Ever since its inception in 2005, I have been a daily consumer of YouTube content. I have spent hours upon hours procrastinating on the video-sharing site and consider myself fairly knowledgeable of the top 500 channels. In this post I would like to share my favorite channels in the following categories: Animation, News, Entertainment, and Vlog. Next post, I will discuss my favorite Science & Education, and Gaming channels, I consume the most amount of content in these categories so I have multiple recommendations for these. Keep in mind there are many categories I leave out, such as Comedy, Sports, Technology, Health & Wellness, and Music as I am less knowledgeable of those areas of YouTube. YouTube is a HUGE website and while it may have a seemingly endless mix of channels to watch, I believe any channel can be assorted into one of these categories.
The best channel for animation is hands-down Rooster Teeth. Rooster Teeth started out with founder Burnie Burns (aka owner of burnie.com which can be explained in this animated video). Burns was inspired by the game Halo: Combat Evolved to create voice-overed machinimas. Machinimas are animations, usually of video games. Rooster Teeth soon launched its immensely popular Red Vs. Blue Series, a machinima of the Halo series which is basically an action series mixed in with comedy. Today, Rooster Teeth has expanded its YouTube presence to many channels including their fledgling gaming news channel, The Know and the fan-favorite video gaming group, Achievement Hunter. Rooster Teeth has even teamed up with animator Monty Oum who created the amazing RWBY anime on YouTube and helped revolutionize the machinima industry; Oum was my favorite animator and I am deeply saddened by his recent death at the young age of 34 and feel the need to share this blog post made by his wife all about moving forward. The Rooster Teeth group has created some of the most original and innovative content on YouTube and will always be a great success because of their dedicated, hilarious employees and extremely strong fan base that has grown over the years. The channel is so big, the staff host a convention every year called RTX in Austin, Texas; this event was attended by over 30,000+ people in 2014!.
News
The best news channels on YouTube are, by far, in my opinion, The Philip Defranco Show and SourceFed. Phllip "Defranco" (his last name is actually Franchini) can be seen to transform from a biased, opinionated college dropout into a respectable, wise, informed leader through the course of his YouTube career of reporting the news in an entertaining manner. His views on topics, ranging from serious to humorous are logical, blunt, and often hilarious. Defranco has probably been the biggest source of influence on my political and social views. Daily informative videos are uploaded and a multitude of stories are covered within 8-10 minutes on Phil's shows. SourceFed is a product of Philip's channel; he decided to create another news channel which creates short 2-3 minute videos on huge amounts of topics a day with a huge staff. Today, the channels have become part of Defranco Creative Inc. and has a healthy balance humor, seriousness, and an amazing community. I also love the merchandise they sell at forhumanpeoples.com, great apparel can be found for almost any fandom including: Doctor Who, Legend of Korra, Marvel, DC Comics, etc.
The best news channels on YouTube are, by far, in my opinion, The Philip Defranco Show and SourceFed. Phllip "Defranco" (his last name is actually Franchini) can be seen to transform from a biased, opinionated college dropout into a respectable, wise, informed leader through the course of his YouTube career of reporting the news in an entertaining manner. His views on topics, ranging from serious to humorous are logical, blunt, and often hilarious. Defranco has probably been the biggest source of influence on my political and social views. Daily informative videos are uploaded and a multitude of stories are covered within 8-10 minutes on Phil's shows. SourceFed is a product of Philip's channel; he decided to create another news channel which creates short 2-3 minute videos on huge amounts of topics a day with a huge staff. Today, the channels have become part of Defranco Creative Inc. and has a healthy balance humor, seriousness, and an amazing community. I also love the merchandise they sell at forhumanpeoples.com, great apparel can be found for almost any fandom including: Doctor Who, Legend of Korra, Marvel, DC Comics, etc.
Entertaintment
All videos on YouTube can be considered entertaintment, but I view it as the video almost engaging the viewer and has no real purpose other than to entertain. These are the kinds of videos that usually go viral for this very reason. The channel that I find most entertaining, on a pure basis, is definitely RocketJump. RocketJump was a channel that used to run under the name FreddieW, otherwise known as Freddie Wong. I can guarantee you've seen at least one of his videos due to their amazing effects and the effort put into them. Freddie Wong specializes in entrancing people with his mind-boggling special effects skills which can be seen in every video he has created. A lot of inspiration from video games and action movies can be seen in his videos, which often results in special effects which makes the impossible possible. Freddie Wong's popularity is so large that he has done collaborations with some famous people including the legendary Key & Peele, and even Jimmy Kimmel. In reference to collaboration with Key & Peele, the video below is one of my favorite videos on YouTube; it has everything from drama to humor with some intense behind-the-scenes effort really visible. Every video seems to be better and better with Freddie Wong and he has even created now 2 seasons of the best web series on YouTube, in my opinion, Video Game High School. The concept of the web series is innovative and the story-line has the classic RocketJump humor mixed with drama with amazing special effects.
All videos on YouTube can be considered entertaintment, but I view it as the video almost engaging the viewer and has no real purpose other than to entertain. These are the kinds of videos that usually go viral for this very reason. The channel that I find most entertaining, on a pure basis, is definitely RocketJump. RocketJump was a channel that used to run under the name FreddieW, otherwise known as Freddie Wong. I can guarantee you've seen at least one of his videos due to their amazing effects and the effort put into them. Freddie Wong specializes in entrancing people with his mind-boggling special effects skills which can be seen in every video he has created. A lot of inspiration from video games and action movies can be seen in his videos, which often results in special effects which makes the impossible possible. Freddie Wong's popularity is so large that he has done collaborations with some famous people including the legendary Key & Peele, and even Jimmy Kimmel. In reference to collaboration with Key & Peele, the video below is one of my favorite videos on YouTube; it has everything from drama to humor with some intense behind-the-scenes effort really visible. Every video seems to be better and better with Freddie Wong and he has even created now 2 seasons of the best web series on YouTube, in my opinion, Video Game High School. The concept of the web series is innovative and the story-line has the classic RocketJump humor mixed with drama with amazing special effects.
Vlog
By the day I have grown to love the channel of CTFxC more and more. CTFxC stands for "Charles Trippy Friend Core" (X doesn't stand for anything) as Charles Trippy thought his video blogs, hence the term "vlog," would only be seen by his friends. Oh but he was so wrong. Ever since he picked up the camera to fulfill a bet that he could not vlog for a year straight with Alli Speed, he never put it down. Ever since May 1st, 2009 Charles Trippy never missed a day in which he did not post a vlog in the web series he calls Internet Killed Television. Currently he is in his sixth year of filming, day 2143 to be exact, and oh what a ride it has been. I have been watching since around 2.5 years into his vlogs, so I have witnessed 3.5 years of this man's life. Charles Trippy is an inspiring man because he has been through so much but still loves life to its fullest. I have witnessed him go on tour with his failry popular band We the Kings as their bassist, gone back to see him propose to Alli Speed, marry Alli Speed (original video deleted *sad face*), be diagnosed and successfully fight through brain cancer (HE FILMED THE SURGERY), go through divorce, and been lucky enough to see him recently find love again. Trippy has earned himself the world record of most consecutive number of vlogs by the Guinness Book of World records. Charles Trippy has been through so much these past 6 years and one can truly see the man transform from day-to-day. He seems to find everything humorous and has almost a child-like nature about him which can't even be brought down by cancer. Honestly, he is one of my biggest role models and I aspire to love life the way he does. The community of people who watch these vlogs, over 1.5 million subscribers, can all agree that Charles feels more like a close friend than just a vlogger. Fun fact: Charles Trippy is good friends with Philip Defranco of the Philip Defranco Show I mentioned earlier and recently attended his wedding! Lately, the community still seems to be distraught over the divorce after having seen the relationship blossom day by day and drama is always created to stir up trouble. Otherwise, the positivity in the man's videos will surely bring a smile to anyone's face every day.
By the day I have grown to love the channel of CTFxC more and more. CTFxC stands for "Charles Trippy Friend Core" (X doesn't stand for anything) as Charles Trippy thought his video blogs, hence the term "vlog," would only be seen by his friends. Oh but he was so wrong. Ever since he picked up the camera to fulfill a bet that he could not vlog for a year straight with Alli Speed, he never put it down. Ever since May 1st, 2009 Charles Trippy never missed a day in which he did not post a vlog in the web series he calls Internet Killed Television. Currently he is in his sixth year of filming, day 2143 to be exact, and oh what a ride it has been. I have been watching since around 2.5 years into his vlogs, so I have witnessed 3.5 years of this man's life. Charles Trippy is an inspiring man because he has been through so much but still loves life to its fullest. I have witnessed him go on tour with his failry popular band We the Kings as their bassist, gone back to see him propose to Alli Speed, marry Alli Speed (original video deleted *sad face*), be diagnosed and successfully fight through brain cancer (HE FILMED THE SURGERY), go through divorce, and been lucky enough to see him recently find love again. Trippy has earned himself the world record of most consecutive number of vlogs by the Guinness Book of World records. Charles Trippy has been through so much these past 6 years and one can truly see the man transform from day-to-day. He seems to find everything humorous and has almost a child-like nature about him which can't even be brought down by cancer. Honestly, he is one of my biggest role models and I aspire to love life the way he does. The community of people who watch these vlogs, over 1.5 million subscribers, can all agree that Charles feels more like a close friend than just a vlogger. Fun fact: Charles Trippy is good friends with Philip Defranco of the Philip Defranco Show I mentioned earlier and recently attended his wedding! Lately, the community still seems to be distraught over the divorce after having seen the relationship blossom day by day and drama is always created to stir up trouble. Otherwise, the positivity in the man's videos will surely bring a smile to anyone's face every day.