What would be your recommendations when it comes to YouTube channels?
For serious or in-depth reviews, I like ACG, MandaloreGaming and GmanLives.
For other kind of stuff, Civvie11 for boomer goodness and SsethTzeentach for... Well, whatever he does.
Hell yeah! I love Sseth. Just last night I was watching a couple of his vids and had to keep rewatching parts 'cause they made me bust up laughing. Also got turned onto others like InternetHistorian guy and a few others.
I'm not keen on most Youtube "influencers" since often times they seem like fakes to get where they are, such as Angry Joe being a stupid prick all those years ago to the Dorito Pope just to try and Larp being some angry "gamer" journo. The Laymen dudes and SkillUp also never got my support for their constant hot takes that felt like they try to do the opposite of whatever the popular media opinion is. I also greatly dislike most of them for hopping on board internet rage trains over the years. He guys, -insert random nerdtuber name here- here! Smash that like, sub and bell icon to get notified of my dead horse beat 'em ups over the same shit we've all heard from every other outlet about scummy industry practices that you should be outraged about.
Angry Joe fawning over Occasional Cortex(AOC for the uninitiated) and SkillUp saying on twitter some crap about people not voting for the wonder of Socialism that is Bernie Sanders being a piece of poo also turned me off. Ooooh so edgy. One of the quickest ways of getting me to tune out is to start throwing around poilitical commentary regardless of side or views. Even other channels I used to love to frequent I now rarely visit because the quality of material has decreased significantly, with most "jokes" being the usual echo chamber fodder. There are others I follow who often get early copies of niche genres I enjoy, with some making trying to make a career out of it, but even them I don't rely on others opinion on something. I'm just looking for footage and hearing somebody else's reasons for liking or disliking something.
I especially dislike reaction vids and such since they are generally super f'ing fake. I love people just passionately talking about games for fun and nostalgia. I can see why others would put stock in larger channels' opinions since few buy as many games as us hardcore gamers, and people tend to find others whose opinion matches their own. I learned quite young not to trust publications reviews and it has carried over to youtubers as well. Only guy who does this full time(from what I gather) and is still trustworthy despite my tastes being different would be ACG. Nothing wrong with people liking somebody else though. I do think there is a sort of personality cult around celebs with ecelebs not being to different, and for some people the hobby isn't so much gaming as it is justifying their spending habits through popular opinion. It seems like many just want games and companies to fail with immediate knee-jerk reactions despite knowing full well this isn't plug-n-play Kansas anymore Toto. Cyberpunk, Witcher 3 launch, Hello Game's Sean Murray and NMS, Battlefront 2 and ME: Shadow of War plus others with the Lootbox outrage, Anthem, Destiny 2, Schreier and that heavyset bloke going on about the suffrage of the proletariat.
Fortunately though its not hard to ignore and people have the right to enjoy what they want. Live and let live I say.