my favorite youtubers!

Felt like finishing off the year with a bit of positivity, here's a few of my favorite youtubers and a hell of a lot of links too. Enjoy! 

Dr. Caelan Conrad

I have been watching Caelan's videos for a while, but this year they absolutely blew me away. First, with their 3-hour video documenting their experience at a scammy paranornal school (which is how they got the dr. title), then several journalistic videos on chatgpt's extremely dangerous consequences. They have a narrative podcast series coming in 2026 called Librarian, I'm stoked to hear it so I hope some of u may check out their content. 

Queen Coke Francis

Francis loves drag and also bashing maga supporters.  Just looking at their video titles makes me laugh:

• Gender reveal parties that make me grateful to be non-binary
• The rich gays really thought they did something here
• So uh... how was YOUR hetero awesome fest?

Personally, I would recommend Drag history goes hard as an introductory video. 

NexJen/The Great Big Toy Box (both run by the same person)

I love toys!! If you do as well, I think Jen is one of the best creators to follow. She's never sold out and always spits detailed facts when making buyer's guides. She also has several recycled craft videos, which I love. 

Todd In The Shadows, Mic The Snare

Music discourse online can be very repetitive and I, a fantano hater, tend to stay away from most of them. These 2, though, I can stand. Todd has two series I follow religiously, Trainwreckords and One Hit Wonderland. The former is on career-ending albums, and the latter covers one hit wonder artists, like a 'where are they now?' season but better because it's not 1999 anymore. Todd's been making youtube videos for a literal decade and for this I think he's got a unique view of pop music.

Mic the Snare's got the Deep Discog Dive series, which covers everything a particular band/artist has ever released. My favorites include the one on The Strokes, and the one on Michael Jackson. I think I've stolen a lot of my sense of humor from him.

Gloom

My favorite childhood youtuber is back after an extended hiatus!! I was really, really happy when I saw that she was posting again. She's still got kind of a child to teen audience, but her content has truly leveled up. One little detail I noticed is that in a time where every single youtube video seems to be stretched out to 59 minutes when they could have dished out all that info in 15, Gloom's newer videos never seem to drag and actually want you to pay attention instead of droning on in the background. I'm just really happy for her :,D

Epicurious Expeditions

This woman's creativity, talent, and wit deserve so much more than a silver youtube play button!! I noticed her throughthe series in which she makes disability-friendly recipes. What she does is really cool and even I, the unluckiest person in every kitchen, feel motivated to make some good food. I say that I can't cook, but food means a lot to me because it holds memories and can change your whole mood. I love seeing someone who obviously has a passion for it do their thing. She also has 2 great black history month series, one in which she recreates dishes from songs by black singers (Brown Sugar by d'Angelo, for example) and another where she recreates dishes from black cinema (like theOne Rib from I'm Gonna Git You Sucka). Her food looks so good it makes my heart ache. 

Negative Legend, Athena P

My love for nostalgic cartoons will never end! Here's 2 really good youtubers if you want to learn why Carmen Sandiego absolutely ruled, and the bounty of lore and medical accuracy in Doc McStuffins. 

polkadotpigeon

Hair dyeing, outfit styling, and cozy vlogs. I love watching her fashion videos, I certainly don't have enough clothes to actually make the looks but it gives me lots of drawing inspo. 

Dominic Noble

I haven't picked up a book in a hot minute so I think listening to someone talk about books will do for now. Lost in Adaptation is a series on comparing the book and movie versions of a story. It's less of 'which is better?' and more of 'was the movie a good representation of what the original book stands for?' 

Lisa Fevral

I love her, she is very good at articulating her opinions on art and her channel features iconic tv show deep dives ( like winx, bratz, buffy, etc.), pop culture analysis, and fashion trend roasts. I particularly like the videos on costuming, like coming up with the costumes for a cartoon's live-action version.