Okay, I'm planning a YouTube channel, where I'll game & do other crazy stuff, but I have one dilemma:
I'm wondering whether or not to swear like all the other YouTubers.

From what I've gathered, swearing's pretty much the norm on the Internet, and there's a huge crowd of people who love it when their favorite YouTuber uses choice words that shouldn't be used in front of Grandma,

but as an overachieving, honor rolling, respectful & polite teen, I worry that I might face repercussions with my small town community, my high school, potential colleges, employers, and potential acting jobs,

but I want popularity and ad revenue because it's good, and I can still be myself while swearing, right?

What do you guys think?

Edward Dylon : Honestly, you should only do something because you feel like it's entertaining and it's something you believe in. Doing something just because you think others do it, or you think that's what people will want you to do will make your channel and your videos seem disingenuous.

I can't tell you how annoying it was like 5-8 years ago when all the AVGN clones started coming out on Youtube and swearing just because they thought it was funny and saw someone else do it successfully (to a certain extent)

Only do what you believe in and enjoy.

In addition to what Jordan said, it's also based on your audience, it's going to depend on who's watching, so if you decide which route to take, you need to make sure that you stick to it.

In my opinion swearing makes a video funnier, but don't get me wrong, im not a crazy maniac that swear for a living, its just, when you're tryna be an entertainer like youtuber for example, you have to know the market and imo, channels with swears gets more views and subs than a PG13 channel, so yeah, swearing it is, unless you wanna make a family friendly channel with toddlers toys reviews lol

I would keep profanity to a minimum, personally. Vulgarity may have a time and a place, but if you use them too often; you'll end up sounding like a thug, or a 12 year old on Xbox Live.

Truthfully, you "shouldn't" swear, especially if you plan to monetize down the line. This is because monetization requires you to not make "adult" videos, and you could get complaints/flagged for swearing if you are overheard swearing to a 7 year old viewer.

However, personally, I think you should do whatever. I swear in my youtube videos. No one watches those, so it doesn't really do much one way or the other for me.

If you need to completely rely on swearing to get you subscribers, I don't feel like you'll "ride the wave" as long as you'd like to. By eliminating swearing (or at least keeping it to a minimum) I feel like you'd have to get creative to grab users' attention. After all, you're competing with numerous people already doing the same thing - focus on what's going to make you different, to grab their attention.

If you yell the F word every other word, really edgy 14 year olds will like you. And there are a lot of edgy 14 year olds on YouTube, so plus one. On the other hand, if you don't, parents won't hate you. Plus one there, too. Really, just do what comes naturally. No one really caters to their crowd, the crowd picks you based on your content.

I used to swear a lot. But once i discovered my audience may not be only teens, i decided to make most of my videos a bit more appropriate. I only was swearing a whole (****) lot when i made my gaming series 'Uber Mario 64'... Wait... I was swearing there, didn't i? Sorry...

I would recommend not to swear a lot like i did, but if you show stuff where you have no other choice than swearing, so be it.

65% of this post goes to not swearing, 35% goes to "YES!! You should swear! It's the holy grail of the life of a YouTuber!!".

(no Oreo's have been harmed in this post.)

I would honestly do whatever comes naturally to you. You said you're planning a channel, and if that's the case, that means you don't have an audience to tend to right now. If you want an audience that likes who you genuinely are, then swear to the amount you usually do and wait for people to start watching.

Now, you're looking to monetize and what your worry is is that you don't want your community to look down on you. Honestly, there's a big audience for people who don't swear, too. Not everyone likes people who swear. Exhibit A for this audience would be every one of those big Minecraft, Roblox, etc. Youtubers. They have millions of subscribers due to the fact that they don't swear, so they attract younger kids. Exhibit B for the "no-swear" audience would be people like, say, Chuggaaconroy. He almost never swears (on his own channel, at least), and still is closing in on 1 million subscribers and manages to get an audience of all ages.

Either way you go, good luck with your channel!

Edward Dylon : I would say it depends on if you're someone who naturally swears when talking or you would just be swearing to try and appeal to a wide audience. If it's the latter then no you definitely shouldn't. Like m0ss said your audience chooses you. I also wouldn't start a youtube channel simply with the intent to get famous as you likely won't get very far doing so, it's not going to be easy money either way as there are many things that go into how succesful you are most of time. You should also get enjoyment out of it to some degree and that means simply acting like you normally would and letting your thoughts flow, generally appearing genuine will give you more appeal.

If you do like to swear and you're worried about it affecting your career prospects then I would simply keep your channel anonymous and not use your real life name in which case there shouldn't be much risk of someone randomly finding you. If you get to the point where you're making a name for yourself then I think it's more likely to be considered an asset if anything and you could say you're putting on act when recording videos. Assuming you're not frequently making incredibly offensive jokes (beyond just swearing) then I doubt it's going to have much of an effect.

Like a lot of the others have already stated, it's all about what you want to do and what you think is best for you and your channel. There are popular youtubers who do cuss and some that don't.

It comes with how your personality is, and what you grew up knowing swearing, or no swearing. Just do what you feel is comfortable to do, and it will come naturally to you, as you will do your thing on youtube. Good luck. ^^

I honestly don't really care, but plenty of popular YouTubers don't swear (provided most of them are cancer), and some of the ones that do swear censor some words, so you can either not swear or censor words if you don't wanna get in trouble, but, like I said, I don't really care. It's your choice.

Do what you feel is right. You got to remember, it's all about personality at this point. Just be yourself, if you cuss a lot, go with it. I say cuss words on my channel. Not like AVGN style where he says it 50 times in a sentence, but I do say it, and I say crude things here and there for a laugh.

I don't think it should be censored, but if its pointless swearing just for the sake of swearing then I oppose it... so I can't vote either way.

Kackarot,I think you just answered your question. One does not need to be foul mouthed to be popular on You Tube. Take Crazy Russian Hacker,he does not swear in his videos and he is a rapidly growing YT star. I would suggest you not swear or do things that might cast a negative light on you. People do all kinds of stupid things on their Facebook accounts and it blows up in their faces.

If you are going to cuss, I guess you could limit yourself to the words that are not as vulgar? "hell", "damn", "ass". I did that for a few years on my channel, but then one day I said screw it, if I wanna drop some F bombs, I will lol.

Kackarot : Many people get very far without swearing. I mean, seriously, look at people like DanTDM. He does not swear and he is popular. Just remember to keep your videos very good quality and that you put work into them. It is also good to not upload too much, and not to upload too less. 1 video a day or 1 video a week is good. Remember, swearing can get you somewhere on YouTube, but it is not enforced, so if you do not like those words, do not say them.