NOTE: the featured image for this post is AI-generated
It is ‘Creator Appreciation’ week in #Blaugust (link to my participation announcement) and so I thought it would be good for me to reflect upon a few of the folks I turn to for education, inspiration, and entertainment.
I’m going to focus on two broad categories: people who create Youtube videos, and people who make web comics. I’m only noting the ones that are at the top of my mind in this particular moment: there are many, many others that I regularly enjoy, and my thanks go out to all of them.
Youtube
When I go to Youtube it is most often to learn something new in an entertaining format. This obviously impacts the kinds of creators I gravitate towards, and my subscription list is both long and pretty eclectic.
Simon Whistler (multiple channels)
Simon Whistler is an absolute beast in terms of Youtube content creation. I know he has a whole team behind him now of writers and editors, but still: Simon must be in the studio recording and preparing a lot. Many of his channels update daily…
Most of his content is fact-filled and delivered in a thought-provoking way. Some of the details are imperfect, but for the most part what Simon presents is accurate and interesting. A couple of his channels are more free-form: Brain Blaze in particular is pretty random and wandering at times.
Some of his channels that I subscribe to include:
- Megaprojects: accounts of large… well, mega… engineering projects
- Astrographics: stories of current astronomical news
- Brain Blaze: a side-commentary filled reading of topics from Simon’s writers that he presents while reading them for the very first time
- Today I found out: ‘surprising’ facts both historical and current
Falcon (Gameranx)
Falcon is a presenter on the Gameranx video gaming channel. He is also a falcon: well, I assume he is a human, but his persona is that of a gaming bird.
Falcon’s gaming tastes, or at least the kinds of games he presents on, diverge a lot from my preferences. For example, he seems to be a huge Souls-like stan, which I definitely am not.
It is perhaps telling that, despite presenting games that often don’t appeal to me, I still watch pretty much every video he produces.
I can’t really link to ‘just’ Falcon’s content, but many of the videos in the Gameranx channel are presented by him.
Here is a recent example=> 10 Great Games You’d Be EMBARRASSED to Play Around Non-Gamers
Web comics
The web comics I like the most are rather geeky. They are also produced by people who seem to have many different talents, which probably explains why I keep coming back to them.
Zach Weinersmith (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC) is a daily serving of science, philosophy, geekery, and outright mad humour. Zach and his wife also produce some really interesting books that blend somewhat ‘difficult’ topics with comedy in a way that I’ve enjoyed a great deal.
The comic can be found at the link above. Links to a few of his books, including a couple he collaborated on with his wife Kelly Weinersmith, follow. I recommend getting hard copy versions since most of his work is illustrated.
- Science: Ruining everything since 1543
- Religion: Ruining Everything Since 4004 B.C.
- Soonish
- A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through?
Randall Munroe (XKCD)
Randall Monroe is a math geek, an engineer who worked on robotics at NASA, and most importantly a guy who draws a stick-figure web comic about science and math.
I’ve been following his work on XKCD for many years and, although somedays his science and mathematics humour flies completely over my head, I consistently enjoy what he creates. Some of his comics are famously interactive, in a few cases in very complex ways: be aware that on such days it pays to have a modern browser.
Randall also has produced some ‘deeper’ long form science and engineering humour including his ‘What If?’ series. This kind of work ultimately became several books. I have greatly enjoyed these bigger endeavours: Randall’s light hearted and comical way of approaching sometimes extremely complex topics really appeals to me.
The books of his that I’ve enjoyed: