Episode #171: I'm Still Entertaining Myself Weakly

On a road to somewhere. Humane Society, or towards the plateau? Only my swiss cheese memory really knows.

In my post from a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I subscribed to over 50 podcasts, all of which I listen to on a one-to-two-week schedule. Today's post will cover the amount of YouTube channels that I subscribe to, which currently hovers at 55 active channels.

Now I would like to note that all of them post on a consistent schedule ranging from one to five times per day up to once per month, and every other schedule you can think of in between.

And because I'm such a nerdy stats guy, I decided to break down the types of channel content I subscribe to.

Short fiction, Reddit, general knowledge, true crime, motor vehicle (dash cam auto, go-pro motorcycle), personal v-logs, humor, music and food.

Now with the first two, the comment section can often be just as, if not more than, enlightening than the videos. With the former, it's really interesting reading someone's eloquent missive about why doing something is impossible to do in the real world, only to read a response reiterating that the story is a work of formulaic, albeit very interesting, fiction, and everyone knows that what happens in the story doesn't happen that way in the real world.

I don't comment much on the channels beyond the first two, the nine music channels and maybe the legal one. The rest of the channels that I follow, I rarely comment on, simply because they're quite popular (my definition of popular is 1 million or more subscribers) and on the popular channels you really can't get into any kind of discussion on the topics being presented and more often than note, your comment is lost in the vast sea of comments (some of the popular channels rage from 2k to 5k comments). So I just simply enjoy the content.

I have curated my channel list over the past few years, usually due to changing tastes, but sometimes the format that the content creator originally had got changed to something that suits them better, but the change is something I don't agree with. And yes, I follow the adage of nobody is forcing me to watch it, so you can change the channel, so I do. The change that I'm none too thrilled about, but understand it's a way for the content creator to make money, is livestreams. I'm not a fan of watching someone perform/play something live on YT for one to three hours, but I do understand the need. You want to make money from your content, and livestreaming is one of four ways to do it (the other three are click/views, a merchandise store, and sponsorships)

While I do have eclectic tastes in what I like to watch on YT, I do have problems with the insidious censorship that YT does, mostly over language/images. This is a major pet peeve of mine that deserves its own post, but in short, if you're using certain words that are deemed no longer acceptable by the mainstream media or tech companies (Google, YT, Insta, FB, etc) or even countries, you can get a strike or demonetization to your video. Only exceptions are the regular national corporations that have products that we use.

But, be that as it may, I really do enjoy all the channels that I subscribe to. You can find a channel for just any topic/subject/issue that you like on YouTube. Some of the oddest channels I've come across, and actually watched, featured topics/people like Audie Murphy, cattle hoof trimming, podiatry, audiology, rug cleaning, landscaping, make-up and even writing.

I would like to recommend one channel though, if you like very clean humor: Steven He. He's an absolute legend as a comedic actor and the only person that I can think of that turned one of his video shorts into a major meme called "Emotional Damage".

Have a great week everybody.

{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved