The upside of YouTube’s “You watched this one video, so you must want to see everything else we have in that vein” algorithm is that it helpfully surfaces things you didn’t even know to search for, based on interests you’ve already demonstrated. The downside is how fast that algo can get samey: Just because you watch one single episode of “Google Translate Sings” doesn’t necessarily mean you want your YouTube launch page to suddenly push a thousand more episodes at you from the same channel.

But if you ever want the YouTube equivalent of a timeline cleanse and/or rabbit hole you could fall down pretty much forever, it’s easy to get there with one simple trick. Watch a few stand-alone animated shorts on the service, and YouTube will instantly start populating your page with an infinite variety of visually creative, experimental, and above all, ambitious short stories.

There aren’t many outlets for short films these days, apart from sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and so forth: The days of celebrated animated-shorts tournées are over. (Almost?) Outside of film festival showcases or museum events, there aren’t really good places for animators to sell their shorts for profit. So a lot of them post their work on YouTube, where it can be seen and distributed, garner word-of-mouth recommendations, and serve as a calling card for young talent looking to step up to feature films. All of which means there’s a lot of short animation on the site — a nonstop self-curated shorts festival coming from people who not only want to tell visually oriented, bold stories, but sometimes want to change how those stories are told.

Some of this animation comes from students — France’s famed animation school Gobelins puts its students’ projects online, and its library alone is a feast. (See also the CalArts channel, the Sheridan College channel, the Rubika channel, and so forth.) Some of the videos are from small studios or independent creators around the world, looking for eyeballs and recognition. Many of these shorts have been in festival competitions. Some are slick, professional work that apes Pixar or DreamWorks styles of production and storytelling. Many, many more are experimental, playing with design, style, mood, and expression. You can often tell pretty quickly from a video’s thumbnail what kind of style the creators are going for.

If you want to start someplace simple and satisfying, I’m a longtime fan of Jacob Frey’s 2014 mega-award-winner The Present, a simple, heartwarming story about a teenage gamer and the new puppy that disgusts him:

Want the exact opposite of that? Check out the stylized, liquidly beautiful action in this dark Indian fable about climate refugees in a flooded city facing down a killer tiger:

From there… Want something longer and more elaborate and ambitious?

Something experimental and goofy?

A haunting, melancholy mood piece?

Weird, beautiful stop-motion?

Old-school paper cutouts?

Fan films in familiar settings?

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

Maybe just an adorable kitten from hell?

Regardless of what you’re in the mood for, it’s pretty easy to dive into YouTube’s massive collection of animated short stories and get lost there. Just remember to bookmark your favorites. I’m still trying to track down a neat one I saw years ago about the unfortunate courting habits of weird alien critters that looked sort of like electric lemurs, living in an elaborate, beautifully lit city. I’ve lost it amid all the other shorts in my timeline. If you run across it on your own rabbit-hole dive through YouTube’s endless supply of neat animated shorts, let me know, would you?