The Weird World of My YouTube Algorithm

Singing coaches, adventure influencers, tiny house tours and reckless comedy from Down Under

Today I’d like to do something very different and take you on a little tour into my YouTube algorithm.

First things first though, because I have something to ask from you.

When I started this blog/newsletter some years ago, the idea was to share stuff I like with friends, colleagues, business partners and people I distantly knew.

Evolving organically over time, it has grown to now 7,250+ subscribers (10,500+ followers). It’s become part of my job as a freelance writer, it’s contributing significantly to my livelihood, and I’m grateful for that. But like anyone else, I’ve had to deal with issues of churn, market saturation and subscription fatigue.

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The Weird World of My YouTube Algorithm

As you know, I’m not a huge fan of social media, but I’ll gladly admit that I’ve become quite an avid YouTube user in recent years. Just like the next man, I like to be entertained and learn about a diverse range of topics.

I have no illusions about the power dynamics in our relationship with Big Tech, but I do strive to be mindful about the overall amount as well as the individual pieces of content I consume. That means I try to avoid certain content that I might gravitate towards, but that will have no positive impact on my mental well-being (in my case: anything related to the culture wars, global politics or the manosphere).

What’s so fascinating about YouTube – like any other algorithm-driven video platform – is how my niche interests are served up to me as a wild mix of short- and long-form videos, competing only through thumbnails and headlines, without much context or narrative thread. I guess we’ve all heard of people by now that have seen all the key scenes from a popular TV series but haven’t actually watched the show itself and have no intention of doing so. I’m not judging anyone here – I’m just finding this somewhat indicative of our strange times.

It isn’t all black and white though. It took me some effort, but I believe that I’ve managed to train “my” YouTube algorithm really well. It took a couple of restarts – whenever I’ve relapsed and fallen back into a habit of watching negative stuff that dragged me down into a rabbithole of conspiracy theories and doomsday scenarios, I just reset my account by switching off recommendations for a while.

Over the last few months, I’ve actually become quite disciplined in my behavior and consumption patterns. My YouTube homescreen currently tends to serve me some exceptionally good stuff – that’s why I got the idea for this post. Even Shorts and Recommendations have repeatedly suggested amazing new content to me that I probably wouldn’t have come across otherwise.

So let’s take a look at what I’ve actually been watching and subscribing to.

It probably won’t surprise you that my number one category is still music-related content, especially in-depth looks at music production, documentaries, video podcasts and long-form interviews with artists and other industry figures.

Some of my friends and colleagues know that I have a very specific quirk: I’m really into vocal coach reaction YouTubers. My favorites are The Charismatic Voice (which belongs to the extremely popular opera singer Elizabeth Zharoff), The Vocalyst, Beth Roars and The Fairy Voice Mother. I’m not watching these ironically – as someone who’s spent most of his life listening to either rap or instrumental music, I am learning so much from their analysis, the vocabulary they use and their massive knowledge of music theory, singing technique and human anatomy.

Other than that, I’ve been enjoying the stuff that I believe most sane music lovers would enjoy, like the odd Zane Lowe or NYT Popcast interview whenever they have an interesting guest, Drumeo challenges to learn Danny Carey’s drum parts, jazz covers of Nirvana songs, and of course, baffled reactions to Angine de Poitrine.

A big one for me is NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts series. The recent one with Armand Hammer was my favorite of this year so far. I still sometimes go back to past favorites by Caroline Polachek (2023), Willow (2024), or the Jeff Parker ETA IVtet (2025).

(A little tangent here: As a long-time fan of the International Anthem label, I’ve been following the contemporary “gorp jazz” scene in L.A., particularly two groups with overlapping members: Jeff Parker’s stellar quartet, which came together in the late 2010s jamming at the Enfield Tennis Academy club, and the brilliant free improv/groove jazz quintet SML. Both the ETA IVtet’s latest album, Happy Today, and SML’s Spontaneous Music Live remain on constant repeat, just like some of the SML members’ solo and collaboration projects outside of the group.)

The biggest music channel on YouTube is probably still Anthony Fantano’s The Needle Drop. I don’t watch it very often. He doesn’t talk about too much music that interests me, and I don’t feel I learn anything valuable from his reviews. To me, he seems like more of a follower of pop culture than an actual music lover; he tends to voice strong opinions and talk at length about the latest social media gossip, but as a critic, he doesn’t strike me as someone who has too many interesting things to say about the music itself. I could be wrong though – as I said, I haven’t engaged with much of his content in a while.

Right behind him in terms of popularity is Rick Beato. Rick’s coming from a slightly different angle, mainly because he’s older, well-versed in theory and has been part of the industry himself as a producer and songwriter in the 1990s. I do have mixed feelings about Rick as well; his persona, that blend of know-it-all record store clerk and macho guitar center snob, can really rile me up. That being said, I do follow his content because there’s at least a hypothetical chance I might learn something, and I found his obvious admiration for DOMi & JD BECK in his recent interview kind of cute.

(Another brief tangent: I just got around to checking out DOMi & JD BECK’s long-awaited second album WHO ASKED? on Blue Note. Their music is truly special, heavily influenced by 70s fusion and prog, as well as experimental hip-hop and electronic music. Most tracks on the new record feature vocal passages by the duo alongside an orchestra. I am finding the heavily processed vocals a bit hard to get used to, but the music is as complex and energetic as ever, full of surprising twists and turns, and the orchestral elements add substantially to JD’s lightning-fast, polyrhythmic drumming and DOMi’s highly idiosyncratic style on the keys.)

Outside of music, these are some other content niches that I’ve been engaging with quite strongly. Looking at my subscriptions and recommendations, I can make out a bunch of very specific content buckets that I seem to enjoy:

• skateboarding videos and interviews (I get recommended enough good stuff just because I subscribe to The Nine Club and Thrasher)

• mindfulness lectures by Alan Watts, Jack Kornfield and other famous Buddhist teachers (if you’re even just casually interested in these topics, your algorithm will flood you with tons of it, so I’m not going to link any specific channel)

• simple living, off-grid culture and self-sufficiency (I’m a long-time subscriber of Kirsten Dirksen, a video journalist who’s making films about “unconventional (and unique) homes, backyard gardens (and livestock), alternative transport, DIY, craftsmanship, and philosophies of life”; I also subscribe to Exploring Alternatives, Tiny Home Tours, Liveration and Happen Films)

• travel content with a focus on Asian megacities, mainly in China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan (I just let the algorithm serve these up for me by watching, liking and saving)

As an addition to the last bucket, I want to recommend three related channels that manage to calm me down and/or relieve my anxiety when I’m really stressed or on the verge of depression:

• Solo Travel Japan is a channel that’s showing videos by a person traveling across the country by train or boat; these films are more about the mode of transportation itself than their destinations. All videos are on mute by default.

• Alone in Japan – Letting the Day Drift By is quite similar in its effects but contains short aesthetic video portraits of single people in Japan living a slow lifestyle, without ever saying a word. (It does seem as if I’m particularly into videos where people don’t talk.)

• Zero Waste Life is not a channel but a playlist of documentaries from the Japanese public broadcaster NHK. It contains short portraits of people living a sustainable lifestyle in Japan – not as an urban hipster trend, but as a deeply philosophical decision.

In terms of YouTube personalities and influencers, I don’t subscribe to many but I’m a fan of the Polish travel vlogger Eva zu Beck. In her own channel as well as her National Geographic series Superskilled, she’s been documenting her adventures from living in a cabin in the mountains to running ultramarathons in the arctic to overlanding with her German Shepherd in the desert. I’ve been an active subscriber for some years, and watching her personal growth has been impressive.

I’m also subscribed to the channel of Roaming Wild Rosie. She’s a thru-hiker and former interior designer who moved from London to rural central Sweden four years ago to renovate an old cabin in the woods. I enjoy the fact that she talks surprisingly little in her videos, focusing instead on showing her progress with the handywork. This portrait from an Italian channel gives you a glimpse into her introverted personality (turn on subtitles).

Lastly, I will make an awkward confession: I’ve recently discovered this Australian comedy channel The O.G. Crew, and I do feel quite ambiguous about it, but there’s no way around the fact that I have spent quite some time with it.

Let me preface this by saying I used to be really into stand-up comedy, but all of my former heroes are pretty much dead to me now (yes I’m talking about you, Dave, Louis and Aziz). That’s why I haven’t really engaged much with this genre of entertainment in some years, but the O.G. Crew managed to lure me back in.

The channel spun off from a previous comedy channel called Yeah Mad. It’s built around a group of five comedians from Australia and New Zealand, and they’re engaging in all sorts of silly games and challenges. Their Aussie/Kiwi accents seem to make their jokes even funnier – especially for me as a non-native English speaker with an obvious German accent.

In terms of characters, my favorite is Abby Boom, a queer New Zealander with Lebanese roots who can be both unbearably loud and extremely funny. She’s in her mid-20s and a strong advocate for the LGBTQ+ community; she will call out racist, sexist or otherwise problematic jokes when necessary, but she’s not a killjoy – she can definitely have a good laugh at herself too.

Then there’s Alan Fang, an Asian-Australian comedian in his early 20s with a truly offbeat, dark sense of humor. He’s the wild card because his bits tend to go off the rails sometimes, but this can also lead to some hilariously surreal situations.

There’s also Akila, a young-ish man with Sri Lankan roots who exudes the sharp, sarcastic wit of a Hindu or Buddhist sage. You often get the feeling that he’s high or otherwise detached from reality – he will say nothing for ten minutes and then, completely out of the blue, drop the funniest comment you’ve heard in your life.

I believe that Sam(antha) Walsh plays more of a character than some of the others; she’s doing a bit as a stereotypically ignorant, superficial and standardly beautiful white Australian woman. As a millennial, Sammy is slightly older than Abby and Alan, who are clearly members of Gen Z. (I have no idea how old Akila is.)

Finally, there’s Andrew “Hammo” Hamilton, a big, bald and tattooed bloke with a thick Australian accent and a criminal record as an ex-drug dealer; he just turned 40 and still proudly lives with his parents. He’s apparently a toxic partner (his ex-fiancée Nikki is a frequent guest on the show), and he has no problems with cracking problematic jokes just for the LOLs. His smug, self-satisfied ‘straight white dude’ vibe really pushes my buttons sometimes, but I’m also fascinated with his character, a mix of street smarts and Peter Pan syndrome. Like the other four, he can be hilarious at times – especially his laugh is contagious.

In summary, I tend to feel sympathy for Abby and Akila. I don’t hate Sammy or Hammo, but I wouldn’t want to be friends with them either. Alan is clearly the weirdest character out the bunch – you never know what to expect with him. He’s like a time bomb, just waiting to go off.

I won’t recommend any particular episode because all episodes I’ve watched have about equal amounts of really funny and really dumb moments. To be honest, I don’t know if I even wholeheartedly recommend this channel. I’ve just spent some rainy and cold days with it and have literally laughed my ass off, but there were also many moments when I felt deeply ashamed, even outraged. These characters often reproduce racist, sexist, homo-/transphobic and otherwise problematic stereotypes. But they also bring up matters of race, sex and gender in a way that can confront the viewer with their own biases and prejudices, and that ultimately enables and encourages reflection.

If you’re looking for harmless, safe comedy that doesn’t hurt anyone, you definitely won’t enjoy this much. For anyone who, like me, came up with the dark humor of George Carlin and Larry David, they might actually be worth checking out. Be warned though – you will be offended.

That’s it for now. I’ll be keeping a relatively low profile for the rest of the summer, although there will, of course, be more Vapor Talks coming up soon. I hope you’ve found a few interesting, strange or funny recommendations in this rather unsual update from me. Thanks for reading!

Please do recommend me your favorite YouTube channels (music or otherwise) in the comments.