YouTube is the final form of public access TV

January 5, 2018 2:03 AM

You get things like people visiting the least used stations in various parts of England, people flying to McDonald's on a paramotor and people making DIY ecospheres out of crap in a local stream. It's even got slow TV.

What sorts of oddball channels do you like?

posted by fnerg (17 comments total)

To head even further down the rabbit hole, Geoff Marshall, in the least used stations link is one half of the All The Stations couple, featured previously on the Blue. He also has quite a few videos touring as yet unopened chunks of train related infrastructure such as Crossrail, Northern Line extension and the new London Bridge station.
posted by jontyjago at 2:22 AM on January 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

It is not that oddball, but I am devoted to bassist Janek Gwizdala's vlog. Visiting Cuba. If Wes Anderson made custom basses. Actually the vlog in the sense of it being posted every day is over, but he still makes one now and then.
posted by thelonius at 4:24 AM on January 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Report of the Week. A young short wave radio enthusiast wearing thrift store suits and doing reviews of energy drinks and fast food. His composure, his apparent sincerity, the strange early twentieth century mid-atlantic announcer voice. Is it real? Is it shtick? Twenty First century outsider art or anti-comedy? If it is a put on, he has Andy Kaufman levels of commitment. So mesmerizing.
posted by mumblelard at 5:11 AM on January 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

Thomas Heaton's Vlog/Show. A great little vlog/show about outdoor photography and also just getting out there. Also Adventure Archives, long form show about going camping and just having adventures with your friends.
posted by Agent_X_ at 5:22 AM on January 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

SV Seeker, (blog, youtube), the story of a guy and his friends building an ocean-going research vessel in his front yard. In Tulsa OK. Though he does have a plan, and a catchy song to go with it.

He's been at it for seven nine years. Here's a catch-up video from 2016.
posted by bonehead at 6:22 AM on January 5, 2018

The guy who fixes Hot Wheels cars.

The Japanese girl who used to post a new Electone video every year.

This lady and all her pets.

Pinball tutorials
posted by lagomorphius at 6:36 AM on January 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

While digging through YouTube for how-to videos (for which it's an astoundingly good resource), I discovered Hannah's Bug, a video log of a young woman restoring an air-cooled VW Beetle, not only doing all the mechanical work herself but also building the workshop and fixtures necessary to do the job in the process. I'm not sure if the intended goal is to have the thing done in time for her to be legally able to drive it or what, but regardless it's a whole lot more impressive than anything I ever did in highschool.

Somewhat in line with what mumblelard said about Report of the Week, what makes so many YouTube videos intriguing is the clear sincerity of the people doing them.

But dear god, the comments. The comments!
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:11 AM on January 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh how many hours of my life are spent watching Geoff geek out about railroads, Tom Scott geeking out over pretty much anything interesting, or Clive or Julian or one of any number of others tearing stuff apart to see how it works.

Hm, I've suddenly realized there is a common thread to all these people (yes, they're all men..there are sadly few women playing with electronics on YT, though there are a few. Fran does some neat stuff, for one, but I digress). Apparently I find UKish accents soothing.

Also lots of physics lectures and people flying airplanes. So yeah, kinda like public access in the college town I spent high school in, but more what it's evolved into. Back in the late 90s despite very strong support from the city, the portable cameras they had available were still gigantic. (Relatively) Tiny super 8 cameras were available, but were still well beyond their budget, so the vast majority of stuff was still done in studio. I think the university's media lab had one, but that was pretty much it, so a lot of the stuff people do on YouTube today would have been nearly impossible even with the cheap NLEs that had finally appeared by then.
posted by wierdo at 8:25 AM on January 5, 2018

Oh man, Slow TV train rides are the best. Sometimes I'll have them on at work just to have something to glance over to and see where they are. One of the great things about trains is that you're really traveling through that country's back yard.

For more Slow TV train rides, Train Cab Ride works very well.

And if you want to go really nerdy, go to Wikipedia, find a Japanese train line, and copy and paste the Japanese into YouTube. The Japanese know how to nerd out about trains, let me tell you.
posted by gc at 8:53 AM on January 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

YouTube is the final form of public access TV

Alex Jones got his start on Austin public access TV, so this checks out.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:34 AM on January 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Channels I've gotten hooked on:

Binging with Babish. Not exactly small, but newish (about a year and a half old tops) and it is so becoming my jam. I've found a way to work some visits into my own blog.

Decocookie. An unboxing/cooking channel, which these days is more about cooking but occasionally returns to its older roots of "person plays with weird Japanese DIY candy kits."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:16 AM on January 5, 2018

Thanks for these! I was running out of decent new channels.

Some of the following I found through here so might be well known but for instance Steve1989 can't be recommended enough IMO.
In the category "slow tv" Keezi walks.
It's a pity the sound cuts out sometimes due to backgroundmusic copyright troubles but Japanology is excellent for those interested in Japanese culture.
Also about Japan: Toco Toco TV
Eurorack and other synthrelated stuff explained/tested in an entertaining manner by Myalarmelodies
posted by Kosmob0t at 12:35 PM on January 5, 2018

oh hey another thread for me to remind everyone that MarbleLympics 2018 is starting! (previously)
posted by numaner at 1:16 PM on January 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

The only thing I subscribe to that might come under this is Lyle Hiroshi Saxon, who uploads home videos he's recorded while walking around in Japan for nearly 30 years.

I'm fascinated by the things that Jimmy Gunawan does with procedural plugins in Blender (like Animation Nodes and Sverchok). I can't really keep up with what he's doing, but find it engrossing all the same. Live doodling 3d modelling.
posted by Grangousier at 6:33 PM on January 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

More synth stuff: Benn and Gear has Benn Jordan of The Flashbulb geeking out about synthesizers and music software. It's a pretty new channel.
posted by Chef Flamboyardee at 2:57 AM on January 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

A little late, but Joe Robinet is part of what apparently is Bushcraft Youtube. He goes out into the Canadian woods, hours away from civilization, and camps out in the wild, sometimes in sub-zero temperatures. Just a man and his doggoe. I've never been a camping person, so these videos are interesting to me. Especially as a story involving me hiking 7 hours into the Canadian wilderness in the winter would be about how they found my body once everything thawed out.

Also, for people with 4k televisions, the 4k Relaxation channel has someone traipsing around beautiful spots in the American west, with a 4k camera. Minimal narration, great for background noise.
posted by zabuni at 6:25 PM on January 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

I found Robinet recently via a youtube guilty-pleasure dive that somehow danced from fountain pens to EDC prepper reviews (neat pocket gadgets but I am so glad I do not know these people) and on into bushcraft youtube. I do like Robinet's affable style, and also remembered that earlier last year someone turned me on to the wordless Primitive Technology videos from the Australian bush (turn on subtitles to get the explanations of what the guy is doing!).
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 10:28 AM on January 7, 2018 [1 favorite]