Unique YouTube channels that you oughta subscribe to.

“Grand Illusions” is the YouTube channel of Tim the Toyman, an old British fella with a MASSIVE collection of toys and novelty items. His videos range from about 45 seconds to 20 minutes (!), and center around a single item or a category of them, be it playing cards, unconventional lighters, strange bottles, toys that look like fish, or one of his most recent: brushes! There are all kinds of toy collection channels on YouTube, but Tim is one of the only people that never talks about the value of the toys or the brand or anything like that. He is just a funny old man with a deep, abiding appreciation for toy design, mechanisms, and how they function; and “Grand Illusions” is his way of sharing his life’s work with the world. His charming persona, dry wit, and clear passion for these “funny little contraptions” keeps me coming back. Quite extraordinary.

She said … I don’t know where I discovered the channel of “Shopdogsam,” but I’m glad I did. He’s a hippie grandpa with a thick Tennessee accent, a love of engines and Hostess cupcakes, a stuffed parrot, long white hair, and a longer white beard, and most of his videos are stream-of-consciousness monologues about … well, it’s kind of hard to say. But he’s oddly fascinating, talking into the void of YouTube-land as if it were an old, trusted friend, as he rolls an industrial spool around or eats ice cream and cupcakes with chopsticks. He’s an oddball for sure, but again … it’s all super compelling. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

Theodore Cottingham recently deleted his YouTube channel, but he still has a large collection of material on Vimeo. He runs a coffee shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and has released just a shade fewer than five hundred videos of … I guess I’ll let ol’ Theo himself explain: “I am Christ, Christing the Christ, teaching all who will to become it also, through my words. These recordings are me speaking the first person words of God I am for you to learn to do also, where you record it, study it, learn from it, surrendering daily to the process of The New Covenant so you experience the transformation of Christ to become it in your two shoes becoming a new creation person of leadership in your country.” And if that doesn’t at least intrigue you, you are a lost cause.