Hey everyone.

I'm from Ukraine, and I'm honestly tired of staying inside both the Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking internet.

I know English well enough (learned it in school), but I've never really lived in the English-speaking internet. Like, sure, I know who PewDiePie, IShowSpeed, and Asmongold are, but I don't actually understand the culture around them or the wider online space.

I want to start consuming English-language content properly, but I have no idea where to begin. I want to understand the memes, the drama, the ongoing discussions, the personalities basically the whole ecosystem.

The problem is... I don't even know how to define what I'm looking for. If I knew exactly what I wanted, I'd probably be able to find it myself. Since I don't, I'm asking here. Sorry if this is kind of vague.

For anyone willing to read a wall of text, here's why I'm looking to leave the internet spaces I'm used to.

The Ukrainian internet is extremely focused on itself. Most discussions revolve around domestic politics, the war, or urgent social issues. That's understandable, of course, but it also creates a very tense atmosphere. It feels like almost everything is political. Most of our biggest YouTube channels are political channels, and there's relatively little entertainment content. Living in that constant state of tension gets exhausting after a while. I also just want to get outside of this relatively small cultural bubble.

The Russian-speaking internet has almost the opposite problem. It's largely apolitical not because politics don't exist, but because most people seem to actively avoid talking about the country's crises, the war, or domestic problems. That's true for everyone, from average users to huge creators. There are political bloggers, sure, but in my opinion they're usually terrible. One group keeps saying Russia is about to collapse any day now, while another mostly talks about Ukrainians as a way to distract from internal issues. And people who seriously discuss politics often end up being treated like weird fringe figures.

There's a ton of entertainment content in Russian, but there's another problem: mainstream internet culture is absolutely saturated with far-right "edgy" humor. Endless jokes about feminists, Black people, minorities, etc., along with a constant stream of misinformation built around those topics. The whole environment just feels incredibly toxic. It seems eager to sneer at almost everything. That general misanthropy has seeped into almost every corner of entertainment, and I've reached the point where I just don't enjoy being around it anymore.

So... where should I start if I want to get into the English-speaking internet?

P.S. One thing I've struggled to find is something similar to what I used to watch in Russian. There were Twitch streamers who'd casually talk about philosophy, history, politics, literature, or other "intellectual" topics, but in a very informal and funny way. Not university lectures or serious debates.

More like: "lmao, did you know Nietzsche supposedly drank his own urine out of a boot?" That kind of vibe. Half entertainment, half genuine discussion. The intellectual part came from all the references and the fact that serious ideas were mixed with jokes instead of being presented academically.

Does that kind of content exist in English? If so, who should I check out?