YouTube — part of me since '08

Pokémon (’08–’16)

Back when I lived in the States as a kid, YouTube basically meant Pokémon and whatever else was on. There were a ton of Nat Geo videos in the mix too, which kicked off the usual kid obsession with space and dinosaurs. The Pokémon habit was the special one, though — it fed straight into my gaming addiction. That’s a bigger write-up.

Science stuff

Veritasium, Kurzgesagt, NileRed, Bill Nye, 3Blue1Brown, Numberphile — to name a few.

Dude Perfect and F2Freestylers (’17–’18)

This was around the time sports crept in. The trigger was De Bruyne against Leicester City (Dec 10 — look it up). I caught him against PSG in the UCL quarter-finals too, and somewhere in there the odd City match turned into a habit. He made a hardcore KDB fan out of me, and I’ve followed City ever since — though these days it’s highlights, not full games. Dude Perfect was just a random lunch companion; the OG vids were fun. F2Freestylers was my doomed attempt at actually learning football… didn’t really take. (I heard they split up?)

Somewhere around here I swore off YouTube to go prep for some tests — and promptly wasted even more time on a pile of shows instead :) More on that another time…

University days

Uni shrank YouTube down to two jobs: stupid lecture videos (I hadn’t attended a single one all semester) and background noise over lunch and dinner. Life was busier and more social — more friends than screen, at least until Instagram took over for a bit. Honestly I barely remember watching much back then, apart from some Markiplier and the odd horror game — which is exactly where I ran into my current go-to.

Insym

The best horror-game streamer, hands down. Phasmophobia is his bread and butter, but he digs into loads of indie games and gives smaller creators a signal boost. Talented, genuinely funny, always a good time — and it only gets better with the entourage, the famous Terrible Trio: him plus CJ and Psycho. I’m well past a hundred of his videos by now (probably more), still following, and he streams basically every day. Fun fact: he’s a CS major, so every now and then he’ll break down the odds and the RNG behind a game… cool guy.

Lately I’ve also been on Family Friendly (a more Gen-Z Impractical Jokers) and Mikey & Wyatt — plus each of the actors’ own channels.