YouTube: a bottomless source of awesome, educational, and downright wacky, am I right? There’s so much content to wade through that Her Campus at Helsinki has decided to weed out the best, the weirdest, and the funniest for you. So here you go, ten channels to watch, whether you want to simply unwind or learn something new!
1. Dnews
Ever wondered why aliens haven’t found us yet, why our hair evolved to grow in strange places, or why it’s so darn difficult to wake up during the week? Wonder no longer. Dnews provides high quality blasts of knowledge that will answer to most of your whys and hows in plain terms, so you can then proceed to impress (or annoy) your friends with the wealth of knowledge you’ve gained after binge-watching Dnews.
2. Planet Dolan
Who doesn’t like lists? YouTube is full of top 10 list channels and some of them have grown absolutely gigantic, sacrificing good content over fast-food videos. Planet Dolan provides a fresh change of pace. The channel hosts entertaining and edgy lists that don’t appear over-produced or hastily slapped together. But be warned, if you are easily weirded out or macabre just isn’t something that’ll tickle your fancy, Planet Dolan might not be for you.
3. LastWeekTonight
LastWeekTonight is the channel you want to check out if you’re into current matters, politics, and cutting humor. John Oliver hosts a late night talk show ‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’ on HBO, but fans can find about 20-minute bits of his show on his channel LastWeekTonight. The show is heavily left-leaning, so the material might not be all that funny to conservatives unless they’re very good at laughing at themselves, but even to someone disinterested in politics, Oliver’s commentary can be side-splittingly hilarious.
4. Matthew Santoro
Another top [insert number] YouTube channel on a top ten list of YouTube channels? Well, this is getting Inception-ey. But this channel is here for a good reason. Matthew Santoro’s videos are factual, entertaining, and/or myth-busting, and there’s something for everyone. It’s difficult to say how exactly he grew so big, after all, there are so many list channels out there. Is it just the content or perhaps his crazy, white smile? One thing’s for sure; Santoro puts a lot of effort into his videos — content and production wise — just so that we get to learn what myths we still believe about space or which cartoons were banned in the past.
5. h3h3Productions
This is a strange one, a whiskey of YouTube comedy, an acquaired taste. H3h3 Productions is the love child of the cutest couple on YouTube, Ethan and Hila. Their alternative comedy/reaction videos are endearingly retro in style and innocently ghetto in production. In a typical video, Ethan provides outlandish commentary on some crazy video clip, followed by a low-budget parody that will either make you laugh your butt off or leave you scratching your head. But then, if you’re planning to comment on a documentary about people who have relationships with fences or an instructional video by a slimy pick-up artist, things can easily get a little bit weird. There’s some profanity, but Ethan’s commentary doesn’t go too far into the NSFW territory. Especially the newer videos shot in New York focus more on alternative comedy, so they’re a good place to start.
6. TED-Ed
TED-Ed’s channel is full of educational and fun video lessons that are short, punchy, and often very well animated. If you want to know why there are so many insects on Earth, when the next mass extinction will occur, or why we dream, TED-Ed has got the answers. They also cover other interesting topics such as the physics of playing the guitar or the benefits of good posture, so basically any random topic you might not have even realized you were curious about!
7. CinemaSins
CinemaSins can be addictive. There, you’ve been warned. Their shtick: Everything Wrong With videos, where the narrator dishes out sins for all the clichés, plot holes, inconsistencies, and silliness he can find in the given movie. So if you’ve ever wondered how sinful your favorite feature is, check out CinemaSins and you’ll never look at it the same way again.
8. Bad Lip Reading
BLR transforms your favorite movie into something quite unexpected. The off-the-wall voiceover is at its best when it’s not too random, but just a teeny bit too wacky for the situation. The definite video would be the bad lip reading of the Game of Thrones called “The Medieval Land Fun-Time World” as it makes you almost wish that you were watching the BLR version of the show rather than the original. The music is awesome too!
9. Channel Awesome
Channel Awesome has a wealth of content, but I’d recommend heading straight to the Nostalgia Critic playlist. The Nostalgia Critic character takes, as the name suggest, a critical look at the movies from our childhood. Turns out they are even worse than we remember, and the Nostalgia Critic’s frustration and despair at the sheer awfulness is entertaining to watch. Make sure to also check out “Nostalgia Chick’s” channel, Chez Lindsay, where she provides a woman’s point of view to such masterpieces of yore as Hocus Pocus and Supergirl. She’s also compiled fun lists such as ‘The Worst and the Least Awful Female Superhero Movies.’
10. Domics
The Canadian-Filipino artist Domics is the talent behind these itsy-bitsy animations that observe everyday life in cute, clever, and chuckle-worthy ways. Check out such little gems as ”Pencil Lead”, ”Emails,” and ”Butts.” The animation style is adorable in its simplicity, and the short videos are like candy: you just got to have one more. One… more… I swear. Just one.