As a result of being stuck inside for four months straight, I’ve naturally spent a lot of time on YouTube, and while scrolling through reality TV clips and YouTube drama videos, I’ve discovered some real gems.
I’ve found many channels with smaller communities and hyper-specialized content that are presented in an aesthetically beautiful way. With these channels, you can walk through city streets without leaving your bed, be a fly on the wall during the curation stage of a museum, or learn about strange artist’s ideologies that you may want to implement yourself.
Here are five YouTube channels worth taking a look at:
1.一条Yit
一条Yit is a lifestyle video channel based in China. The channel posts daily human interest stories focusing on innovations created by artistic individuals in China and other East Asian countries. One of their most outstanding videos titled, “7 Girlfriends in Guangzhou Build a House to Live Together”, shows the 4 million-dollar home built in the green suburbs of Guangzhou, Hong Kong.
2. The Art Assignment
The Art Assignment is a channel produced by PBS and hosted by curator Sarah Urist Green, curator of contemporary art for the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The videos center on art history and introduce viewers on new ways to express themselves artistically.
Their Art Cooking series is a particularly fascinating series of tutorials that explain how to recreate the favorite dishes of some of the world’s most famous artists, while also exploring how these recipes are all the more complex by their artist’s personal histories.
In one video, Urist Green takes a recipe from Salvador Dali’s, Diners de Gala, where readers are instructed to create a tower of crawfish with some odd instructions.
3. Nowness
Nowness is a channel that screens the best of global art and culture with beautiful cinematography. They have many series on their channel including the series titled” My Place”. This is a series where celebrities give a tour of their home and explain the significance of all the little knick-knacks and spaces in it. It’s interesting to see people how much intention goes into the making and curation of their homes.
4. Kennie JD
Kennie JD is a makeup, movie, and K-beauty lover. Her content includes storytimes and personal story videos that double as advice for viewers and makeup hauls and reviews. In her “Bad Movies and a Beat” series, Kennie reviews movies that are generally considered low quality while putting her makeup on. What sets her apart from other YouTube channels that review films is that they couple deep film analysis with humor.
5. Amandamaryanna
Amandamaryanna’s channel consists of a variety of New York college life vlogs, beauty and style videos, and culture videos. The videos centered on cultural criticism and exploration are particularly interesting.
Other videos that are interesting include the ones that explore the social media subcultures cottagecore and dark academia. Rather than producing video essays on the subcultures in the distant past, her videos focus on the cultural influences on Generation Z, such as the internet media’s effect on her generation and the rise of book-to-movie adaptations.
It’s refreshing to see someone that treats modern-day culture with the same fascination as historians treat the past.
Reflect & Refresh 