One thing I don’t mention a lot (partly because I think it’s something a majority of western civilization does nowadays) is my YouTube use. I use it to get lots of updates on gaming news, theory crafting, funny videos by particular channels, and so on. (Interestingly enough, I don’t have a channel I just go to to watch when I have a free ten minute time slot. That’s kind of annoying, but whatever.)

I’d say of all of the channels I’m subscribed to, my favorite is VSauce. It’s a science channel that talks about interesting things and answers weird questions like “What would happen if you shot a gun in space?” or “How much does a shadow weigh?” or “Why are things creepy?” Michael Stevens, the host of the channel, makes the content really entertaining and (relatively) easy to grasp, and some of the coolest pieces of useless information I know are from watching his videos.

At this point, I’ve watched pretty much all of his videos, and several multiple times (when showing other people). He sidetracks a lot, but never in a boring direction. In fact, he sidetracks because there’s another interesting tidbit that isn’t quite related to the main idea. In his video about Earth’s movement, for example, he’ll talk about the difference between sidereal, tropical, and synodic days and years, then talk about the first clocks and how they worked, and then go on to explain how flawed our calendar system is. In every one of his videos he references lots of studies done or websites that include relevant information, so any time he talks about something you want to learn more about, you can rest easy that there is probably a link in that video that takes you right to where he got his information.

Ironically, the biggest frustration I have with his channel is that the videos are too informative. There’s so much stuff he talks about in every one of his videos I have an incredibly hard time remembering the things he talked about. Most of his videos have a question for the title, and it’s frustrating knowing I’ve seen that video and being able to remember the answer to that question! (On the plus side, it means I can watch that video and watch it all over again, I suppose.)

I think the biggest reason why I enjoy his channel over other science videos is because in a way, I feel like he thinks much the same way I do. When I’m watching other science related channels, I often feel like I’m either watching news as to “What happened in X study” or watching an educational video about “How Z process works”. Funny enough, the stuff I learn watching VSauce feels like it’s made more for entertainment than anything else. Obviously pretty much anything on YouTube is meant to entertain, but VSauce feels more genuine in this particular ‘genre’ of videos.

If you’re at all interesting in learning about things, be it space, math, physics, history, etc., VSauce is the first YouTube channel I would recommend. It’s always a lot of fun, and though new videos have always had months in between them, they’re always choc full of content that requires digesting!