5 Super-Niche YouTube Channels we Can’t Stop Watching
While many YouTubers try their hardest to appeal to the widest audience possible, the real trick is to narrow the focus.
You can’t be all things to all people, but you can be one ultra-specific thing that makes people wonder how they lived their lives before seeing an alien review movies or a chef make miniature versions of food.
BossLevel8
Movie reviews are popular on YouTube. And quite frankly, they are all pretty much the same with nothing really new to offer. What makes BossLevel8 unique is that they don’t review movies. They review movie reviews. On their series Critique the Critics, host Teq reads terrible and often bizarre movie reviews from critics who say the dumbest things. It ranges from reviewers who hyperbolize the good and the bad of a film to those who go too far to make lame puns out of movie titles to one critic who went on a long-winded rant comparing Hellboy’s head to rice cakes. I imagine he thought he was being super clever.
The idea behind the show is to point out how people shouldn’t take movie reviews so seriously. Critics can be idiots, too. The commentary is interesting, sometimes thought-provoking and always hilarious!
Currently, the format of the show is completely improvised. Teq doesn’t even see the movie reviews he discusses until the camera turns on. All the prep work is done by his partner in crime, Cojac. Originally, however, Critique the Critics was structured much differently. It was scripted, there were sketches, and they even gave out awards to good movie reviews. This complete change in format is why we love BossLevel8’s videos. They don’t get locked down into one style and stick with it forever. They are willing to change and innovate on a dime, so their videos always feel fresh.
Wisecrack
If movie reviews don’t do it for you, maybe you’d be interested in learning about the deeper meaning of popular films — as told by an alien. Wisecrack’s show, Earthling Cinema, is something quite unique. It starts with an extraterrestrial named Garyx Wormuloid hilariously and often incorrectly recapping a movie like “Frozen” or “The Matrix” before going deeper down the rabbit hole of the hidden themes and motifs that each film presents
Earthling Cinema is not the only series on Wisecrack’s channel. They also have amazing shows like Thug Notes, where you can learn about classic literature from the host, gangster Sparky Sweets, Ph.D.; 8-Bit Philosophy, which teaches philosophical concepts through the medium of video games; and their newest show, Wisecrack Edition, which tackles more philosophy hidden throughout TV, movies and pop culture. Wisecrack does an outstanding job presenting otherwise complex concepts in a way that’s funny, entertaining and accessible. This is what makes Wisecrack stand out. It’s a concept called tangential learning. If you present a normally unapproachable topic like philosophy in a context that people enjoy — like movies, games or comedy — you can get your audience to learn while they have fun.
Strip Panel Naked
With comic book movies popping up left and right, YouTube has seen a growth in channels willing to explain superheroes and villains to a casual audience. However, there’s one amazing channel that isn’t focussing on the movies, but rather the comics themselves. Strip Panel Naked is a series that takes a look at the tiny details that artists and writers put into the comic book medium. It explores what makes comics great at storytelling and showcases best practices from great comics creators.
Strip Panel Naked does a lot of things right. The host is engaging, informed and really makes the viewer not only notice little details, but also care about them. The videos help demonstrate that comic books are a unique art form. They’re complex and intricate. Every panel of a story is a deliberate choice in how it’s laid out, the colors that are used, the dialogue — or lack thereof — and more.
We guarantee you’ll walk away from his videos looking at comics differently. That’s why SPN is great. It’s so simple, but focussing on the smallest details of one piece of art can change how you see the entire art form.
Bistro Miniature
No doubt there are plenty of cooking channels on YouTube. Anyone can teach you how to bake a cake, but Bistro Miniature is a channel that makes food as small as their niche. They have a little kitchen where they make even smaller dishes. You can watch them artfully make miniature versions of roast beef, donuts, pizza and all manner of other tiny delicacies!
It’s weirdly beautiful and relaxing to see tiny scraps of food turned into delectable meals fit for a mouse.
What makes Bistro Miniature stand out is how they took a super saturated field like “cooking channel” and just added one little twist to change it into something new and interesting.
Hydraulic Press Channel
Take a random assortment of items, a couple of funny weirdos and one powerful hydraulic press. What results is nothing short of wonderful! The Hydraulic Press Channel is exactly this, and it’s glorious! In every video, this Finish couple takes their hydraulic press and destroys anything and everything you can think of. Bowling balls? Smashed. Lightbulbs? Shattered. Diamonds? Crushed. Is there nothing this press can’t do?
What makes this channel awesome isn’t strictly how cool it is watching things being destroyed. The couple behind the camera is super entertaining. You can tell how much fun they are having in each video with their constant giggling and joking around. And the whole thing is shot simply, almost like a vlog that just so happens to involve a massive piece of machinery. At the end of each video, the two smash a silly clay animal which they claim is “extremely dangerous.” Their videos are incredibly fun.
These amazing channels have found their audiences not by making content in the popular genres, but by creating videos that are so specific — and often strange — that you can’t stop watching.
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