Just mildly curious, since there's not many quality people on the platform who don't have issues nowadays imo (Often drama/politics-related), I'm curious to see if anyone's got any recommendations for some good ones left.
Side note: I use invidio.us instances to avoid giving my data (and views) up to YT, plus its a lightweight front-end to youtube that doesn't get ads or anything like that. Would recommend it to anyone interested in those benefits.
Some of mine off the top of my head in terms of gaming that I regularly watch(ed):
SsethTzeentach - many already know about this dude, basically an old holdover memer from 4chan/8chan days who makes funny game reviews, he's an entertaining guy, though he has self-censored compared to his past self because of YT, still worth watching. He spawned a bunch of clones on YT and is probably this generation's equivalent of AVGN in that respect.
Mangs - Fire Emblem and Advance Wars (and strategy/tactics video games) youtuber, he's a pretty uncucked and funny guy. Does what he wants, shitposts and plays games, a lot of memes come from him. Was cancelled by pretty much the entire Fire Emblem community 2 years ago but still survived and stayed strong despite it.
LoreRunner - Probably autistic dude who does analyses of many different kinds of games, he's probably a mild to moderate leftist if I had to guess, but I've rarely heard him bring up politics and he's willing to justify villains in his analysis instead of being some cringy pearl-clutching guy. Seems alright to me at least.
AfreecaTV (and various other channels) - I just watch for the Starcraft 1 and 2 content, the ASLs and GSLs with Tastosis were nice; don't watch the Masters shit outside of Korea, its awful.
Used to watch Day9TV but he turned soy in the last 3 years, though if you want some great content, he had some great stuff pre-2020 (where Floyd turned even people like Day9 who never brought up politics into openly leftist ideologues). His Amnesia playthrough is still the best on YT imo, though I'd watch his stuff through a front-end like Invidio.us to not give views. He has some great playthroughs in the past and his old Starcraft 2 content is top-tier.
There's others I don't regularly "watch", but their stuff was always funny in the past if I go revisit it, like Manslay3r's gamer poop videos.
In terms of anime YTers:
Gigguk is a pretty funny guy who makes high quality videos ranging from tongue-in-cheek stuff, to recommending anime/manga, genre breakdowns, shitposts, abridged series, etc.
Joey/TheAnimeMan - More his old content, his new shit doesn't even talk about anime anymore, he's pretty pretentious and less interesting compared to Gigguk, don't expect too much but he's alright. He's a moderate leftist though, not a total pearl-clutcher since he's willing to defend controversial stuff in anime but a naive "nice guy" idiot.
Trash Taste is an alright podcast who features the above 2 youtubers, plus a guy named Connor and sometimes some big guests, they only occasionally talk about anime though so its kind of a meme now.
And various other YTers for one-offs and videos otherwise.
Some good recommendations here, adding some of my own in no particular order.
Post 10 - Wholesome channel about a guy cleaning up his community and living with nature.
The 8-bit Guy - Covers interesting and obscure tech from the 8 bit computing era.
VASAviation - Covers and animates real ATC communications and emergencies in the air.
Hardware Unboxed - GamersNexus but from down under, does good tech reporting and huge benchmark charts. Great monitor reviews on second channel.
Level1Techs - Great tech content, covers more in-depth topics regarding the server hardware/software space.
Dave's Garage - Autistic ex-Microsoft employee. Interesting stories from the heyday of MS. Good tech content including program language drag-racing.
Townsends - Covers 17-19th century cooking, construction and lifestyle. Inspired me to build my own earthen oven.
Invicta - Primarily Roman history documentaries but has occasional focus on other history subjects. Has done some responses to woke "history" articles.
Cowboy Kent Rollins - Authentic cowboy camp cook. Good recipes and just wholesome content.
MeatEater - Good hunting and fishing videos. Even demonstrates how to field dress game. No idea how this is allowed on modern YT.
Coffeezilla - Great reporting work, one of the few trustworthy sources in the Crypto/NFT space.
HowToBBQRight - Good ol' boy who will teach you some fantastic BBQ recipes.
Base Camp Chris - Typical bigfoot /scary stories channel, except he goes out into the middle of the woods at dusk to tell them. Nice atmosphere.
Bob Gymlan - Interesting bigfoot content covering less known stories. Excellent hour long doc on the Man-Eating Lions of Tsavo.
Paul Harrell - Firearms channel with many ammo type and caliber comparisons. No idea how this is allowed on modern YT.
Steve1989MREInfo - OG MRE channel. Posts infrequently but well worth a watch when he does.