Interesting Videos on YouTube

I spend way too much time on YouTube. Here are some of my favourites from throughout the years.

Science/Tech Videos

STEM videos.

• Computer Scientist Explains One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty by WIRED. A video on zero-knowledge proofs. I also quite enjoy this series, since it slowly builds up the explanation of a single concept to different levels of diffculties.

• Hassium by Periodic Videos. It’s a good series of video on the elements of the periodic table, but only one other person in the world will know a certain reference regarding this specific video on Hassium.

• i raced an AI to learn parkour by Answer In Progress. It kind of touches on reinforcement learning, and also discusses AI in more general terms as well. I liked it so much I once shared the video in my tutorial group I was tutoring for.

• Which Planet is the Closest? by CGPGrey. An interesting question that we rarely even consider.

• 30 Weird Chess Algorithms: Elo World by suckerpinch. Chess algorithms that I didn’t know I even wanted to see implemented.

• Every PROOF you’ve seen that .999… = 1 is WRONG by mCoding.

• General Relativity Explained in 7 Levels of Difficulty by minutephysics.

• The Most Common Cognitive Bias by Veritasium. It’s not about any specific scientific topic, but it does teach a good lesson for anyone wanting to do science. Probably my favourite Veritasium video despite of how simple the premise is.

• The Biggest Project in Modern Mathematics. A video about the Langlands problem.

• A video on Lebesgue integration by vcubingx.

• a base-neutral system for naming numbering systems.

• A video about arrays in C being weird.

• The Topological Problem with Voting. Increble video to link topology with game theory.

• Computer architecture explained with Minecraft.

• I Made an AI with just Redstone!. The design process here is quite insane as well.

• Place Your Bet: How far will a dumbbell squirt soap?. A fun game for everyone.

• The image you can’t submit to journals anymore. An incredible video which first touches on the controversial image used in benchmarking computer vision algorithms, to talking about a larger problem of women in CS. The YouTube channel themselves are also incredible, many good videos touching on controversies and scandals within academia and research.

Videos about Thailand

Some videos that are about my home country that I approve of. I pick ones that are in English for the list.

• Pad Krapao: The Story Behind Thailand’s Real National Dish by OTR Food & History. Real Thai food appreciators (and Thais like myself) will know that the real national dish of Thailand is the Pad Krapao (stir-fried basil and rice) and not Pad Thai or whatever other dish they claim it to be. This video is a good one about this particular dish.

• Thai Election: Will the Military Launch a Coup? by TLDR News Global. I am quite a fan of TLDR news, and this is one of the more relevant news to me. This is a video that summarises the results of the 2023 Thai election, which as of the video provides the reason why I am (cautiously) optimistic about Thailand’s future.

• Why Thailand’s Geography Breeds Instability by PolyMatter. This time taking a look at how its geography relates to their politics.

• Nirvana for Sale by Unreported World. I have been watching a number of documentaries from them, covering many interesting little-told stories around the world. In this piece, it focuses on arguably the most infamous temple in Thailand.

Pairs of Videos About The Same Thing

Two videos that are talking about the same topic, but in different styles.

• Two videos about Thomas Midgley Jr. by Veritasium and Tom Scott (specifically the Technical Difficulties). The former in the form of a mini-documentary, the latter in the form of a panel show.

• Two videos about Compliant Mechanisms by Veritasium and Mark Rober. They even managed to get the same person in their interviews. However, they did go about introducing compliant mechanisms in a different way.

Other Informative Videos

Videos that still teach you something.

• Why Do I Choose To Do This For A Living by Jon Bois. It is a video about poker by one of my favourite sports-related video creator. The original video is unfortunately taken down, but it might be possible to find a re-upload of it somewhere.

• Troy State 253, DeVry 141 by Jon Bois. Another Jon Bois video I really like, with a good flow of the story.

• Why are British place names so hard to pronounce? by Jay Foreman.

• history of the entire world, i guess by Bill Wurtz. He doesn’t usually do these educational videos but I guess this qualifies as one.

• Music That Sounds Like The Lyrics by David Bennett. Good channel on music theory and music trivia.

• The Challenge that Changed this Japanese Man’s Life Forever. About a guy eating Sukiya for many years.

• The TikTokification of Music.

• dOn’T SeLL YoUr TimE fOr mOnEy!! by How Money Works. The TL;DR for this is aiming to get passive income isn’t always the best way to make money. I also do think that out of all the finance-related channels out there, this is definitely up there for me.

• xkcd’s “Map Projections”, animated.

• Why Are There Two Koreas?.

• I Made a Graph of Wikipedia… This Is What I Found.

• Last Broadcasts of Countries. A nice bit of radio history. A few of these recording the last things broadcasted before an invasion, or before surrendering to a foreign power. It really tells something about the spirits or the toughts of the people then.

Music

Videos that are based on music.

• The Killers - Somebody Told Me. A legit link to the song with no memes whatsoever.

• Foo Fighters - Keep The Car Running. Just a solid cover of an Arcade Fire song.

• OK Computer but everything is my voice. It’s just a solid cover of an album.

• Paramore - Let The Flames Begin / Part II (Reading Festival 2014). Paramore playing a song followed by its sequel.

• Epic crowd singalong to Mr Brightside at Glastonbury 2017. The song that has been played live thousands of times, but still gets the crowd hyped every single time.

• Weezer - Pork and Beans. The song is okay, but the music video is essentially a great summary of 2010s internet culture.

• Through the Fire and the Flames on stepper motors V2.

• A piano performance of Surrender by Birdy. One of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard, performed beautifully on a piano.

• Never Gonna Give You Up, live at Glastonbury 2023. I’m just impressed Rick Astley is still going, and his voice being as good as ever.

• A heavier rendition of Georgia by Phoebe Bridgers. There are two officially (?) released versions of Georgia, but I may just prefer this one over the other two.

• Lucy Dacus’ Night Shift, performed by boygenius. Lucy Dacus is one of the members of boygenius, and seeing one of her songs being performed (hesitant to say cover here) is indeed very interesting.

• boygenius live at Brooklyn Steel. Just the boys playing through their EP. Such a good performance.

• Gangnam Style but with Newton’s Pendulum.

• All I Wanted by Paramore, live. Hayley finally did it, and it was caught on video.

• Postdoc Me Now, a parody of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. One of the most impressive part of this is getting quite a number of grad studnets who are also very good vocalists.

• Oxford Symphony Orchestra at a music festival. Looks like a fun day out.

• Why Kanye West’s STEM PLAYER is Bad for the Future of Music by Mic the Snare. Not really music video but it is related to music. The channel is actually quite good as well – highly recommend the Deep Discogs Dive series.

• A parody of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire. Somehow did it better than Fall Out Boys.

• Another parody of We Didn’t Start The Fire, but for video games.

• A cover of Wild Mountain Thyme performed by Laufey, dodie. and Jacob Collier. Three of the most beautiful voices currently in the industry.

• My Nan Your Nan. A song by the Taskmaster UK duo, I didn’t know whether to put it here or under funny videos.

TV Shows and TV-Styles videos

These are series that probably could have been (or actually are) on traditional TV but is available to watch in its entirety on YouTube, or other videos that just has the TV feel.

• Taskmaster (the link starts at Series 1 Episode 1). The first 10 or so series are on YouTube, which is incredible. The premise is simple, but the execution is great.

• Starstruck. A great comedy/romance series featuring the wonderful Rose Matafeo.

• Two Of These People Are Lying by The Technical Difficulties. A panel show-style series based around Wikipedia articles. For the record, Episode 2x03 is my favourite episode of the whole show.

• Video Game High School by Rocket Jump. I don’t think I would rewatch this show now (in a different stage of life now), but I did really enjoy it a bit when it came out.

• Madeline Gets Her Appendix Removed. You forgot this cartoon exist, didn’t you? It’s a very sweet cartoon - they don’t make cartoons like these anymore.

• Breaking the News: Tom Scott and Matt Gray bonehead the budget by Tom Scott. Another Tom Scott classic.

• Superbowl LVIII but with Spongebob. Would have tuned in if I knew such a live coverage existed.

• Ikea Heights. A short series filmed entirely in Ikea.

Vlog-like Videos

These are videos that are in a vlog style, featuring people living in or travelling to interesting places or times.

• Friends shocked to learn Princess Diana is dead. A video taken in 1997 while the breaking news was on TV.

• Road Trip After Eight Years Without Driving by CGPGrey. While Grey does do very good educational videos, the vlogs done in his style are also top notch. This is probably my favourite video that he has released.

• A Somewhat Normal Day At University of Alaska Fairbanks. I am a fan of vlogs from random places, and this one is no different.

• Teaching in Whittier, Alaska…the state’s one-building town. Can you tell I do want to go to Alaska?

• I took my duck to Petsmart.

• Trying a Nobi Nobi Seat on the Sunrise Express. A pretty clean vlog from a traveller on a Japanese sleeper train.

• Harbin: A Chinese city with a Russian feel. The place looks interesting, I don’t have much else to say about it.

• Popeyes Cheddar Biscuit Butterfly Shrimp - Food Review by The Report of The Week. The one where he says that line.

Funny Videos

These are funny videos.

• 13 micro-songs to boost your mood by Daniel Thrasher.

• Team Avatar forgetting that Toph is blind for 2 minutes straight. This one is for all of you who watches this great show.

• The Legend of Whiplash - starring J.K. Simmons as Tenzin Fletcher. Another one for the Avatar fans. Strong language warning.

• How to correctly make a Milo by Fairbairn Films.

• We Live In Singapura the MTV version. The more I stay in Singapore, the more I understand the references made in this video.

• I once accidentally bought a horse. Probably the funniest bit from the show Would I Lie To You?.

• Nish Kumar Wants to be the Drummer From Coldplay.

• Can ANYONE name a single character from the movie Avatar? by Jacksfilms.

• My Heart Will Go On - Recorder By Candlelight by Matt Mulholland. The classic.

• How to Pick Up a Duck.

• Fake Professor on the First Day PRANK. Classic prank video.

• Feyenoord goalkeeper thinks outside the box to leave FC Twente incensed. Incredible bit of clever foul play.

• My favourite gag from Family Guy. I won’t spoil which one it is, you’ll have to watch it for yourself.

Shorts

These are (mostly comedy) clips that are less than a minute long. I won’t provide much description for these because for a lot of these it’s better to go in with little context.

• When you walk into a pub and the cover band starts playing your song.

• Maslow Pyramid Any% Speedrun - 8.1 Seconds.

• I am the Danger but Walt forgets the line. From what I understand this is actually from the show outtakes, and it is hilarious.

• When The Game Is Too Realistic.

• “Take one step on that rope and I’ll cut it!”.

• Does GitHub Copilot Know Rickroll Lyrics.

• just a normal bowling alley screen.

• vamos dembélé!. You need some football knowledge to get this one.

• Harry gived an inspirational speech.

• Thom Yorke was raised in a barn by Brian David Gilbert.

• Well someone better be dying!. Great scene from Shrek the Third.

• Halo theme song performed by 80 guys in 1 bathroom.

• How REAL Men Solve Equations by Flammable Maths.

• Duet for French Horn and chair.

• So No One Told You Life Was Gonna Be This Way.

• Fire Alarm Duet.

• Two-headed teacher.

• Impressive musicians staying in time.

Miscellaneous

Other videos that doesn’t fit the categories above.

• Doraemon Final Ending. Fan-made ending, but still a good one nonetheless.

• Nottingham Forest return to the Premier League. Probably the biggest moment for Nottingham Forest since the turn of the century.

• The Greatest Shot In Television.

• I spent a day with Ian Hecox by Anthony Padilla. If you are aware of Smosh and their whole story of them between early/mid-2010s to around 2023(ish), then this video may be one you’d be anticipating for a good while. The interview talked a lot about their friendship, and I do think I got some interesting lessons and life outlooks out of it.

• “12 points go to the united kingdom”. The most unexpected thing during Eurovision 2022.

• Single Point of Failure by Tom Scott. Black Mirror-esque fictional story about the one day Google didn’t check users’ passwords. He has a few of these (all of them are quite well told) but this one is probably my favourite of those.

• The interviewer not noticing that they were talking to Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park.

• Penguins Movie. Just remember that this whole thing is a beer commercial.

• Incredible ice hockey performance by an emergency goalkeeper.

• A self-levelling pool table.