YouTube is a giant site, with millions of hours of content. Sifting through all that trash to find the diamonds in the rough, the channels that deserve more recognition, takes a lot of time that could be spent doing anything else more productive. I’ve spent hundreds of hours on the platform, without watching a single cat video. I’ve been trying to find the channels that nobody knows about, that have high production value, jokes that hit and actual effort put in. For every Jake Paul with 8 million subscribers, there’s someone in Idaho with something to say that nobody’s listening to.
Here are my top four YouTube channels that are severely underrated. When I mean underrated, I mean under a million subscribers. If Pewdiepie can pull in over 50 million subs with half-assed content, these guys deserve more.
Internet Comment Etiquette - If you’ve been watching the h3h3 podcast over the last couple of weeks, you’ve been seeing a ton of Eric from ICE. Ethan and Hila are huge fans of his work, alongside other big YouTubers like Boogie2988.
Eric’s been making videos for years, first going viral in 2008 with “Gardening On Salvia.” Since then, his videos have taken a turn for the smarter, where he teaches his students about proper internet protocol. I’ve been watching his crass but hilarious videos for the last couple of years, giggling in delight as he tears apart the comment sections of videos he comes across. From giant conglomerate VEVO music videos to some weird shit he found in the dark corners of the internet, Salvia isn’t afraid to go overboard for a crazy joke. And he also had a cameo on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia: how he does he have less than half a million subscribers?
Nerd City- This is by far the most obscure channel on my list and that’s a real disappointment. Nerd City has amazing production value, smart jokes and has commentary worth listening to. He’s dissected the problems with Tasha Mama, Prince Ea and most recently Daddyo Five. Before Philip Defranco made his infamous video outing Daddyo Five, which snowballed into the parent duo losing custody of their children for child abuse, Nerd City was collecting research for his own video. He’s only released a few videos, which is a real shame, but good content takes time to make.
Quinton Reviews- One drunken night, I stumbled on this bearded man-child ranting about The Fairly Oddparents live-action movie. His voice was soothing, the jokes were solid and best of all, he avoided ad hominem attacks against Drake Bell. Since then, I’ve been a subscriber and watched every single video in his catalog. In his recent video that covered his trip to Vidcon, he managed to encapsulate all the horror of the teen girls, the corruption of capitalism and why the YouTube community is so great. He can tend to get a bit too political (anti-SJW) at times, but those videos are easy enough to skip. Quinton’s a young kid who just broke 100,000 subscribers and it’s only going to climb.
Red Letter Media- When making this list, I didn’t even think of putting Mike and Jay on the list, until I saw they had a little over half a million subs. RLM is one of the oldest channels on YouTube that’s still around, first going viral with Mr. Plinkett’s Star Wars: Episode 1 that got shared around when I was in high school. If you want to see solid movie discussion and just watch a group of (intelligent) friends hanging out, this channel’s for you.
