Best Channels of 2020
Though not necessarily representative of the length, style, or political focus of most his videos, I had to go with this one, as it’s both accessible to a general audience and interesting to those with more musical education, covers an important topic that doesn’t really get talked about much, and speaks to broader issues with received wisdom in modern culture (similar to Neely’s suggestion in the video, try replacing “The Constitution” with “the political beliefs of 18th century land-owning white male (formerly) British colonists” and see if it still makes sense in context).
Good places to start: “The 7 Levels of Jazz Harmony”, “Reharmonizing Hello”, “Every Melody Has Been Copyrighted (and they’re all on this hard drive)”, “Learning to Like Contemporary Christian Music (the music I hate)”, “How to turn emojis into music”
I’m not normally a fan of prequels, but Anark’s “Constructing the Revolution” provides real, concrete advice for how to engage in revolutionary politics today. For those with a more historical/analytical interest, his series, “The State is Counter-Revolutionary”, is also quite good.
Good places to start: “Decrypting the Jargon”, “Philosophy Underpins Everything”, “The Case Against Hierarchy”
Ben Levin is a weird and wonderful gift to the world.
Good places to start: “Let’s Write Impossible Music With Ben Levin Part 1”, “Paul Davids sent me an AWFUL guitar solo…and I fixed it”, “What Are Songs For?”
With a few exceptions, Big Joel’s 2020 output focused less on pop culture and more on conservative and far-right propaganda, and in particular on how they not only lie about the facts to make their arguments, but often fail to make real arguments at all. While I think he provides a valuable study in right-wing rhetorical practices in his videos on Jordan Peterson and Prager U (3–part series), for example, his video on the abortion argument is, I think, more valuable because it shows how the left can fail to make real arguments as well, can get so caught up in facts and figures that they don’t really think through the implications of their argument.
Also he did a couple videos on The School of Life, which are just kind of fun and silly.
Good places to start: God’s Not Dead and Christian Propaganda (3–part series), “The Red Pill: The Strange Art of Men’s Rights Activism” (2-part series), “The Christmas Shoes: The Fever Dream of Capitalism”, Prager U (3–part series)
I mean who doesn’t want a fun rhyming video about pirates? Or hexagons for that matter? Or a quietly terrifying exploration of an abandoned missile test site? It was a fun year for CGP Grey.
Good places to start: “This Video Will Make You Angry”, Politics in the Animal Kingdom (5-part series), “The (Secret) City of London” (2-part series), “7 Ways to Maximize Misery”, “Why Die?” / “The Fable of the Dragon Tyrant”
Errant Signal continues to produce some of the most thoughtful, nuanced games criticism out there. His video on Fortnite does something I always respect (when it’s done right), which is synthesize two seemingly opposing views while retaining the valuable insight from each. This doesn’t lead to a lukewarm conclusion that doesn’t mean anything, but rather offers a more complete view of the game so that the audience can make an informed choice about it.
Good places to start: “Fallout 4 and Role Playing”, “Burnout: Paradise”, “0451”,“Getting Over It”, “Blips 1: Pastel Doodles, Blazing Speed, and Lite Horror Platformers”, “Catacomb 3-D: Children of DOOM Episode 1”
- FilmJoy (Movies with Mikey)
In a very Mikey move, Mikey followed up his previous excellent Star Wars videos with a 2-parter on Star Trek that is also very good. In a more surprising move, he did the same thing for Mario ’cause why not I guess?
Good places to start: “Stranger Things”, “Pan’s Labyrinth”, “How We See Star Wars” (2-part series), “Lessons Animation Taught Us”, “The Story of Harry Potter” (3-part series), any video on a movie you want to understand better/differently
Though framed by his own contribution to debunking flat earth theory, “In Search of a Flat Earth” has more of a documentarian approach, digging into the history and psychology of the movement and connecting it to the current uber-conspiracy. While his video on FoodTube was more on the level of what I wanted from my 2020 infotainment, “In Search of a Flat Earth” is just so well done that I had give it the nod.
Good places to start: “The Kuleshov Effect”, “Triumph of the Will and the Cinematic Language of Propaganda“, “Ludonarrative Dissonance”, “Vlogs and the Hyperreal”, “A Lukewarm Defence of Fifty Shades of Grey” (3-part series + bonus video about a movie that somehow exists)
It was hobomberguy’s video on why Fallout 3 was garbage that got me to finally play New Vegas, so it was nice to see him come back around to it in his new “thing is genius” mode. He has an ability to wax poetic about the things he loves in a way that’s evocative and captivating rather than sappy and self-indulgent (see also his Pathologic video), and while I find his “Measured Response” videos suitably entertaining, it’s videos like this that are his best work.
Good places to start: “What Modern Games Can Learn From Yooka-Laylee“, “Outsiders: How to Adapt H.P. Lovecraft in the 2st Century”, “Speedrunning is Awesome, and Here’s Why”, “Pathologic is Genius, and Here’s Why”
“They are not wishing for nonviolence; they are stating a preference for whom the violence should happen to.” This is probably the most concise criticism I’ve seen of the hand-wringers who either praised the peaceful protests this summer or decried the violent ones.
Good places to start: “Why Are You So Angry?” (6-part series), “The Alt-Right Playbook” (ongoing series), “CO-VIDs” (ongoing series as of this writing)
I love the way Jacob Geller writes about games. Whether it’s finding meaning in ugliness, beauty in horror, or simply meditating on infinity, he delivers his observations and insights and beautifully crafted essays in a voice (in the literary sense) that demands attention without being over the top (credit also goes to his use of music to shape the emotional arc of his videos). The way he feels about Peter Eliot’s Ico essay is the way I feel about so many essays I’ve read and watched, and his video both celebrates these relationships we have to the work that inspires us and reminds us to use that inspiration to create our own, to aspire to be the inspiration to someone else.
Good places to start: “Control, Anatomy, and the Legacy of the Haunted House”, “The Most Beautiful Moment of the Generation”, “Why Do Horror Games Sound So Beautiful?”, “Max Payne, Kane & Lynch, and the Meaning of Ugly Games”, “The Shape of Infinity”
KAR’s essays are rhetorically powerful, well-researched, and concise, with a focus on police brutality and racism, though in the context of Leftism more broadly.
Good places to start: “Good guy with a gun…”, “I’m Tired…”, “The R Word”, “Still Tired”, “What Happens Now that the Election is over?”
Along with his videos on painting, my other favorite thing Nerdwriter does is his videos breaking down an actor’s performance in a single scene (see also his video on Anthony Hopkins, linked below). In addition to those he keeps putting out concise, polished, interesting video essays on media.
Good places to start: “Jack Nicholson: The Art of Anger”, “Norm Macdonald is a Comic Genius”, “Westworld: What Makes Anthony Hopkins Great”, “Edvard Munch: What a Cigarette Means”, “Holocene: How Bon Iver Creates a Mood”
I think of all the creators I follow, Willems leaned the the hardest into 2020. Not only did he maintain his biweekly output, he did so without a slip in quality and with several in-universe storylines, such as his creepy coconut friend, Charl, his “talk show”, and his possibly-real-yet-still-funny wine problem. As a video essayist who is also a filmmaker, you can count on Willems to always entertain.
Good places to start: “Robin Hood, King Arthur, and Hollywood’s Problem with Public Domain Properties”, “Patrick Explain Star Wars: The Last Jedi (And Why It’s Great)”, “The Broken Formula of Music Biopics”, “How Austin Powers Predicted the Future of Cinema”
Polyphonic put out a lot of good work this year, from his track-by-track analysis of Dark Side of the Moon (if you’re into that, I haven’t actually watched them), to several videos on great jazz artists. But his video on the “27 Club” stood out for, well, reasons. It’s always nice when a creator I follow just happens to put out something that tackles ideas I’ve been wrestling with myself, though of course in this case the odds were pretty high, given our similar ages, mental health struggles, and propensity for writing about music.
Good places to start: “How Fleetwood Mac Wrote “The Chain””, “The Thin White Duke: David Bowie’s Darkest Character”, “Kind of Blue: How Miles Davis Changed Jazz”, “Circle Game: Joni Mitchell’s Response to Neil Young”, “Cannonball Adderley: The Joy of Jazz”
Though Professor Flowers has only produced a handful of videos thus far, given that her two biggest ones are addressing issues she has with many of the other channels on this list, and/or with their prominence in the discourse, it would be disingenuous not to feature her here.
Good places to start: “Real Talk: Is Breadtube Discussing Race “Right”?“, “Real Talk: BreadTube, How Can We Discuss Race?“
Razbuten’s “Gaming For A Non-Gamer” series (featuring The Lady He Lives With, who certainly deserves equal credit) continues to be an enlightening perspective shift on how game design is so often biased towards experienced players, and his own takes on the topic are insightful as well.
Good places to start: “Consumable Items (and why I barely use them)”, “Creating a Likeable Video Game Hero”, “Gaming For A Non-Gamer” (ongoing series)
Renegade Cut broke out of the media analysis bubble a little bit this year, and it turns out he’s just as good when his political analysis is not being filtered through pop culture. Also his video on the new Harley Quinn show is what got me to watch it and it’s really good.
Good places to start: “Archetypes & Stereotypes – The Breakfast Club“, “What is (and Is Not) Toxic Masculinity?”, “Burning King’s Landing – ‘It’s Only Terrorism If They Do It to Us’”, “Saturday Neoliberalism”, “Home Alone – White Suburban Revenge Fantasy”, “The Cult of Tradition”
Most of the videos I watch are basically just people reading things they’ve written, often about other people’s writing, so it’s rare that I’ll enjoy a video of someone actually, like, doing things, let alone a whole channel. But where a lot of craft/making videos are trying to teach you how to do things, Giertz (pronounced ‘Yetch’) is delightfully unconcerned with whether anyone else would want to make a paper shredder modelled on their own brain or turn their Tesla into a pickup truck. Her videos are more production diary than how-to, and her off-beat charm and excellent editing make them entertaining no matter what the project is.
Good places to start: “I built a hammering machine that destroys everything”, “I TURNED MY TESLA INTO A PICKUP TRUCK”, “Making a mantis shrimp costume”, “Making a paper shredder that looks like a brain”, “Building a musical instrument out of teeth”
As 2020 dragged on (and, in many ways, continues to) I had to slowly cut out a lot of political commentary from my media diet. Some More News is one of the few to survive the culling, because obviously.
As for the video choice, yes it’s a cop-out given that I featured it over on my movie list, but it’s hard to pick a video from a news-based channel because of the timeliness issue, and I’m honestly barely slogging through this as it is (see the abnormally long Honorable Mentions section for further proof of my tiredness/laziness).
Good places to start: “Kanye West, Prager University, and the Illusion of Free Thought”, “Life in the Fash Lane” (4-part series), “EXCLUSIVE: The Boars Are Coming For Us”, “Why Republicans and Corporations and the Media Are Failing Us On Climate Change”, “Criminals, Judges, Prisons, and Laws: Everything Wrong With Sexual Assault In America”, “Why Good Guys With Guns Can’t Be Black”, “How To Cover These Police Riots”, or the most recent video.
I first found Shives through his “Trek, Actually” videos, and he still does those and they’re still pretty good (if a bit niche), and for the most part I’ve ignored his other output as it’s just never really grabbed me. But in 2020 I was looking for something to watch and he had just posted “Steve and Stuffy and the Eulogy” and I figured, hey, why not—and boy am I glad I did that.
Steve and Stuffy (which it turns out he’s been making for almost a decade, far longer than his Trek videos), started out as basically a sketch show of…inconsistent quality about a man and his stuffed dog, but eventually started adding more characters (the current cast includes half a dozen regulars and several recurring roles), increasing the episode lengths, and developing a whole world with complex, ongoing storylines. The characters are multidimensional and unique, the stories are compelling, and when the show has a point to make it leverages those factors to do so really well. It’s weird and smart (and a little dumb) and sometimes offensive and usually funny and occasionally surprisingly moving.
At this point the show is part dark sitcom, part adult Sesame Street—the balance of which makes it hard to recommend a starting point, as some episodes may require far more knowledge of previous events on the show than others. If you have the patience for it, I’d have to recommend starting at the beginning and watching all the way through, but if not, I’d say start with Season 3 or Season 4. Season 4 is when the show starts to get consistently good, but Season 3 is a gentler introduction, and is still pretty decent. Either way you’ll skip over the awkward phase where Steve voiced Millicent before being replaced in that role by his wife, Ashley, who does a far better job.
Good places to start: The Cardassian Trilogy, or, Is There Such Thing as a Good Nazi? (Dukat, Garak, and Damar), “Why the Prime Directive Might Actually Be a Terrible Rule”, “Why Barclay Might Actually Be Star Trek’s Greatest Hero“, “Actually Star Trek Has Always Been Preachy” / “Is Star Trek Actually Less Progressive Than You Think?” / “What Do Conservatives Actually Like About Star Trek?“, “Star Trek Doesn’t Actually Understand Evolution“, Steve and Stuffy (Season 1, 3, or 4)
T1J has plenty of videos that I agree with, but the one that got me to subscribe was his video on Sam Harris. Though we both come to similar conclusions, his perspective on Harris is pretty different from my own. But he presents his arguments cogently and without vilifying either those who are more critical of Harris or Harris fans, and made it clear where we can find common ground. I don’t think that’s always the right approach—I’m fine with punching Nazis—but I think it should have a place in the discourse, especially to help bridge the sectarianism within the Left/Progressive/Center-Left/etc. political sphere. If you’re put off by all the other political content on this list, start here.
Good places to start: “Why I Stopped Idolizing Sam Harris”, “‘Racist’ is an Adjective, Not a Noun”, “Is ‘Civil Debate’ Actually Useful?”, “Healthcare is a Right”, “Performative Wokeness”
It’s always nice to be reminded that someone, somewhere, also feels like that.
Good places to start: “I Didn’t Go Out”, “Good Deeds Are Bulls**t”, “My Brain at Night”, “Stuck” (is a 5-part series), “You Have to Love Yourself”
Did you know that everyone’s favorite Canadian anarchist didn’t start to question the legitimacy of the state until 2016? He goes through how this happened at around the 6 minute mark (complete with reading list), and it’s a good reminder that it’s never too late to question your beliefs and seek out alternative paradigms (see also Philosophy Tube’s “Work, or, The 5 Jobs I Had Before YouTube”). Also, Thought Slime’s “Eyeball Zone” is a great resource for finding other Leftist content creators, including some names you may find familiar. If you don’t feel like watching every video to the end, you can check out the whole list in this doc, or you can watch his “Eyeballs on Black Content Creators” video.
Good places to start: “Ten things everyone gets wrong about Anarchists!”, “Destiny and the Liberal Mind Prison”, “But how come revolution?”, “50 Ways Capitalism is Hurting YOU Personally” (2-part series), “Crime and Legitimacy”
Trash Theory looks at the history and influence of late-20th and 21st century music that often gets ignored by this sort of work. His New British Canon series is a more focused version of this, and it’s a valuable project, but his other videos are equally well-done.
Good places to start: “Before 1976: How Punk Became Punk“, “Hüsker Dü and the Birth of Alternative Rock“, “Exploring Massive Attack & “Unfinished Sympathy” | New British Canon“, “How Kate Bush Won the Fight for “Wuthering Heights” | New British Canon“, “The Complex Journey of M.I.A. & PAPER PLANES | New British Canon“, “Dizzee Rascal, I LUV U & The Birth of Grime | New British Canon“
As the channel title suggests, in each video Grace Lee takes a piece of media or pop culture and explores what is, arguably, great about it. She’s not always as unreservedly positive as Movies With Mikey, and covers a broader a range of topics both in terms of the subjects of the video and often the additional sources Lee uses to inform her analysis. Though her approach is clearly informed by her academic background, it doesn’t make her essays dry or obscure, but rather multifaceted and enjoyably complex, as the best essays tend to be. (Also her videos tend to be 20 minutes or less, if that’s important to you).
Good places to start: “Getting Over It: Humanising Game Design“, “Next Stop, Analysis: The Contradictory Trains of Cinema“, “Untitled Goose Game: Is it Good to be Bad?“, “Public talk: Diary, Discourse and Demonetisation“, “Blue: The Most Human Colour“, “Lisa Hanawalt: Being Human by Being Animal“, “The Beginner’s Guide: This Is Not For You“
Honorable Mentions
- Angie Speaks
Editor’s note: While I’m not going to take back my recommendation of this specific video, as I found it worthwhile at the time and others may as well, I can no longer generally recommend Angie Speaks’s channel or any associated channels.
- Peter Coffin
Editor’s note: While I’m not going to take back my recommendation of this specific video, as I found it worthwhile at the time and others may as well, I can no longer generally recommend Peter Coffin’s channel or any associated channels.
Certain of Eventual Failure 