Right then… Welcome to 2025 here on The ADog Blog! It may be a new year but I’m in the middle of a season focusing on my tastes as an autistic person. And the next item on this particular agenda is YouTube. We all know what the platform is and no doubt use it for a wide variety of purposes. Me? I use it to listen to music, binge mainstream TV shows that have published their back catalogue of content there, watch clips of what I grew up watching on TV in between those programmes and, in today’s post, watch content published by YouTubers. Today, and in the next post in two weeks’ time, I’m going to talk about those that I like and those that I hate and explain why so.
Before I do, I think I need to explain who qualifies as a YouTuber in my head and is therefore eligible to be talked about in this post. A YouTuber, as far as I’m concerned, is an individual or small group of people that publishes original, usually long-form content on the platform on a frequent basis. That first part therefore excludes existing corporations who just so happen to have a YouTube Channel, such as any mainstream newspaper or rolling news channel. As well as T-Series, the music conglomerate that overtook PewDiePie since, to me, it is just a platform within a platform hosting a huge catalogue of India’s newest music. Whether or not that music is any good I’ll let Indians decide themselves. I’d also argue any artist with a music note next to their name is part of this list too since all those channels are doing is publishing the works they have created over the years in whatever P the industry is able to stretch audio quality to. As well as song remixes, variations and live performances for our viewing pleasure.
However, exempt from this part of the definition are, for example, The Theorist Channels who may have a company structure behind them, but are still four individual channels hosted by four individual hosts (at least since MatPat called it quits) publishing original content on a semi-weekly basis. I’d also include anyone who is the face of a Channel but seeks out others for assistance in things like editing, researching, writing, voiceovers, etc, which is fine since you’re not always going to be good at everything this job entails and technically covers the ‘small group of people’ wording. Examples will be provided as soon as I start talking about my favourite channels.
Before that, all Channels I’ll be highlighting publish content that usually they’ve written, researched and edited by themselves or with some help. VHS Archive Channels (which have their own self-contained post waiting in the wings on The Analytical Aspie) do not. Apart from the processes of digitising, adding in a Watermark, and maybe trying to reconstruct bits and pieces damaged by attic mould, these Channels are simply goldmines of TV and News from years gone by. You never know what you might rediscover or find original copies of day-to-day! I’ll be assessing some of the issues they wrestle with on a regular basis on the aforementioned sister section in March.
Finally, the term frequent basis is basically ‘How long is a piece of string?’. But, again, to use VHS Archive Channels as a comparison, they basically upload content as they find tapes and do whatever they need to do to get them onto YouTube safe and sound using their free time. Proper YouTubers, however, do it full time because it’s their main source of income. Schedules vary greatly from creator to creator and while most try to discipline themselves and stick to a set schedule, from my experience as a viewer, it’s a case of content becomes available when the creator has finished that video and pressed ‘Publish’. Especially when real life gets in the way.
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