Get a free story when you subscribe

Author, Editor, Media Tie-In Writer

Nine Gentle YouTube Channels

Things are not fine in 2020. We know it. There are a lot of things to worry about. There is also a distinct need to be able to disconnect or distract from our problems. One of the ways I do that is having a series of YouTube channels to watch. I’ve listen nine of them below that are what I consider to be “gentle.” They are happy, have little in the way of stress, and are interesting.

Cute Animals

MilkyBokiTan – This is a channel about a Samoyed dog (Milky), a Norwegian Forest cat (Goboki), and a recent adopted orange rescue cat (Tan). It is super cute. The owners adore their pets. In fact, at this point, it appears their job is taking care of the pets and giving them interesting enrichment. This channel posts almost every day. English subtitled.

ChooChoo’s Story – This is a quiet channel about a woman who has semi-tamed a colony of chipmunks around her house by a lake. She feeds them, pets them, and keeps you up-to-date on their lives. It’s super cute. This channel posts a couple times a week. English subtitled.

Walter Santi – This channel is about a colony of cats in a guy’s backyard in Bulgaria (I believe). This is the closest I’ve ever seen to a living Court of Cats in the real world. Every cat has a name and a personality. They feed the cats, make up stories about them, and build shelters for them. The most persistent sounds are the cats and the guy laughing. He also has two indoor cats and a dog. This channel posts about about once a week or so. English subtitled.

 

Got Skills

LockPickingLawyer – This channel is about what it is named: a lawyer who is a champion lockpicker. I watch this dude because he’s fast, has a nice voice, and his videos are short. The writer in me loves this. So does Fantasy Jenn. You don’t see his face. And you won’t have faith in locks after this. Updates several times a week.

Gardeners Cottage Blakeney – Set in the UK, this is a new channel for me. This channel visits seaside cottages, English flower and vegetable gardens, and other such pleasant places. Updates several times a week, the host has a nice, quiet English voice, and shows the viewer just places of beauty and interest.

Renovation East – Set in Germany, this is one of those channels that blew up overnight. It is about a guy buying and renovating a house next to his by the lake. He’s not a professional renovator, but he’s pretty good. He explains what he’s doing, why, and where he makes mistakes. It’s a once-a-week channel and is weirdly interesting and soothing to watch.

 

Knowledge and Information

The British Museum – The official channel for the British Museum. It posts about once a week about something intriguing found in the museum. It’s random. It’s interesting. It’s informative. The video lengths vary. Bonus, British voices which I find soothing.

The B1M – This is the “definitive” channel for construction all over the world. It has a regular weekly post on some topic involving construction. This is one of those really neat channels that inspires my writer brain. Especially for near future stories. There’s so much that’s really interesting about how skylines are constructed and the technology involved.

Launch Pad Astronomy – Science for the win! This channel is run by one of the two main professors for the Launch Pad Astronomy for writers workshop. Christian puts out 2-3 videos a month about something in-depth about astronomy, telescopes, NASA, or the like. Super interesting and informative. Bonus because I know Christian personally.

 

These are not all the video channels I watch. There’s a lot more on PokemonGO, animal rescue, DYI channels, tiny houses, minimalism, and a variety of vloggers. These were the ones I chose because they soothed me. 

As a bonus, I’m going to leave you with my Slow TV Playlist. This is a YouTube playlist of train rides (driver’s view), snowfall, the ocean shore, a campfire at night, and a birdfeeder. This is the kind of thing I like to put on in the background for ambient noise and pretty moving pictures. You don’t have to pay a lot of attention to it. It’s more to keep you company than anything else.

 

I hope you’ve found something gentle and soothing for you to enjoy in this list.

2 Responses

  1. Lockpicking Lawyer's face is visible in >1< of his over 1000 videos. Due to a particularly shiny lock. After that he picked shiny locks with a mask on.

    A couple for your consideration:
    Gold Shaw Farm: About a married couple that decided to pack up and move to Vermont and start a permaculture farm raising waterfowl. More interesting than it sounds. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjl3zDun9SazYI0UWWu6_1A

    HoofGP: An Educational channel about trimming cows' hooves on the southwest coast of Scotland. Fairly relaxing, Graham clearly cares for the cows he tends, and picks good music for his videos. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo4S-ThBT3KDDHAMvKw2SQg

    Project Farm: A channel where a farmer tries to determine what tools, consumables, gear, and equipment is best from a variety of things he has picked up to test. I particularly found his "AA batteries" and "Eye protection" videos to be useful. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2rzsm1Qi6N1X-wuOg_p0Ng

  2. I watch Gold Shaw Farm but didn't include it because of what happened to Lil Cat and to Margie the Murder Chicken. I'll check out the other two channels.

Meet Jennifer Brozek

Jennifer Brozek is a multi-talented, award-winning author, editor, and media tie-in writer. She is the author of Never Let Me Sleep and The Last Days of Salton Academy, both of which were nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. Her YA tie-in novels, BattleTech: The Nellus Academy Incident and Shadowrun: Auditions, have both won Scribe Awards. Her editing work has earned her nominations for the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Hugo Award. She won the Australian Shadows Award for the Grants Pass anthology, co-edited with Amanda Pillar. Jennifer’s short form work has appeared in Apex Publications, Uncanny Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and in anthologies set in the worlds of Valdemar, Shadowrun, V-Wars, Masters of Orion, Well World, and Predator.

Jennifer has been a full-time freelance author and editor for over seventeen years, and she has never been happier. She keeps a tight schedule on her writing and editing projects and somehow manages to find time to teach writing classes and volunteer for several professional writing organizations such as SFWA, HWA, and IAMTW. She shares her husband, Jeff, with several cats and often uses him as a sounding board for her story ideas. Visit Jennifer’s worlds at jenniferbrozek.com or her social media accounts on LinkTree.

Browse the archives

You may also like...

It’s my pleasure to announce the official Table of Contents for the Coins of Chaos anthology: Silver and Copper, Iron and Ash by Nathaniel LeeThe Price of Serenity by Kelly SwailsVinegar Pie by Andrew Penn RomineThe Fall of Jolly Tannum by Brandie TarvinSpendthrift by Jay LakeIncubus Nickel by Erik Scott de BieIn His Name by Martin LivingsLies of the Flesh by Nate CrowderTrain Yard Blues by Seanan McGuireSkull of Snakes by Glenn RolfeSearching for a Hero by Dylan BirtoloSomething in the Blood by Kelly LagorThe Value of a Year of Tears and Sorrow by Jason AndrewDefinitely Dvořák by Mae EmpsonJustice in Five Cents by Richard DanskyTithes by Peter M. BallWith One Coin for Fee: An Invocation of Sorts by Gary A. Braunbeck Cover art: Amber ClarkInterior art: John Ward Publisher: EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy PublishingPub date: Oct 2013

scroll-horizontal

From now until I decide I want to stop doing this, I will be giving out a monthly “Jennifer Award” for the best new-to-me thing I read that month. This can be fiction or non-fiction. It can be an essay/article, a short story, a novelette, a novella, or a novel. It doesn’t matter when it came out. It only matters that this is the first time I read it and I thought it was the best thing I read all month. Yes, it is completely subjective and biased towards what I like to read. The winner will receive a shiny digital badge and a $5 gift card. February’s winner of the Jennifer Award is “When We Fall” by Kameron Hurley. Technically, I heard it first on the Escape Pod podcast, episode 611. But, I’ve gone back to read and reread passages from it throughout the month. It really is a...

scroll-horizontal