Top 5 YouTube Channels to Binge While Socially Distanced

While many of us are stuck at home, trying to stay safe in the era of COVID-19/Coronavirus we need entertainment more than ever. For many, the first choice will be Netflix or Disney Plus or perhaps Amazon or Hulu. Many might not think of YouTube as a place where there is binge-able content. In actuality, there are plenty of channels with content that is easy to consume in a binge fashion. This list provides 5 such channels with binge-able content.

1. Movie Nights - Host Allison Pregler has become one of the most wonderfully silly hosts on YouTube. Her channel, Movie Nights, holds multiple shows and podcasts, all variations on Allison's slightly left of center humor and insight. My personal favorite is Baywatching wherein Allison is in the process of reviewing and mocking every episode of the legendary beach series using silly voices and her own personal head canon for the show. It's completely hysterical and with episodes that last between 8 and 12 minutes, it's one of the best binges on YouTube.

But that's not all of Allison's content. Lately, she's taken her Baywatching sensibilities and applied them to the Star Trek canon as part of her ongoing series, Manic Episodes. That series allows Allison to pick random, and terrible, episodes of popular and not so popular series and mock them mercilessly with comic insights and, yes, silly voices. Her take on the wildly bizarre pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is a standout.

All of this great content and I haven't even mentioned her main series, Movie Nights, where she lampoons terrible movies. Recently, Allison teamed up with the next entry on this list, Linkara, for a pair of reviews that have become go-to watches while I am cooped up at home, social distancing: Superman 4 and the utterly glorious, Megaforce. Allison has also recently gotten into makeup videos which are also quite funny, even if you don't know anything about makeup. And, Allison hosts two podcasts, one of which you can binge on YouTube. Charmed Hard with a Vengeance is dedicated to the series Charmed, both the original and the modern sequel/reboot.

Movie Nights is my favorite channel on YouTube and a great binge today or any day you are socially distanced.

2. Atop The Fourth Wall - Lewis 'Linkara' Lovhaug is, in my mind, the best comic book critic on YouTube today. He might bristle at the title of critic, he's rather modest that way, but truly, Linkara is as ingenious and insightful as any critic working in the comic book medium today. Lewis's schtick is to review bad comic books in the character of Linkara, a sci-fi hero who happens to work in the medium of YouTube criticism.

Lewis's work is binge-worthy at an average of 30 minutes per episode and while the niche is comic book fans, hardcore nerdy comic book fans, I find the show incredibly entertaining and I am not a comic book fan. I have always been curious about comics and Lewis is an extraordinary reference for those curious about the comic book origins of their favorite superheroes. And, if you're like me, you will also enjoy his episodic story-lines wherein he plays most of the characters and portrays himself as an earnest champion in sci-fi battles of good versus evil. The story-lines actually led to Lewis making an Atop the Fourth Wall movie which is one of the best low budget productions on YouTube.

Lewis's magnum opus, the review I recommend to everyone when I recommend Linkara, is his multi-part review of Spider-Man: One More Day. Lewis's moral outrage at Peter Parker selling his soul to Satan demonstrates Lewis' ability to shift gears from comedy to social commentary seamlessly. Lewis is not one to get terribly serious but when he feels the need, he has a modest, Midwestern folksiness that transitions well from sarcasm to seriousness and back.

Oh, and I almost forgot, Linkara has a magic gun inhabited by a magic spirit as explained in his incredibly catchy and brilliant theme song.

3. That Chapter - Shifting gears wildly and completely, let's talk true crime. That Chapter is a show written, produced and hosted by Irishman, Mike Oh. Three times a week, Mike delivers That Chapter, a true crime show that profiles unusually notable murders and disappearances. Mike succinctly takes his audience through fascinating and often obscure murder stories with unique detail.

The show is very simple and straight-forward, it's Mike speaking directly to camera in front of a black background and inter-mingling news clips to provide exposition on the way to often surprising ends if you've not read about these stories previously. The biggest appeal however, is Mike himself, an oddly charismatic young man who mixes seriousness and playful charm in equal measure.

Mike treats the subject of murder with gravity but also with the awareness that he is telling a story and it needs to be entertaining or it will become too heavy. It's a tricky tone but Mike pulls it off and with an average episode length of 18 to 20 minutes, the show is an easy watch. For true crime fans, That Chapter is a must for unique and bite size crime stories.

The episode of That Chapter that I recommend to people regularly is The Case of Holly Bobo, a small town murder story with fascinating details that Mike brings brilliant order to. You will want to know more about this case when Mike is done and that's part of what makes Mike's work so terrific, each episode leaves you wanting to know even more.

4. Whang - Tales from the Internet: In 2016 guitarist Justin Whang launched the channel simply titled "Whang." On this channel, Justin tackles the history of the internet in all of its gross, strange and utterly bizarre glory. Whang has a great eye for topics with a heavy, deep dive, focus on Reddit and Reddit mysteries.

Whang came to my attention just over a year ago with his deep dive investigation of the famed Max Headroom incident. Here, a mysterious and to this day unknown, hacker managed to hack two Chicago television stations in the 1980's and appear wearing a Max Headroom mask while spouting all sorts of perversion. Whang's charisma sells the story nearly as well as the mystery of the identity of this famed hacker.

If you have a curiosity related to the strange land known as Reddit, Whang is a perfect tour guide. Whang's bite size Tales from the Internet stories about Reddit mysteries involving mysterious disappearances, old media, and busted laptops are fun and fascinating. Then there is his fascination with the history of viral videos which led to him tracking the history of everyone from the famous Star Wars kid to the more obscure but interesting, Hello My Future Girlfriend.

5. Todd in the Shadows - Todd Nathanson is the titular Todd in the Shadows, a mysterious internet reviewer who tackles pop music from an odd but highly informed perspective. Just when you think he's some silly gimmick, Todd demonstrates brilliant insight that combines genuine genius in deconstructing music and a strong wit.

Todd has launched three brilliant ongoing series on the channel including his bread and butter reviews of modern pop songs, the brilliant, relatively new series, Trainwrecords, a show about records that derailed the careers of famous artists, and my favorite of Todd's shows, One Hit Wonderland where Todd does a deep dive into the history and of famed one hit wonder artists. My favorite "One Hit Wonderland" episode is on the history before and after the release of Carl Douglas's "Kung Fu Fighting."

A playlist of One Hit Wonderland is my go to for a night of binging pop music history and Todd never fails to uncover a uniquely fascinating detail that even the most obsessive fan may not be aware of. He brings a similar attention to detail to Trainwrecords which gives Todd the opportunity to indulge in more well known music and artists. Trainwrecords plays like an autopsy of grand failure filled with humor, pathos and fair and reasoned criticism. A good example is Todd's close examination of Creedence Clearwater Revival's band destroying record "Mardi Gras."

A few more channels for your binge-ing pleasure

Dominic Noble - Lost in Adaptation comparing movies and the books they are based on.

Wrestling with Wregret hosted by Bryan Zane and covering the absurdities of professional wrestling.

Nexpo aka Nightmare Expo, examining the darkest, scariest corners of the internet.

Amanda the Jedi - A movie and internet culture critic