The best cartoons from new creators are actually on YouTube

The great thing about YouTube’s “You watched this video, so you’ll definitely want to check out all the other content we have in this area” algorithm is that it helps show you what you didn’t even know you wanted based on the interest you’ve already shown. What to search for. The downside is how quickly the algorithm becomes the same: just because you’re looking at one episode of”google translate singing” doesn’t necessarily mean you want your YouTube splash page to suddenly push you over a thousand episodes from the same channel.

But if you want to go down a timeline cleanup and/or rabbit hole on YouTube that you might be forever stumbling down, you can do it easily with just one simple trick. Watch some of the indie animated shorts on the service and YouTube will instantly start populating your page with a myriad of visually creative, experimental, and especially ambitious short stories.

Nowadays, apart from websites such as YouTube and Vimeo, there are not many distribution channels for short films: Famous Animated Short Film Championship it’s over. (almost?) There’s not really a good place for animators to sell their shorts for profit, other than film festival shows or museum events. As a result, many of them post their work to YouTube, where it can be viewed and circulated, gain word-of-mouth recommendations, and become a calling card for young talents looking to move into feature films. All of this means that there is a a lot of Animated Shorts on the site – a non-stop festival of self-curated shorts from people who not only want to tell bold, visually-driven stories, but sometimes want to change the way those stories are told.

Some of the animations come from students – the famous French animation school Gobelins Put student projects onlineits library alone is a feast. (See also California Arts Channelthis Sheridan College Channelthis rubica channeletc. Many of these short films were entered into festival competitions. Some are clever, professional productions that emulate the production and storytelling styles of Pixar or DreamWorks. A lot of it is experimental, playing with design, style, mood and expression. You can usually tell quickly what style the creator is going for from the thumbnail of the video.

If you want to start somewhere simple and satisfying, I’m a long-time fan of Jacob Frey’s 2014 Grand Prize Winner Nowa simple and heartwarming story about a teenage gamer and his new puppy that he hates:

Want the complete opposite? Check out the stylized, fluidly beautiful movement in this dark Indian fable about climate refugees facing murderous tigers in a flooded city:

Go from there… Want something longer, more complex, and more ambitious?

Something experimental and silly?

A haunting, melancholic piece?

Weird and beautiful stop-motion animation?

Old school decoupage?

Watching a movie in a familiar setting?

A charming friendship story that feels like a classic children’s picture book?

Maybe just a cute kitten from hell?

No matter what you want to watch, you can easily immerse yourself and get lost in YouTube’s massive collection of animated short stories. Remember to bookmark your favorites. I’m still trying to track down an article I saw a few years ago about the unfortunate courtship habits of strange alien creatures that looked a bit like electric lemurs and lived in an elaborate, beautifully lit city. I got lost in it among all the other shorts on my timeline. Let me know if you spot it among the endless collection of beautifully animated shorts on YouTube, okay?