bad, about why representation in the media is important. And, in this video, why, if you’re white, you probably don’t actually have black friends.

Sideways is a neeeeeeerd. He analyzes movie and video game soundtracks from the perspective of classical music theory and gets VERY EXCITED ABOUT IT. Some of the videos get deep into the weeds of music theory, which is honestly what I enjoy about it. In this video, he examines the absolute ubiquity of pitch correction in the music industry, and the way that people misidentify use of autotune as an aesthetic with some statement about the artists’ talent.

Screen Junkies are the Honest Trailer guys. They used to have some other content, but for the last year—Honest Trailers is it. This is the classic Honest Trailers for ST:TNG.

SciShow Psych does what it says on the tin—a sister channel to SciShow, with a focus on psychology. (My recs here make it look like Hank Green hosts everything—he rotates on all the channels, but there are plenty of other hosts. Still, the guy is a workhorse.) This video is on why you don't know how big a walrus is.

Salari is a relatively new channel that does (what else) media criticism. I honestly don’t remember how I came across it. Each time they have a new video, I’m like, who is salari again? Then I watch it and am like—right. Which is to say, pretty much all of them present an interesting take. Like this analysis of the reboot of Queer Eye, especially the role of one of the main cast, who is a licensed therapist.

Rantasmo hasn’t been posting much lately, but when he was active, he had a long running series called “Needs More Gay,” where in short (5-10 minute) videos, he would analyze gay subtext and representation in media (Designing Women, Buffy, Chuck Tingle, to name a few). I’m going to link the first video of his I watched, which actually made me rewatch the entire Matrix trilogy to recontextualize it. One thing to note to understand this video—he has a recurring character, “Rantastero,” that is his trying-desperately-to-be-straight avatar.

The host of today’s rec, Philosophy Tube, came out as trans just this week! She’s got a new video introducing herself as Abigail. But she is planning to leave the old videos up—just asks that we see them as her playing a part. So I’m going to recommend some where she is presenting as male, just wanted to put that out first so no misgendering happens.

How to sum up Philosophy Tube. This channel started as a Brit sitting in front of a bookcase explaining philosophy. And then Abigail met Natalie (Contrapoints) and—then her channel became full-on theatrical presentations. Sets, costumes, characters, but all still discussing philosophy. Even if she’s covering a topic I already know, gosh, the presentation is nice. All the flash and eye candy, though, hasn’t watered down the philosophy at all—if my mind wanders, I lose the thread.

I had a hard time deciding on which video to recommend. (There are so many fantastic ones! What to choose!) So I’m going to recommend two—this one is a discussion of Jordan Peterson’s books in the frame of other philosopher’s discussions of the meaning of life. Oh—while she’s shirtless, dressed as Lucifer, and letting snakes crawl over her.


This is the other recommendation for Philosophy Tube. Trigger warning: discussions of suicide, self harm, and mental health. Abigail’s cosmonaut video is award-winning. It’s heavy, it’s very heavy, but it’s also raw and real and has reached a lot of people who needed to hear it. I can’t recommend Philosophy Tube without recommending this video.

And here's her trans coming out video. Yes! Three videos! Watch Philosophy Tube!