[Poll] Favorite Go YouTubers

[moyoaji]

As the poll asks, whose go videos do you enjoy the most on YouTube?

I intend this poll both to see what kind of YouTubers/content people here on the forums like and also as a way to promote some channels that make videos. Now, I didn't know about many of these when I did my search so I can't say anything about the quality of most of these YouTubers, but I did at least skim through these channels (and dozens of others) to see if they met the criteria I laid out.

I did my best to actually get every active Go YouTuber in this poll, but I did have some criteria so the list wasn't endless. If someone didn't make it on here, and are either notable or they were close, I mentioned them below under the criteria they failed so that you know your favorite YouTuber was considered. If someone should have qualified under my criteria but did not please let me know and I can add them.

Criteria Details:

My criteria for this poll was fairly loose. To qualify the YouTuber had to have at least 15 videos about go (for this reason "Jon Hop," "PlayMoreGo," "Go AGA," and "littlelambgo" did not qualify), have go as a regular feature on their channel (at least once in every 10 videos - "baraka meek" and "Jiansen Lu" did not meet this), be active within the last 2 years (so "Weiqi master," "LGDArchive," and "Basic Go" didn't make it), and I had to be able to find them. I searched for these go specific terms and looked on the first 3 pages of each - "go game," "joseki," "fuseki," "baduk," "wei chi," "go yose," and "territory influence." ("Jonathan Markowitz" is someone who would have been in the poll if I'd found him) Also, the videos needed to be original to the user and YouTube, so this disqualified TV networks like "onbaduktv" and "EBSCulture" along with anyone who primarily reposts those videos or other's videos (I'm not going to list the YouTubers who are doing this as they are likely violating copyright).

It is not that someone is a bad YouTuber for not meeting these criteria, but I had to draw the line somewhere.

Criteria I did not consider included playing rank of the YouTuber, the language of their videos, anything about video content other than that it had to be original to the YouTuber and about go - such as quality or topic, and their subscriber/view count (although lacking views will likely hurt their chances in the poll). Also, while it may seem that way, I did not factor gender in at all - I just didn't find any female go YouTubers. Also of note: while I did not consider language for the videos that came up, it is quite possible that there are Chinese, Japanese, and Korean channels that I missed just because they didn't come up in my searches using Latin characters.

For me, this is a hard poll. I am torn between the guys from Study Group Kyu (Joshua Lee, Shawn Ray, and tokinonagare27), dwyrin, and Nick Sibicky. They all make fantastic videos. I also enjoy watching thedudda2. I am always excited whenever any of these guys puts out a new video. I find Joshua Lee's lectures to be the most challenging, Shawn Ray and Nick Sibicky seem like the most entertaining even if they are focused more on lower kyu players, tokinonagare27 and dwryin probably have the most interesting lectures content-wise, and I like thedudda2's more laid back and diverse content even if I might be a stronger player than him. But if I can only pick one...

I pick Shawn Ray. Clossius was the first YouTuber I found and I think I enjoy his videos the most out of these guys.

[Dusk Eagle]

I hadn't heard of a bunch of these guys, maybe I'll check some of them out over the Christmas break. But although you mention dwyrin/Battousai in your post, it seems you forgot to put him in the poll.

My favorite would have to be GoCommentary, as I've seen most of his stuff and it's all very good. I've definitely recommended his work to others before. HW9x9 is another good channel from the list, featuring a bunch of professional lectures and game reviews.

[moyoaji]

Whoops! Don't know how I missed that.

I added him to the poll, but it looks like that removed the couple of votes that people got in.

Hopefully that's the only one I missed.

[karaklis]

Wow, I didn't know that Andrej Dudenhefner had created a series of go videos, even though he is from my town (currently the only active tournament player of my town). It seems I will have to watch his videos first, and the videos of the other guys that I haven't watched yet (so far I have only watched a part of Bat's lectures and most of Nick Sibicky's videos).

[DrStraw]

I had no idea there was such a thing as a YouTube go video. What are they: lessons, game replays, historical?

[RapaNui]

you should also consider this one

http://www.youtube.com/user/littlelambgo

regards

[LuckyJim]

Does any of them have subtitles? English or German or French or Dutch or Italian or Spanish.
The automatic caption subtitling does not work well, and I miss too much with only sound.

[Boidhre]

I had no idea there was such a thing as a YouTube go video. What are they: lessons, game replays, historical?

All of the above plus recording of live streams of the players playing whilst thinking along. The latter are pretty good entertainment.

[Dusk Eagle]

One guy who's not on the list but I want to advertise for is Kuroneko/Meepsie. He has both a Twitch and YouTube account, which he streams/uploads to regularly. One thing about him is that he tends to get overly distracted by his Twitch chat at times. I think he could improve his channel by better compartmentalizing the social times and the lesson times. Still, he's quite fun to listen to or join in the Twitch chat with and he deserves a mention in this thread.

[moyoaji]

you should also consider this one

http://www.youtube.com/user/littlelambgo

regards

I've heard of him. However, he wouldn't quite qualify under the criteria as he only has 14 videos.

One guy who's not on the list but I want to advertise for is Kuroneko/Meepsie. He has both a Twitch and YouTube account, which he streams/uploads to regularly. One thing about him is that he tends to get overly distracted by his Twitch chat at times. I think he could improve his channel by better compartmentalizing the social times and the lesson times. Still, he's quite fun to listen to or join in the Twitch chat with and he deserves a mention in this thread.

I suppose that would fall under the "I had to be able to find them" category. He didn't come up in the first 3 pages on any of those searches.

He would qualify, but I can't add him to the poll without erasing the results...

I'll mention both of these guys under my original post.

[leichtloeslich]

My favourite attention horse?

To be fair, obviously not all of the listed people fall into that category. For example, I really enjoyed the videos of "Go Commentary".
And I can respect people like mrhaandi (Mr. Dudenhefner), since he seems to play equally strong opponents and doesn't censor his own losses (which shows a certain level of respect for his opponents).

Anyone here who played broodwar remember CombatEx? He would basically make videos of himself beating complete beginners and post them on youtube as "lectures".
He was kind of famous.

[Boidhre]

A wild baby Day9. Memories.

[moyoaji]

My favourite attention horse?
To be fair, obviously not all of the listed people fall into that category.

To be fair, blanket attacks like this are unfair. Which of these players do fall into that category, if I may ask?

I haven't seen all of these videos, I haven't even seen more than one video by most of the people listed here, but I can't really see how those videos I have seen would qualify as attention whoring. Many of them are simply posting lectures they give on the KGS or games they have played on stream. Those I've seen also don't hide the fact that they are fallible. I've seen dwyrin, Clossius, and Nick Sibicky show themselves losing games. Sometimes showing a live loss and sometimes doing analysis of their loss (and often both, if it was on a stream). I've never seen any of these guys intentionally sandbag just to make them somehow seem "greater." Even those who don't show their own games will let you know when they are wrong. In rjm's Shusaku lectures he will say straight up when a position is too complicated for him to comment on and theduddha2 sticks to things he knows - like teaching basic joseki - while being humble about the fact that he has a lot to learn and not trying to teach stuff he doesn't grasp.

Frankly, if someone is making go videos on YouTube strictly for the sake of getting attention then they suck at getting attention. Videos games like League of Legends and Starcraft would be better options if you just want to get people to notice you. If you aren't any good at those games Minecraft videos are very popular, or you could just join the dozens of people who make My Little Pony analysis videos and you can get over 1000 views easily - maybe even 10,000+ if you get featured on Equestria Daily.

If the issue is monetization and copyright then, frankly, chess videos get a lot more views. TheChessWebsite has over 80,000 subscribers and KingsCrusher - a high level amateur - has 35,000. Of all of these YouTubers dwyrin has the most subs at around 9,000, but his channel is 75% video games. The next up is GoCommentary and Nick Sibicky with closer to 3,000. It falls off sharply after that with most of these guys having 200 or less.

[Boidhre]

Eh, dwyrin has whole series where he deliberates underdeclares his rank on a server broadcasts the games of him crushing lower dans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g62rTNo ... ja&index=1

They can be good educational material but whether he's sandbagging or not is in the eye of the beholder (he's underdeclaring his rank but making no effort to keep it low, so eh?). I enjoyed these series for what it's worth.

[cyclops]

What happened to shyghost ?