brand new to chess and dont know where to begin

so, im working through the lessons, but it keeps coming up that its helpful to have opening memorized. it feels a bit intimidating since even just a quick google search leads to the massive articles that makes the brain hurt after a while. 

so i guess my question in short, as a beginner, who basically only understands how to move the pieces where would you recommend i focus my energy learning? 

Learn opening principals, (developing pieces, controlling the center, evenly balanced defense to offense, etc etc.) Then learn the simple opening traps, (scholars mate, fools mate, being forked right off the bat, etc etc).

any youtube channels or things of the sort you recommend?

For learning? Can't think of really learning ones. For funny/learning- GothamChess is personally favorite.

ye. he is what started me on chess. I saw a sacrifice the rook compilation someone made on insta and thought the game could be cool to get into with my siblings

1500 here. John Bartholomew's Chess Fundamentals Series is very good. I found starting that GothamChess's opening videos were helpful to learn the general idea of an opening, which is often enough. If you want to pm me, I am willing to help you find an easy opening that has a goal that makes sense to you. I have found that openings are largely a matter of personal preference.

Here are youtube channels for chess tips.

Chessbrah’s habits speedrun, the Colle-Zukertort speedrun, and the queen’s gambit speedrun(new) which is nice if you are interested in learning the Colle-Zukertort or the queen’s gambit(it’s an opening/movie) then you should watch those speedrun series and the habits series too. I will let chessbrah explain the habits series. Explanation is the first part of ep. 1.

Remote Chess Academy: This YouTube channel is where you learn the middlegame stuff I talked about in #4 and the GM here explains it well and don’t forget this channel has a vid talking about the Colle-Zukertort too and endgames. This is the place where I recommend to search how to stop blunders.

Chess Vibes: Here is where you learn most of the small things that don’t matter as much as what Remote Chess Academy says, but all of the small things combined are more than what the YouTube channel Remote Chess Academy says combined and most endgame stuffs are here than other channels I have mentioned.

For a beginner like you these channels are good for you right now. I recommend that you should learn some opening principles(if you do traps it will make you worse not better it’s only there to boost your ego) and then after that you should learn what to do in the middlegame like moving your pieces to a more forward spot or just developing even more and most importantly not blundering pieces in one move. Do stop blundering you can try to expand your vision on what can take your piece so that when you move a piece you will see that it is protected or can’t be taken you will not blunder. Also everytime your opponent does a move force yourself to draw arrows(in your head) to see what the piece is targetting and if a piece can go to a square that the piece that just moved is controling you should be aware of that and also stop attacking too early. In the endgame it requires lots of calculation so just attacking stuff protecting any infiltration squares and you will be fine.

I'd recommend Chessbrah's habits series, where he starts from the very bottom with just simple principles and no fancy tactics. It would probably be really informative to you.

The thing that finally got me going places was occasionally devoting time to doing puzzles. (Lichess is far superior in this regard, as they give you unlimited puzzles, free of charge.)

Their puzzles are rather mixed, though. Some are very simple, being 2-3 moves long and showing you common mistakes, along with how to destroy them (sometimes with "brilliant" sacrifices). On the other hand, some of the puzzles they give you can be ridiculously obtuse, taking five or more moves to complete and instead challenging your ability to think outside the box and find odd-looking moves that almost no one would blame you for not even considering.

Still, it makes for very good practice after a while. Once you start seeing the patterns from the puzzles in your games, you'll be very grateful for the time you spent.

The best book for beginners is . . . Only $9.95 @ Barnes & Nobles.

It's a pocket book to carry around.

Hahaha

#9, that’s what I said. It’s good tho so watch it.

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond…

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond…

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

Gotham is terrific for learning to be funny.

One of the things you want to do is learn patterns; with that said, one of the things you want to learn is here...follow the link.

Checkmate Pattern Catalog

this will help with finding patterns in your games. This is continually getting updated so visit it occasionally.

ye ive been enjoying gotham chess, he is hilarious expecially when he starts feeling the moves. the exaggerated emoting is hilarious
@russbell and innominata Thank you for the links ^-^ i appreciate you guys

Anyone or any resource that says memorizing openings is necessary or even a good idea for beginners is very wrong.

i kinda figured that a little bit, cause the resources ive found for opening specificially all seem to be really dense. i figured its best to start with trying to get down 1 or 2 and go from there
but i also found a site with some articles that are reading english for me 
https://www.chessstrategyonline.com/content/tutorials/how-to-start-a-game-of-chess-opening-principles- () in case any lurkers are also clicking links here ^-^