When I started browsing Youtube, it was for the sole purpose of watching subtitled anime episodes. (Naruto S3E6 part 2/11 ENG SUB!) It wasn’t until a friend of mine sent me this classic KevJumba video that I even realized there was a world outside of anime on Youtube.

You know how you can find yourself tumbling down a strange rabbit-hole on Youtube where you somehow end up watching pimple popping or ASMR or old anime music videos (shout out to all of you OG folks who made AMVs) or animals falling down, etc. etc. etc.? Well that’s how my first foray into Youtube felt. I was chatting with a young Kevjumba when I discovered in the “Suggested” sidebar, back in the oooolden days, charlieissocoollike and his classic video about the new defunct “featured” Youtube video.

That was how I found myself deep in the 2007 UK Youtube scene. Next thing I knew, I was on Stickam, a video chatroom site, with UK Youtubers and fans. The time difference was weird but their accents were great and I loved learning their different perspectives. (I’m still friends with a handful of the people I met during this time on Facebook now and they’re doing really great.)

Late 2007 was a magical time on Youtube and very dangerous for me to get knee-deep in the Youtube scene. The vlogbrothers were finishing up Brotherhood 2.0. With the election coming, we had Obama Girl, Hott4Hill, LisaNova’s Sarah Palin and Alphacat’s Barack, the Phillip DeFranco Show was starting to find its stride. Smosh was at a then unthinkable million subscribers and Youtube still showed ranking by number of subscribers. I’m not going to keep namedropping Youtubers here but it was such an exciting time because it was so new. Youtube personalities were brand new and online personalities were new to me.

The Youtube landscape has changed. A lot. I don’t watch a lot of the Youtubers I used to watch, and some of them don’t make content on Youtube anymore. Many of their channels have changed significantly over the past 10 years, for better or worse.

As with My TV Habit, I’ll leave off with the Youtubers that I regularly watch. I used to watch hours and hours and hours a week when I didn’t have TV, but with my full-time job still not firing me, I don’t that much time and have to go for quality more than quantity, now more than ever. The channels that

• Vlogbrothers – I was actually unsubscribed from them for a short while because I started feeling like I was outgrowing them, but I’ve come back for John and Hank and I’m glad for it.
• Nerdwriter – Evan was honored as a 30 Under 30 this year and his video essays are beautiful, insightful, and so well-done. With every video of his that I watch, I am just a little bit of a better person. With enough of his videos under my belt, I may even become a great person.
• Casey Neistat – I’ve known about Casey’s videos for a really long time, but I only recently started watching more regularly. (Basically when the old daily vlog ended and it was less of a commitment to watch.) He is so hardworking and his hard work shows (or intentionally doesn’t) in so many of the shots that we take for granted as viewers.
• MKBHD – Marques Brownlee is my favorite tech reviewer right now, with his clear and fairly objective insights and subtle sense of humor. He’s done so much for himself in the tech space and I can’t wait to see what more is to come from him.
• NerdyAndQuirky – Sabrina got the spotlight on her when she was 15 years old and now she’s in university cranking out such high-quality video content that I’m almost scared to know what progress will look like for her. She’s funny and witty and keenly empathetic and I’m so glad the vlogbrothers helped introduce me to her.

---

What Youtube channels do you like watching?
What channels did you watch when you first started watching Youtube?
When did you start getting into it? 2007 was it for me and I never looked back. It is strange watching the annual Rewind video and recognizing a smaller percentage of the creators featured, but it’s such an exciting time to be alive, when people can make a living on Youtube.