The best YouTube stars and channels you should be watching

(Pocket-lint) – YouTube has more stuff to watch than funny cat videos.

Shocking! We know. In fact, there is so much to watch on Google’s video-sharing site that some content creators have become international “YouTube stars”. Yes, that is a thing. From PewDiePie to Zoella, these often 20-something vloggers have managed to build up millions of subscribers and billions of views…each.

People apparently love to just watch other people live their lives. But apart from YouTube stars, there are also funny and educational and interesting channels with huge followings. Epic Rap Battles of History, for instance, has nearly 13 million subscribers – and it’s just about pitting historical figures against one another in rap battles.

With so much going on, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and turned off by it all. You probably don’t even want to get into subscribing, or maybe you do. Whichever the case may be, Pocket-lint can help. We’ve managed to compile a gallery of 18 YouTube channels and YouTube stars worth watching.

These aren’t ranked in order or by subscriber counts. They’re just popular, relevant, or simply entertaining. If you subscribe to all of them, you will definitely begin to learn the YouTube culture, then will likely get sucked in, and before you know it, you’ll be recommending channels for others to watch. 

Primitive Technology

Primitive Technology is a fascinating retro technology channel run by John Plant. This channel posts various “hobby” videos that show the process of building things in the wild without the use of modern technology. 

Imagine what it would be like if you were stranded on a desert island and had to build a hut to live in, a bow and arrow to hunt with and stove to cook in. If you’re ever in that situation you’ll wish you’d watched more videos from this channel. 

Casey Neistat

Casey Neistat is perhaps one of the most well-known and instantly recognisable vloggers on YouTube. If only for the trademark shades that he wears in almost every video. Neistat joined YouTube back in 2010, but was making films and waves online way before that too. 

He’s widely appreciated for his superb editing skills and videography stylings. If you want a taste of just how good he is, we’d recommend watching this video by the Nerdwriter. 

The Slow Mo Guys

The Slow Mo Guys is a YouTube channel run by Gavin Free and Daniel Gruchy and essentially consists of endless videos of all sorts of things being filmed in extreme slow motion. The pair use some pretty serious high-end camera gear to capture footage at over 380,000 frames per second resulting in some extremely satisfying video footage. 

The pair’s most popular videos include things like giant water balloons exploding, bullets being shot underwater, popcorn popping in super slow motion and much more besides. These are some seriously entertaining videos and we never cease to be impressed with the fact that the pair have managed to make nine years worth of slow-motion videos and counting. 

Colin Furze

Colin Furze is a British YouTuber who specialises in creating all manner of bonkers creations from flame heated super slippers to Wolverine-style claws, a firework launcher and even a bike with tyres made of ice. 

If you’ve ever thought of some bonkers creation for use in or outside the home, the chances are Colin has thought of it too and probably made it a reality as well. 

Honest game trailers

From the same team behind Honest Trailers comes another channel, equally hilarious with snarky, side-splitting teasers of video games.

Fandom Games presents honest games trailers with snatches of game footage mixed with brilliant voiceover work. The videos are often cutting review criticism even of the most popular games of our age. 

Epic Rap Battles

The Epic Rap Battles of History is one of the oldest YouTube channels on our list – originally starting life on the video platform way back in 2006. This is a video series created by Nice Peter, epicLLOYD, Dave McCary and Maker Studios that sees famous figures from history taking part in hilarious rap battles.

Characters are often played by celebrities or YouTube stars and include such awesomeness as Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates, Adolf Hitler vs Darth Vader and Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg. Even if you don’t like rap, you’ll appreciate the hilarity of these videos. 

TED

If you’re an intellectual or have a thirst for knowledge, then you’ve likely heard of TED talks already.

This channel shares ideas from the TED Conference with the world, for free. It includes brilliant speeches by knowledgable people on all manner of subjects, for example, the great Carole Cadwalladr talking about Facebook’s role in Brexit or Stephen Hawking discussing the universe. 

Honest trailers

Honest Trailers isn’t a dedicated channel as such, but rather a series of videos produced by Screen Junkies.

These videos essentially act as a tongue-in-cheek, often sarcastic, regularly hilarious trailer for an upcoming or already released film. The regular official trailer is often used with a hilarious voice-over to brilliant effect. 

Marques Brownlee (MKBHD)

Marques Brownlee is perhaps one of the most well-known tech YouTubers on the planet. He goes by the handle MKBHD and has been crafting tech videos on YouTube since early 2009 when he was just 16 years old. 

His passion for the subject matter and dedication to creating high-quality content with a focus on the “deep knowledge of the products he discusses” have led to his current and continuing success on the platform. 

Philip DeFranco

Defranco hosts a news show where he talks about current events and pop culture that matters to him and “should matter to you”, he says. He usually covers controversial news of the day and certainly has an interesting viewpoint of the world. 

Philip DeFranco began crafting his video on YouTube back in 2006 and now has two incredibly popular channels PhilipDeFranco and PhillyD

Unbox Therapy

Lewis Hilsenteger is the man behind the Unbox Therapy channel. This is the most well-known channel on YouTube when it comes to unboxing products and shows them off in all their glory. Unbox Therapy promises to showcase “the coolest products on the planet. From the newest smartphone to surprising gadgets and technology you never knew existed.”

In short, if you enjoy seeing things being taken out of boxes and critiqued, then this is the channel for you. 

Tasty

Tasty claims to be the world’s largest food network and it certainly is popular – with over 16 million subscribers at the time of writing.

Even if you haven’t subscribed to Tasty already, you might well have seen some of the videos the channel produces. It’s well known for creating viral videos with eye-pleasing top-down views of delicious foodstuffs being created in wonderfully satisfying ways. 

Unnecessary Inventions

We covered Matt Benedetto’s work before when he was making waves on Instagram with photos of various 3D printed creations that no one needed. 

Since then he’s created a YouTube channel to show off his work – building completely useless inventions for the modern age. These include everything from robots that automatically swipe Instagram to hard hats for your toes. 

Michael Reeves

Michael Reeves runs a channel that basically shows what would happen if you let a mad scientist loose on the internet and gave them too many sweets.

He creates all sorts of weird inventions by modifying pre-existing tech with hilarious results. Like tinkering with a Roomba to make it swear every time it bumps into anything. 

Fail Army

“Every success begins with a failure” is the motto of Fail Army, a channel that mostly shows off people failing in all manner of different and hilarious ways.

If you get your kicks from watching people fall over, hurt themselves or generally do embarrassing things, then this is it. 

Noclip

Noclip is a YouTube-based documentary channel that examines and analyses all manner of video games. Subscribe to this channel and you’ll get to see lengthy and in-depth documentaries on your favourite games and games you might not have heard of. These are incredibly lengthy and brilliantly detailed videos that give you previously unseen insights into the games and their creation. 

Zach King

Zach King is an American who shot to fame on Vine but has continued his craft on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. He uses a mix of magical talent and clever video editing to create some thoroughly entertaining videos centring around his illusions. 

Ryan’s World

Most of YouTube is made up of adults sharing their opinion, work or art with the world at large, but Ryan’s World is different. This channel features a small boy by the name of Ryan Kaji who essentially unboxes, reviews and plays with various toys on a regular basis. His videos get millions of views and are incredibly popular. As an extra bonus, most of the toys used in the videos are donated to charity. 

Adam Savages Tested

If you ever watched MythBusters then you know who Adam Savage is. Now you can carry on appreciating him by subscribing to his very own YouTube channel.

This channel sees the great Adam Savage building all manner of insane gizmos and gadgets. It also shows off various movie props, including things like the spacesuit from The Martian. If you love geeking out, then this is the channel for you. 

MrBeast

Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson might be making himself a household name of late with the biggest YouTube collaboration of all time to save the planet by planting 20 million trees, but he’s been big on the YouTube scene for quite a while now. He started on YouTube back in 2012, but it wasn’t he started pulling stunts like recording himself counting to 100,000 that he started gaining traction. 

Now MrBeast is most well known for creating videos that focus on donating thousands of dollars to random people online (usually unknown Twitch streamers) and “last to leave” challenges that pit players against each other for the promise of a big cash prize. MrBeast’s videos are certainly unusual and you’re left wondering where all the money comes from, but you see that his videos get tens of millions of views each it all becomes clear. 

Peter McKinnon

Peter McKinnon is a Canadian photographer, filmmaker and vlogger who quickly emerged from relative obscurity to become one of the most popular creators on YouTube. His videos consist of a mix of content that includes vlogs, behind the scenes works and tips videos for aspiring videographers and photographers. 

If you’re considering YouTube as a career or just want some inspiration to create your own content, this is the man to follow. Peter McKinnon has dabbled in collaborations with other big YouTubers, including people already featured on this list. 

The Nerdwriter

The Nerdwriter, AKA Evan Puschak, crafts some fascinatingly detailed and intricate video essays on other people’s art.

Whether that’s dissecting the political undertones of The Truman Show, analysing How Donald Trump answers questions or tearing down the incredible filmography of David Fincher The Nerdwriter covers it all in a really excellent and engaging manner. 

Bad Lip Reading

Did you ever put the TV on mute and pretend to do the voice-overs the TV show you were watching? Making the actors say out of character things in hilarious ways? No? Just us?

Well, if you’ve never done it, you’ll certainly get a chortle out of this channel that does just that. In a really convincing manner too. 

People are Awesome

People are Awesome is basically the complete opposite of Fail Army, with videos showcasing people pulling off all sorts of magnificent feats from Parkour to skateboarding, wakeboarding, skydiving, weightlifting and more.

These are the sorts of videos you’ll watch and wish you could copy but know you’d probably end up injuring yourself in horrible ways. 

Linus Tech Tips

Linus Tech Tips is one of the most popular technology channels on YouTube. It’s certainly a mega geeky and thoroughly enjoyable channel to watch. Originally started by Canadian Linus Gabriel Sebastian in 2007, the channel quickly grew in popularity alongside his other channels  Techquickie, TechLinked and Channel Super Fun. 

The production quality of Linus Tech Tips has certainly grown over the years as more people were hired to work on video production. There are some brilliant behind the scenes and studio tours videos created by Gamers Nexus (also worth subscribing to) that show off just how much work goes into the videos. 

Athlean-X

There are plenty of weight loss and exercise channels on YouTube, but Athlean-X is different. It’s run by Jeff Cavaliere, a man who sure knows his stuff. He’s worked as a physical therapist and as a strength/conditioning coach for the New York Mets, as well as working with numerous celebrities and sports athletes on fitness and strength training.

This channel doesn’t offer any quick fixes or six-pack shortcuts but instead offers real insight into proper techniques, well-researched science and more. He’s well known for colouring his body with markers to show off particular muscle groups and how to hit them. There’s a reason the channel has over eight million subscriptions and counting. Subscribe for the gains! 

Binging with Babish

Binging with Babish is another channel for the foodies. This channel sees passionate chef Andrew Rea re-creating iconic meals and dishes from classic films and TV shows. These happenings are best summarised by the channel’s trailer but if you have an eye for delicious food then you won’t be disappointed with this one. 

Tom Scott

Tom Scott is a superb British YouTuber who’s best known for his series of videos “Things you might not know” where he educates the masses on all manner of things from how to make a cup of tea to how you can hear the difference between cold and hot water. 

If you like bite-sized knowledge videos then this is the channel for you. We particularly love his video on why British plugs are better than any other. 

Writing by Maggie Tillman and Adrian Willings.