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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.
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The Vlogbrothers channel started in 2007 as a project called Brotherhood 2.0, in which John and Hank Green decided to keep up with each other as they’d moved to different states exclusively via weekly vlogs. There are no other criteria for the content on the channel, other than they each post one video each week, ostensibly to each other, but really to all of us. Over the last 14 years, they’ve picked up a fandom that call themselves Nerdfighters (collectively, Nerdfighteria). The biggest influx was in 2012, with John Green’s publication of The Fault in Our Stars, and the channel has stayed with a mostly stable following since. That means that it’s rather hard to break into—they have decade-long in-jokes, like Pizzamas, and sure, you can look up what that is on Wikipedia, but it won’t actually really tell you. So really, whether or not you’d like this channel depends on whether or not you find John and Hank Green interesting or entertaining, and, well, I generally do. I mean. I watch enough of their channels. *points to rest of recommendations*

In this video, Hank gives recommendations for surviving the winter from someone who grew up in Florida. He starts by saying no one ever gave him the real advice about winter when he got to Montana and—yeah. Cause all of these are things that WOULD NOT OCCUR TO ME you had to TELL someone.
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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.

TierZoo

Feb. 19th, 2021 10:24 am
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We're getting to the end of my youtube recs! Less than a week left.

TierZoo channel ranks animals as if they were playable classes in a video game called “Outside.” That’s the whole conceit—to talk about the natural word with video gamer sensibilities. It’s a lot of fun, features great nature footage, and is educational. This video discusses whether iguanas are OP.
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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.

Taskmaster

Feb. 17th, 2021 08:39 am
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I’ve recommended Taskmaster before, so here’s another task from them. Trust me, the ending of this one is excellent.

T1J

Feb. 16th, 2021 08:15 am
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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.
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Sound Field is another PBS Digital Studio channel. Hosts Nahre Sol and LA Buckner, both working musicians themselves, profile different types of music. They usually dive into the culture, and break down the structure and sound of the music. It’s a great channel for learning about music genres you may not have run into, or for helping to understand what elements make up a genre you have heard. This excellent video profiles modern ballroom music. (If you’re thinking the waltz—no. This is voguing and Pose.) Warning for a brief clip from the movie Trading Places that includes blackface—which they call out, but is important to the story they’re telling.

Sideways

Feb. 14th, 2021 12:13 pm
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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.
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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.
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SciShow Space is SciShow but for space. (Shocking!) This is where I keep up with all my astronomy news—upcoming launches, new discoveries, telescopes, the whole bunch. This episode says farewell to the Arecibo telescope and discusses some of its biggest discoveries.
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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.

SciShow

Feb. 9th, 2021 08:18 am
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SciShow, along with Crash Course, is one of the main educational channels run by Complexly, Hank Green’s company. It does daily 5-10 minute science videos with a variety of hosts, covering all areas of the sciences including science news. It’s an incredibly good science education channel, and the main way I keep up on new developments in science. My only warning about the channel is insects and arachnids are also science, so a fair number of videos are about them. I personally cannot stand to look at them, so I have learned to be wary of the list episodes as there’s usually at least one arthropod in the mix. This video is on the development of a new, uncuttable material, and it makes my little Material-Science-Engineering-undergraduate-certificate-having heart happy.

Salari

Feb. 7th, 2021 12:38 pm
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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.

Rowan Ellis

Feb. 6th, 2021 01:03 pm
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How else to describe Rowan Ellis’s channel other than adorbz. Most of her content is queer media criticism, and from a younger generational perspective than mine. This means sometimes she does fan culture analyses that present a history that does not line up with my experience in fan culture Back in My Day, which is odd and kind of entertaining. And sometimes she explains an aspect of TikTok or Tumblr culture that I have literally never heard of, like in this video on cottage core.

Rantasmo

Feb. 5th, 2021 09:15 am
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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.
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Pop Culture Detective does deep dives into troubling and damaging tropes in media. His videos take a long time to produce as he’s not talking about one movie or one show, but about how a trope replicates across media. A frequent collaborator of Anita Sarkeesian, usually his videos help put words to a trend that I’ve found unsettling but had never quite gelled. Both his and Anita’s videos have a way of making it impossible to unsee a pattern.

One of his classics is Born Sexy Yesterday, which examines just how in love Hollywood is with characters (almost but not always women) who have adult bodies but childlike personalities. When you start digging into why that’s so popular, it gets real ugly real fast.
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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!

PBS Eons

Feb. 2nd, 2021 10:37 am
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PBS Digital Studios has a number of channels with educational videos. PBS Eons is about deep history—usually looking at geologic periods and what we know about different branches in evolution. I find it very soothing to watch before going to bed. This one is on why things keep evolving into crabs.

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