I've been seeing all those "history buff" starter pack memes, and it bothers me, but that's seriously me.
Watch some simple history YouTube videos, read some low level books, watch some questionable history channel shows, And that's it.
I was just wondering how I can improve on my learning of history so I actually become well at it. As of right now, it's mostly and interest and hobby, but I hope to soon turn it into a job.
Sorry if this is rather bland and blunt. For some details, I'm into pretty much anything historically, mostly European.
Thank you
YouTube videos, pop history books, documentaries, and podcasts are all an excellent way to get introduced to history. You often find topics you like there, find the stories that interests you the most and it engages you in history in a way that it might never have had in the past. The unfortunate part, as you point out, is that they are not produced by historians. They're produced by entertainers, journalists, writers or filmmakers who are really good at what they do - presenting a story in an engaging way for the general public.
But if you're interested in history as an academic subject, that won't be enough. You already have the introduction, you know what you like and perhaps you want to go even deeper into it.
The best place to do this is through books or academic articles. These are the two primary forms that professional historians will present their research for a mix of general and professional audiences (outside of spaces like conferences, lectures, etc.). Unfortunately, most articles will be behind a paywall, but books should be readily available to purchase or to find through libraries.
We have several threads dedicated to finding, reading, and understanding academic books:
Monday Methods|Finding and Understanding Sources- Part 1, Finding Secondary Sources
Monday Methods|Finding and Understanding Sources- part 2, understanding secondary sources
Monday Methods: How to Read an Academic Book
We also have a great booklist covering all sorts of periods and themes.
The more you read, the more you will understand not only the subject that you're reading about, but also how historians work. A good academic book will introduce you to topics like historiography (What have been written on this topic before? How have previous historians dealt with this subject?), methodology (How does historians actually answer their questions? How do they read their source material?) and theory (What sort of theoretical frameworks do historians use?). These will be valuable in the future if you ever intend to work with history yourself.
Besides books and articles, many professional historians also partake in forms that you've already seen in the past. Podcasts and Youtube videos have also been created by or feature academic historians who share their latest research.