I do appreciate creators who do their own content despite being keenly aware of the algorithm.
Infrequent long-form content creators to check out:
Tom O’Regan: British(?) topical/interest reviews, personal recommendations include his Obra Dinn video, Sickest Chess Match, and The Biggest Mistake In Music History
B-Mask: I support him on Patreon so pardon the bias but he likes to take his time creating in-depth and clear retrospectives on topics he’s interested in, managing to get you interested in The Fantastic Four, Jems, and 2000s video game trilogies. Not long form for the sake of $$$ but insightful analysis of the history, themes, and personal deconstruction of such topics.
Also check out Moth Light Media for evolutionary biology, and Lines in Motion for manga and art analysis.
More frequent but short form (under 4 minutes) creators to check out are few and wide, 5sf are back-ish but carrying the torch are:
CrackerMilk are a bunch of good aussie lads making short sketches for quick laughs, with excellent timing and shooting.
Valueselect is a personal fave where he was doing sketches a year or two ago but is experimenting with yt shorts quite well. The majority of his comedy surrealist/fantasy/80’s styling music are absolute hits.
Hope these are good starting points, I found these guys from browsing similar threads.