[wishfish]

There's still plenty of professionally produced documentaries. There are a zillion videos on Youtube which talk about how stuff is made. Plenty of videos telling you how to make your own stuff. There's subreddits directly or indirectly dedicated to this. There's also quite a bit of how-stuff-is-made on TikTok too.

Speaking of the latter, there's one related phenomenon on TikTok which I never see talked about, but is quite interesting / educational. Some production workers set up a TikTok live feed at work so you can see their part of how things are made or shipped. I've seen factory workers in Vietnam, farmers from all over the world, loggers, construction workers, and too many craftsmen to count. Once had insomnia and ended up watching a 5 AM livestream of a sawmill worker methodically turning various sized tree trunks into uniform planks. That was oddly relaxing and fascinating.

[kzrdude]

(Since you mentioned it) I just recently watched all of Stuff Made Here (brilliant guy and channel). One thing really opened my mind - he built his own CNC machine! Now that I know this I could almost believe that I could build anything too. At least that it's possible to build at home.

Interesting about TikTok. But all the content niches are so segregated now due to algorithm recommendations, I'm not sure if these are being watched by only the interested, or are they watched by "everyone" in general?

[wishfish]

Some how-stuff-is-made videos do get wide play despite the algorithmic silos. The ones that do best are the ones that are rather peaceful & mesmerizing. That grabs the people interested in the technical aspects, the people who get ASMR tingles easily, and the people who fall into the /r/oddlysatisfying crowd. Those 3 groups often make for a large audience.