The Best YouTube Videos I Watched This Year
A quick list of some of the best stuff I watched
In 2025, I'm making an active effort to use social media less — only checking in on Twitter for messages, not ambiently scrolling for things to buy on Instagram. But, I won't be reducing my YouTube consumption, which is my most used and favorite social media.
There's a lot of crap on YouTube, but there's a lot of fantastic stuff, and now that we've hit the end of the year, I want to shout out a few of my favorite videos and channels that I discovered or have been watching a lot this year. Some are big channels, others are tiny, but I enjoyed all of them and have watched at least several videos by them.
My most watched video podcast was the Complex Sneakers Show, hosted by Joe LaPuma (of Sneaker Shopping fame), Matthew Welty, and (former Arguably guest) Brendan Dunne. Their sneaker knowledge and passion is immense, and this is probably my favorite episode of the year, as you hear what they personally like, unmediated by popularity and hype:
The only other video podcast I watched was This Car Pod! from OG car YouTuber Doug Demuro. Like the Complex Sneakers Show, it’s a great summary of the week’s news, along with the kind of arguments you’d have with friends. I’ve always been a massive car nerd, and Doug puts my knowledge to shame, and it’s always a fun listen:
On the other side of YouTube sneaker views: Aroma Kicks. It feels like old-school YouTube — a guy making videos about something he likes and wants to share with the world — and Jamon is that for sneakers and cologne.
If you want to get that feeling but in tech videos, Flossy Carter is a legend for a reason, and I’ve watched him consistently for more than eight years.
In fitness YouTube: I will watch any video Will Tennyson makes. He's extremely knowledgeable, funny, and takes fitness seriously without being gate-keeping or arrogant. I have a man crush on him, and this video was his best this year:
If you want more evidence-based fitness content, I’ve been watching Dr. Mike Israetel and (the GOAT) Jeff Nippard for donkeys, and they’re both still superb.
Hoog is a video essay channel about weird fun things in the world (but mostly Amsterdam), and their videos are always super well-made and informative, on topics I'd never think about or even think to search. And their best video is this:
I'm bored by motivational / productivity YouTube, but this video from Ali Gallop is fabulous. Beautifully edited, super compelling, makes me want to do stuff:
Similarly, Architectural Digest celebrity house tours are usually the most boring, corporate things you've ever seen — pointless videos made to make the person look better and hopefully flog their blandly impressive house, which is usually on the auction block when the video goes up.
However, Harris Reed is as talented a designer as he is a beautiful, fascinating person, and this video and home is a delight. Another crush of mine.
This advertisement for Jindal Steel is somehow the most badass video, maybe ever?
You probably know who Bryan Johnson is — the tech billionaire trying all kinds of medical experiments on his body so as to hopefully reverse aging and evade death — and I’ve spent a lot of the year watching videos about him.
I have mixed feelings about the man — admiring his effort and being skeptical/concerned about his methods and claims — and his podcast with Derek of More Plates More Dates is by far his best interview. Derek deserves his stellar reputation in the online fitness scene, with years of providing useful advice and debunking popular falsehoods, and he approaches Johnson with the right balance of openness and informed skepticism and pushes Johnson on his claims.
Yes, it’s a long podcast. But if you want to listen to one interview with Johnson, choose this one.
And finally, my favorite YouTube video of the year was by Summoning Salt.
I don’t like long video essays, and this is a two-hour long video about the history of Tetris world records; a game I do not care about or play regularly,
And yet, I've watched this whole thing four times.
It’s an incredible story, told incredibly well, and is a YouTube masterpiece: