15 Excellent Chaotic Neutral Channels and Series on YouTube
Believe it or not, there’s more content on YouTube than makeup tutorials, sports highlights, and random rich people doing inexplicably wasteful things with their money. After spending over a decade poking around the many — shall we say, unique — corners of YouTube, I found a few truly excellent channels and series that actually make it worthwhile to be on the site.
The channels that caught my attention (and have managed to hold it all these years) all have one thing in common: they are chaotic neutral. What does that mean, you ask? Chaotic neutral is one of nine character alignment options typically used in games like Dungeons & Dragons. The full alignment table consists of nine different alignment options arranged in a 3x3 grid, moving good — neutral — and evil from top to bottom, and lawful — neutral — chaotic from one side to the other. Think of adorable well-mannered school children as lawful good, and Donald Trump as chaotic evil (fight me).
Explanation you didn’t ask for but got anyway aside, things that are chaotic neutral live in the realm of legal but silly and funny. Think lighthearted chaos, like pranks or deliberate ridiculousness. These videos are easy to watch anytime (especially if you’re having a down day or are just a little too stoned) and they offer plenty of laughs which is exactly the kind of thing we could all use a healthy dose of right now. Enjoy!
15. Shittyflute
Who needs high production value and classically-trained musicians when you can just play songs with a grade school recorder? That’s the sentiment of the genius(es?) over at Shittyflute who have created something akin to Kidz Bop on hella weed. The channel started off with just the recorder, but in newer videos, other instruments have joined the death spiral — -like a kazoo and a violin — -for total ear annihilation. I’ve heard people say that the folks making these videos have no talent, and that may be but at least they’re brave. It takes real courage to post video after video of you sounding like a middle school orchestra on the internet.
14. Braille Skateboarding
By day, Braille is a skateboarding channel created by skateboarder Aaron Kyro, mostly full of video tutorials for board beginners. By night, the channel is filled with videos of Aaron and his friends skating all the weird shit viewers have mailed in, like a TV, a glass skateboard, M&Ms candy griptape, pitchforks, an axe, and a skateboard with 12 trucks. Sometimes they get up to other antics, like (accidentally) launching a Christmas tree through the roof of a warehouse, or creating a crazy obstacle course to skate through. This channel’s tons of fun even if you aren’t the biggest fan of skateboarding.
13. Peacecraft
In this series from Polygon, silly boy Griffin McElroy plays popular MMORPG game World of Warcraft, but with a twist: he refuses to commit any murder, even in the name of self-defense. Playing as a Gnome Rogue named Raandyy (because Randy and Randyy were taken), Griffin embarks on a cross-Azeroth trek, blowing kisses to enemies, picking flowers, and cultivating an impressive following (aptly named Raandyy’s Fandies, because of course that’s what they’d be called). Randy’s saccharine good-boy charisma will quickly win you over and make you root for him on his dangerous quest.
12. Critical Role Ad Reads
If you’re one of the people that has a powerful enough attention span to handle watching the Crit Role cast play four hours of Dungeons & Dragons every week, cool. If not, at least there’s the ad reads! Yes, ad reads usually suck, but when they’re in Sam’s chaotic hands they take on a new life. From an old-timey radio show with live sound effects to cringey goth lamentations to 80s-themed reads (and much, MUCH more), the ads are just as entertaining as the show itself. Plus, the cast members are great friends and always love a good laugh, which is why both the hundreds of ad reads and the show’s campaigns are so eternally watchable.
11. Cool Games Inc.
Cool Games Inc. is an unhinged game design podcast. In this series, Griffin McElroy — now pointed in a different direction — teams up with his co-worker Nick in an effort to come up with brilliant(ly ridiculous) pitches for video games. The videos are short, but you’ll quickly learn that it doesn’t need to take a long time for the two to riff off of each other and flesh out ideas that are flat-out buck wild. Think: a survival horror game about one-star Yelp reviews, or Church 2: The Sequel to Church, or Horse Hockey.
10. UNHhhh with Trixie & Katya
Drag queens Trixie & Katya talk about whatever they want, because it’s their show, and not yours. The pair talks about a different topic in each episode, from death to straight people, and have a great time doing it. The queens show off beautiful new outfits and hairdos in every episode and have terrific chemistry with each other. It’s fun to hear the hilarious wacky things they say. I’d love to hang out with these two!
9. Good Mythical Morning
I love Good Mythical Morning because it’s lighthearted and ridiculous. The two hosts of the show — Rhett and Link — have been best friends since first grade when they still lived in North Carolina. Now they live in Los Angeles and are making a mint off of being adult goofballs that have little-brother-and-his-friend-that-are-stoned vibes. This channel has a lot of great stuff from tournament taste tests to Rhett and Link deciding which toy is the best to step on, and every single video has made me straight-up chortle.
8. Michael Jones
Michael Jones, of Achievement Hunter fame, got his start making a series called Rage Quit, in which he films himself playing a difficult video game horribly then going on lengthy lyrically-furious tyrades. He plays all kinds of games, from The Impossible Game to Mortal Kombat to QWOP, gets madder than everyone else in his native (and angry) New Jersey, and says hilarious memorable one-liners that nobody else could even think of, like “Swiss fucking cheese.”
But Michael’s insanity has seeped beyond the cracks of Rage Quit. The internet has labeled him a “potentially insane man” for making a FrankenMcRib sandwich and feeding it to his shirt. He also did a good job of showing us how to cook a burger, how to make a latte, and the gender reveal of his first kid. Michael definitely marches to the beat of his own drum, but that’s what makes him our sweet little boy.
7. Madcatlady
I don’t really have a lot to say about this channel, because I don’t know what I could say about this channel except maybe don’t watch it when you accidentally get way too high because it’s just going to freak you out more. Every now and then I pop in to this channel and watch a video or two in a persisting effort to figure it out, but I always end up staring at the screen with this look on my face. I don’t understand it at all, and I don’t understand why I like it so much. Watch it. Join me in my confusion.
6. Jessica Nigri
Jessica Nigri doesn’t have a ton of videos on her channel, but the few that are there are totes cray cray. She’s primarily known for her epic cosplaying skills. Yes, she’s beautiful and a lover of video games and nerd culture, but even more than that, Jessica is a legitimate weirdo. And a crazy Santa. I want to be crazy like her when I grow up. You feel like you’re watching the channel because she’s pretty, but that’s just…not the vibe of it. I’ll just leave it at that. Enjoy.
5. Robbaz
Robbaz is Swedish, no one has ever seen his face, and it’s entirely likely he’s insane. Honestly, I’d feel comfortable leaving my description of the channel at that, but I guess I’ll elaborate a bit more. Robbaz (real name Robert) plays a variety of games, like The Sims, Kerbal Weapons/Space Program, From the Depths, various VR games, and more and he…does his own thing. He tows the line between being hilarious and concerningly psychotic, but always has a good time and creates plenty of laugh-worthy scenarios in his videos.
4. Marc Rebillet
What is there to say about my dude Marc Rebillet? He’s kinda bonkers, but in a good way. He makes his own beats (quickly and proficiently, I might add) then adds the most batshit weird lyrics on the fly. He makes slow jams, techno songs, and…other stuff. Marc occasionally does livestreams where he creates songs and even takes live calls from listeners with song requests. And unless he’s doing a live performance at a venue, you can find him wearing a silk robe and his underwear, which is how you know you’re in for a good time.
3. Monster Factory
Griffin McElroy is back for the third time on this list with the aptly named Monster Factory, where he and his brother Justin make literal monsters from the character creation screens of various video games. They’ve raised disturbing creatures in games like Oblivion, Skyrim, The Sims 4, Fallout 3, Mass Effect 2, Second Life, Dark Souls, WWE 2K14, and more. Sometimes Griffin dials in and tweaks the actual game code (like he does in the video above) changing the size or quantity of creatures, which usually results in breaking whatever game they’re playing. Absolutely good times.
2. Polygon’s Unraveled
Starring Brian David Gilbert, video game lover and musical wunderkind, Unraveled is a series on Polygon’s channel that examines various aspects of video games and provides a culturally relevant critique of them. Or something like that. Brian has done the math to find out which Dark Souls boss is the best manager, which Mortal Kombat character would be the best cuddler, and why Smash Bros. owes millions of dollars in OSHA violations. He also used The Sims to perfect his apartment, figured out a way to calculate your pet’s HP, and made a better Pokemon rap. This shit is weird and grade-A nerdy, but also wonderful and oddly necessary.
1. You Suck at Cooking
You Suck at Cooking. No, that’s not an insult, silly, it’s a statement on the deluge of overproduced cooking shows on the YouTube channel. It’s also a channel that’s about three shakes away from being either an Art School project or a Tim & Eric bit. While the channel does, in fact, focus on cooking, it’s not really about cooking. It’s about the experience of cooking. And remembering Pimblokto.
Alright. Didn’t see your favorite chaotic neutral series on my list? It’s probably awesome but I just haven’t seen it yet. Feel free to share your own recommendations and perhaps I’ll update my list because there can never be enough chaotic neutral energy in the world.
