Since Lockdown fully kicked in, I’ve found myself often scrolling about the internet looking for something, anything, to make me use my brain a bit. I can practically feel my unused brain cells dying off sometimes, so here’s my solution for when you need to watch something that actually lets you use your brain a bit!
i-D
I like this channel because it’s very people based, it’s more so about individual people that you may not have heard about before, rather than events or history. Subjects like cultural appropriation, fatphobia and what it’s like to be a teen in various places across the world and all covered in a really fun, and interesting way. It covers a lot of modern cultures involved in fashion, music and culture in a way I’ve not seen from anywhere else, and I really enjoy most of their content.
Vox
Vox is great because their videos are usually fairly bit sized, about a huge array of different things. A fair bit of it is ‘useless’ information, like how fonts came to look like they do or things about astronauts, but just because it doesn’t have a direct reason to know it, doesn’t mean it’s not hugely interesting. At the minute, you have to do a bit of a deep dive to get past all their informational videos about Corona (unless you’re into that), but their usual content is brilliant.
Vice
I really love vice at the minute, I think they’re connected to i-D, but it’s quite different content! Lately I’ve enjoyed their short documentaries about everything from forgotten hippie communes, to feminist street artists in New York, so I’m pretty convinced they have something for everyone, and it’s all super well made. They’re also one of the few channels that really venture into drug culture, the good and bad parts of drugs and all the sort of stuff, which I think is both super interesting and important.
So there you have it, they’re the YouTube channels I’m using to make myself use my brain a little and maybe even learn a thing or two during this lockdown! If you have any recommendations I’d love for you to leave them in the comments! Are you learning anything new during lockdown?
-Dana
Carry on Beautiful! 