Best of YouTube 2022: Plugged In’s Year-End Picks

All of our other entries in our annual year-end blogs have been blessed with alliteration: “Brilliant Books,” “Top Television,” “Gaming Goods.” And that’s been a rather tough act for me, the YouTube specialist, to follow. I mean, I hardly even know any adjectives that start with y, and the few I do wouldn’t make sense. And switching this whole section to something like “Cool Content Creators” feels a bit too much like a cop-out. Who knows? If you have a good y-adjective suggestion, we may very well go with it (and no, we’re not going with any variation of yum).

Until then, though, we’re stuck with this bland title of Best YouTubers of 2022.

YouTube has remained a dominant contender for our (and our childrens’) attention, and not everything on the site is worthy of it. But conversely, we found creators who make content that is (generally) family-friendly and fun to watch!

And before you utter a word, we’ve decided that filling this list with Christian YouTubers would simply be too easy. We’ll save that idea for another blog post.

Plugged In reviewed a good number of YouTubers this year, and we’ve narrowed down this list to a mere five—those who we thought ranked among the most family friendly that we clicked and cast our eyes on in 2022. Take a look at our choices, but don’t forget to read our full reviews to make sure these YouTubers are right for your family. And remember that, unlike many of our other genres, YouTubers are constantly uploading, so even our wonderful reviews may not cover their newest stuff.

Mark Rober

(Educational, Family – 23.1 Million Subscribers) Many kids’ first brush with science in action usually takes the form of a baking-soda volcano or throwing Mentos into a 2-liter bottle of Coke. Either way, the experience just may cause them to squeal in excitement—and it just may foster a desire to see more. Well, Mark Rober, a mechanical engineer who worked on the Curiosity Rover, may have more of what they’re looking for. From liquidizing sand to creating an obstacle course for backyard squirrels, each experiment is visually appealing and engaging. The channel does contain occasional swears, but they’re few and far between. Viewers will not only have fun watching the channel—they’ll likely learn something from it, too.

Odin Makes

Perhaps Mark Rober’s side of YouTube isn’t quite your thing. Maybe you’d like to marvel at complicated movie props and gadgets, but you’d rather see how the things are created than the elaborate after-effects of them. If that’s the case, then Odin Makes just might be the channel for you. Odin recreates hundreds of props from movies, television shows and video games. If you ever had the tenacity to build your own Infinity Gauntlet, Blue Shell or Portal Gun (working capabilities limited), you could theoretically follow along with Odin to achieve the result (parent’s supervision recommended). It should be noted that Odin has not uploaded many videos in the time since our review was uploaded.

Tasting History with Max Miller

Let’s be honest. Mark Rober is fun because he creates elaborate and interesting engineering projects. Odin Makes is fun because he teaches us how to recreate our favorite entertainment props. But what are they missing? Food. That’s where Tasting History with Max Miller comes in. The channel focuses on recreating historic recipes to try the food how it likely would’ve tasted long ago—from the meals aboard the Titanic to the food of Vikings. While Max makes the dishes, he offers a well-researched historical analysis of the dish and its related cultural setting, and his videos are generally quite clean. That said, viewers should note that Max is openly gay—though it hardly comes up in videos.

CGP Grey

Now that your stomach is full of “Macaroni & Cheese from 1845” thanks to Max, I’ve got a question for you: Is there anything better than hexagons? No, says CGP Grey; “Hexagons are the bestagons.” But you know what else is the bestago—er, the best? Learning new things! And that’s what CGP Grey aims to do. He’ll break down complicated topics, animating them into various stick-figure forms, making them more fun to watch. The channel does seem to advocate for attempting to scientifically discover immortality, and he occasionally misuses God’s name. But overall, the channel provides a very educational experience for its viewers.

Ice Cream Sandwich

But sometimes, we don’t want to use YouTube to learn. Sometimes, we just want to use it to relax and unwind for a little after school or work. In that case, Ice Cream Sandwich provides quick entertaining videos about his personal life experiences growing up. The videos are quick, and they’re made to make people laugh. The channel has some light language concerns, but other than that, Ice Cream Sandwich may be a nice way to help you take a few minutes to de-stress.

And just like that, we’ve managed to filter down plenty of YouTuber reviews into five that your family might enjoy. No channel is perfect, and as you may have noticed from our picks above, there will always be some content concerns to look out for. But if you check out our full reviews for each channel, you’ll have a better grasp on whether these five will work for you.

With millions of YouTubers out there waiting their turn to get a Plugged In review, we’ll certainly be looking at countless more in 2023. But if you have a channel you’d like us to consider, let us know in the comments section below, and we’ll add it to our list of potential reviews!