Inspiration
4 YouTube Channels that Turned the Ultra-mundane Into Inspirational Content
It’s not your idea that will catch the audience, but how you present it
Do you want to produce creative content but just can’t come up with your own ideas?
If so, here are four YouTube channels that will stimulate your imagination and inspire you to create something beautiful and attractive, even if it’s not revolutionary.
These channels have the following traits in common:
- They are documenting the creators themselves doing some activities.
- They share high-quality content.
- The approaches to recording and presenting the content are super interesting. They turn very simple and familiar ideas into art so that people would like to watch them.
- All of them have over 330K subscribers and over 27M views.
1. Study with Me
Subscribers: 330K
Number of views: over 27M
The owner of this channel is a cardiac surgery student named Jimmy, who is living in Canada.
As any other college student, studying was a big part of Jimmy’s daily life. It inspired him to shift his YouTube channel’s focus on recording himself sitting at his desk, next to an enviable window view, and learning for long hours.
You may ask why would someone make videos of himself studying for hours?
But as I’ve seen, the huge number of viewers and the tons of comments on such content, my question was: Why would someone watch a video that has nothing to offer except a speechless guy who is just doing his homework?
The obvious answer was that such videos blur the lines between the mundane and entertainment. They take a simple solo activity to a new level and provide a sense of companionship. In addition to that, Jimmy offers us a visual pleasure at seeing a spotless desk in a neatly arranged place.
Many of his videos are filmed at night under the dim light of his nicely decorated room. Some included nature sounds like pitter-patter rain or campfire, others are edited to include jazz cafe, ambient, muted lofi music, or just background noise.
One other interesting thing about this channel is that Jimmy gives his viewers valuable tips and strategies he used himself on how to build the proper study mindset, solve the problem of distraction, and stay focused for long hours. Here are some examples:
- Visualization of tasks and accomplishment
- Using the Pomodoro technique
- Recognizing and adjusting focus loss
- Investing in study setups
- Properly rewarding your mind and body
- Glamor vs unkempt curve
- Stimulation curve
2. Solo Hiking — by Kraig Adams
Subscribers: 656K
Number of views: over 37M
People love to explore new and attractive places. Many YouTubers have used this opportunity to cover the travel experience, but for me, this was the first channel about hiking that I’ve seen and the most I’ve loved.
My first impression about Kraig’s videos was like “Wow if I just could spend one or a few days walking in such a nature and don’t worry about anything instead of sitting all the day working at my desk.”
I felt that just the act of watching that refreshing content is more healing than any therapist session. I enjoyed the professionalism of the videos and the absence of talk while Kraig was walking, eating his meals, preparing his tent to sleep in it in the forest or on the mountain, or entering an Airbnb or a hotel room.
I also enjoyed his relaxing voice when he speaks at the end of his videos to reveal more details about his trips so that the audience can do a similar journey.
One other thing I loved about that channel is the concept of being minimalist. Kraig takes with him the minimum required food, clothes, and other materials he needs for each trip. His videos, recorded with a drone and a camera, are also simple, and unlike the endless sea of videos clickbait, they are not over-produced. He has inspired many other YouTubers to follow his approach.
Before focusing, in the last years, on producing nature-based hiking videos, Kraig Adams — who is an influencer based in New York City — was creating content for other people’s businesses and brands, like wedding footage, after studying television and film arts at college.
He learned from side projects, writing scripts with friends, and starting a club to help people produce films and not just learn about cinema and now he wants to make the documentation of his life itself the core of his videos.
“My life is becoming the product, the show, the movie that I am documenting, processing, presenting to people and then monetizing that with the community,” he said in an interview.
He has now long years of experience in that field and is generating a full-time income as a hiker and filmmaker.
3. Restore Machines
Subscribers: 823K
Number of views: over 112M
This is a faceless and speechless channel that focuses on the restoration of destroyed, abandoned, and discarded tiny car models and machines.
It’s a relatively new channel, started on 05.03.2020, yet it has achieved making a big impact with just 22 videos — one of them got over 19M views.
It offers a great watching experience of the restoration process and content that grabs the attention of different viewer ages — I’ve watched the videos a couple of times with my toddler and both of us enjoyed it although I’m not a machines fan.
I loved the idea of making from very old and broken stuff a highly valuable asset for such a creative show on a YouTube channel.
4. viele Rezepte (many recipes)
Subscribers: 958K
Number of views: over 164M
I’ve been watching channels that are related to food and cooking for many years. I enjoyed how Jamie Oliver cooks and presents his meals, but what I loved about this channel is the very simple and easy to prepare recipes and especially the storytelling that you can see in it, although it’s a faceless and speechless channel — there are just subtitles in german.
It’s not difficult to feel the cook’s good mood and the sense of humor in his showcase.
He uses a kind of personalization for the ingredients. Sometimes, he throws a few olives on the table, then he stops them from running away with his hands and a large knife.
Some videos show his cat as a character who is there to eat the unneeded cheese for the recipe or taste the end-cooked meal.
Final Thought
There are many things going on all around us every single day, but having clear ideas for stuff that would interest other people enough is not always obvious.
Reading and watching well-selected content now and then helps us to get inspired and invent our own version of things that we can share with others.
Hopefully, this post has stimulated your imagination and given you some insights for your next creative work.
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