Leftist Video Essays

Man, I can't overstate how much I love a good video essay. Hearing people talk at length about a subject they have deeply researched is the best. It's like reading an academic essay, except more entertaining and you don't get graded at the end! I'm very left-leaning politically and like to consume theory around that. But I get tired of the focus on critiquing, which does have it's purpose, of course, but furthers doomerism more than anything else in my opinion. So I will try to recommend mostly positive videos by the different creators here with a focus on concrete actions we can take, which is more useful and more fun!

-Benji

The big channels

I decided to categorize these channels by subscriber count. In case you have never heard of breadtube (I don't know who came up with that name lol) or seen a single video on leftist politics, this is the place to start: The really big channels with many viewers and high production value. Some of them also do media critiques, so they might come up again in another category, but here I only feature their political content.

hbomberguy

Hbomberguy is the channel that introduced me to video essays AND leftist youtube, so it definitely deserves the top spot. It is still one of my favorites and I have seen basicially all of his videos at least ten times. Next to the whole soy boy saga, the flat earth video is one of my favorites, probably because flat earthers are just really funny in and of themselves. Fun, chaotic energy and informational value all in one! I love this guy.

ContraPoints

Natalie is probably one of the most well-known trans women online and her content mainly revolves about gender and philosophy. She dismantles right-wing ideas about gender and trans people and is known for "converting" people who have fallen for right-wing ideology. One of her most famous videos is about incels and the underlying beliefs of the movement, which reportedly helped many incels realize how unhealthy these beliefs actually are. The video I have recommended here is a follow-up to an earlier video she had made about J.K. Rowling. Both videos basically chronicle the authors descend into TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) ideology and how it is associated not with radically feminist ideas, which it pretends to, but with actual neonazis. A heavy topic, but a great watch nonetheless!

Folding Ideas

Dan Olson's channel is another one of my favorites to rewatch videos from, as they are really expertly made, both on the production side (he has a degree in film) and on the contents side as well. Some of his videos could be more readily classified as documentaries because of how comprehensive they are, like for example his video on NFTs, Line Goes Up, which went viral when it came out in 2022. I've decided to feature his video on flat earthers though, mainly because it shows a very interesting cooperative side of the community, where videos from different creators build on each other. His video came out a few years after hbomberguy's and shows the ideology from a very different angle. His video is less about denbunking their ideas and more about explaining where they came from and showing how this utlimately ended in most of the community merging into QAnon. A more bleak look at the whole situation, but a great companion watch and very informative.

Philosophy Tube

This is another philosophy channel by a trans woman, but Abigail is British! Jokes aside, this channel focuses a lot more on presenting ideas by actual philosophers than ContraPoints does, so as someone with a philosophy degree I do vibe with that. She posts one video a month (insane, compared to the post rate of similar channels) and it might just be best if you go through her catalogue and see if you can find something that interests you, but I really liked this video on effective altruism and its trappings. One video of hers that really touched me personally is about men and mental health (she published this one before she came out as trans). In it she talks about her struggles with a past abusive relationship and her suicide attempts, so it might be triggering for some people, but it really resonated with me and I'm glad she didn't delete this or her other videos after she came out.

Innuendo Studios

This channel is most prominently known for it's series "The Alt-Right Playbook", a great series of shorter videos on rhetorical tactics used by the Alt-Right, mainly on social media but also in larger political contexts. It is very informative and a great resource if you move in political circles online and/or want to be able to hold your own in a discussion with someone who doesn't play fair. I recommend the whole series but this video in particular, as it consolidates several points from the series into a larger video on how people, especially young men, get recruited by nazis online.

Shaun

Shaun is considered one of the main breadtube channels as well. His videos are more on the informative side, even though his dry humour does come through at times. I watch this channel less than the others I have featured here, but I would still recommend his content, especially if you are also interested in history. The video I have featured here is quite a long one and goes into detail dismanteling the arguments of a book called "The Bell Curve" which right-wingers like to quote. But in case you want something a bit more relevant, he also has a great video on the political history of Palestine you might enjoy.

The smaller channels

Here are some mid-sized channels (less than a million subscribers) that you might have heard of already if you're into leftist content. But maybe you can find someone who is new to you here, anyway!

F.D Signifier

The dad of breadtube makes great content about Black conservatives, the Manosphere, Hip Hop and more. His audience is (as far as I know) predominantly white, so that is the demographic he mainly caters to. If you're not white you might find some of the things he talks about obvious, but since I'm a white guy I feel like I gain a lot from hearing his perspective on for example police violence, as I feel like people are experts on their own lived experience.

Lily Alexandre

Another trans woman who makes video essays! This time from Canada! She talks mostly about gender again, mainly about ideas that are disputed within the trans community itself, and all of her videos are very insightful. The video I have linked here is more poetic than political, but it really spoke to me and I would love it if you checked it out, since it is only 15 minutes long!

Andrewism

Andrewism has quickly become one of my favorite lefttube channels, simply because it features constructive ideas how to change the future for the better, namely under the label of solarpunk. Solarpunk was originally a scifi literature genre but more and more people seem to embrace it as an actual political goal to work towards. It is a strictly anti-capitalist movement in the sense that it posits that climate change cannot be stopped under capitalism and that most people cannot thrive under this system. This channel poses anarchism as a viable alternative for capitalism, so it is more radically left-wing than some of the other channels here. If you want to find out more about the creator's political views and see if you agree with them, you can check out this video he made about how an anarchist society might work. But the video about libraries is a great watch either way, which is why I recommend to watch it first.

Mia Mulder

Another trans woman, this time from Sweden. She makes content about gender as well but also about other topics, like this one about psychiatry and how it can harm people due to the lack of understanding we still have of mental illnesses. She also often has a historical focus in her videos, since she studied history at university. She's also active in her local political scene, which is pretty cool! Love to see some praxis.

Knowing Better

This channel is very interesting to me mainly because the creator probably wouldn't call himself left-wing at all. He is an educator and was in the military, growing up very conservative and basically only became more politically liberal because of the research he did into US history and the different ways in which systems are discriminatory. So just by noticing the realities around him and digging deeper into their (historical) origins, he formed a more left-leaning political opinion, which I find fascinating and also very validating. His videos mainly cover the history of the USA, this one going into detail about how reservations were used as legal cover to basically steal 99% of the land from Native American tribes. It is pretty bleak, like many of his videos are, but they are valuable history lessons, especially if you're from America, since (as he claims) most of this is glossed over or sugarcoated in schools.

Sophie from Mars

Another trans woman from the UK (why do so many of them make video essays on youtube, I wonder?) who talks about political stuff, but this time in a more positive way (mostly). I especially like this video about doomerism towards climate change, which recommended to me a book I subsequently bought and enjoyed a lot, "The Mushroom at the End of the World" by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. She hasn't posted in a while and while looking her up for this I found out that several people made abuse allegations against her, which is apparently why she stopped making videos. I don't know if I should recommend her channel now, after finding out about this, but some of her videos still mean a lot to me. So it's probably best if you decide for yourself whether you want to seperate the art from the artist in this case or if that's something you don't feel comfortable with.

The really small channels

Channels with less than 100.000 subscribers. Go show them some love, especially since all of them make high-quality content that deserves a much larger audience!

The Leftist Cooks

This is a relatively young channel run by an Irish couple and their videos have quickly become some of my favorites. The gimmick used to be that Neil (one of the hosts) would cook something during the runtime of the essay, which explains the name. These days both are in front of the camera and even though they collaborate on the essay, both share their perspectives independantly from each other, which makes for a very interesting dynamic and keeps the essays more varied in terms of their outlook. The video I have linked here is the one that got to me the most, especially the ending, because it is is very emotionally raw and also cuts deep for me personally. I have been a vegetarian for most of my life but never managed to go vegan, which definitely is the morally better choice, and this video argues that well. If you are interested in something a bit lighter, they have also made a video about their polyamorous relationship and how it works.

Tirrrb

Just like The Leftist Cooks, this channel is only a few years old and is actually how I found them in the first place, since they are friends. This video is the second video Tirrrb ever made for the channel and the title is already a banger. Very provocative, and the video itself doesn't disappoint. It's about how corporations use directed media outrage to cover up horrible business practices, in this case by the cocoa industry. Even though it gets pretty heavy, Tirrrb manages to still joke around and entertain, which is pretty impressive and speaks for his other videos as well. He also doesn't pull any punches when it comes to criticizing white people, which is something we can definitely use to hear from time to time, I feel like. This is another one of my favorites from this list, so definitely check him out!

Dr. Fatima

This channel features another very unique perspective, since the creator has a degree in physics and uses her knowledge in this field to talk about cool concepts like aliens or black holes and then connects them to systemic issues. It's very interesting if you (like me) find certain physical phenomena fascinating but have no actual knowledge about the topic that extends beyond what you learned in 8th grade. I also want to recommend this video which is again a positive and practical look at political change that you as a person could actually participate in, which I love of course.

AnRel

The name of this channel is short for Anarchic Relationships and that's what it's all about. The creator hasn't made too many videos yet, but the concepts she does talk about I hadn't heard about before and I think they are very interesting. In this video she gives a blueprint for how people could structure a relationship if they wanted to remove as many hierarchies from it as possible, which I love because it is concrete and practical. She does talk very fast in these videos, though, so it can sometimes be a bit difficult to follow her (but that's ADHD for you, I guess).

Huntress X Thompson

This is a very small channel that unfortunately hasn't posted anything for a while now, but I still very much enjoy the videos that they have made. The creator uses media analysis to demonstrate political points, which works quite well in my opinion. The video I have linked here is my favorite one of hers and explains how Dwarf Fortress simulates anarcho-communism through its systems, (seemingly) by accident. It's a great watch and sparked my interest in the game as well!

Colormind

Another very small channel by a very likeable guy who talks mainly about toxic masculinity, but again in a more productive sense, meaning he discusses how men can express their masculinity in a healthier way. I like this stuff as it is something I think about a lot, because I know I am in a privileged position but knowing where the problems are doesn't necessarily help with doing something about it. So yay for helping men to put some feminist ideas into praxis!

Meeka le Fay

This is a channel by history graduate and even though I am not as much into history as some of my friends I do enjoy her videos quite a lot. She talks about some very unique topics and always makes them relevant to our times, which is what history is all about after all. Very cool stuff!