Early YouTube Nick: Nerdy, very "appropriate" (never even swore which had nothing to do with YouTube -HIS choice). Irreverent and funny yet rarely offensive. (Even my most lefty lesbian friend from Boston watched him for the Russel Greer saga and had no issues with him.) Fresh voice. Clearly very smart and comedic about all things legal and "retarded".
The Greer saga is actually about mid-way through the channel history, and long after the original goody-two-shoes no swearing rules were relaxed. However, some of the even earlier lore does add some context and hints as to the origin of the current coomer iteration of Nick. The detailed history is scattered throughout the years of this thread, but the beginnings of Nick’s e-celeb career can be summarized thusly:
Nick got his start participating in Facebook groups devoted to The Biggest Problem in The World podcast featuring Maddox and Dick Masterson, and then The Dick Show after that show imploded. In these groups, Nick was renown as a particularly foul-mouthed, occasionally unhinged, poster. As with most things related to Dick, degeneracy was front and center with this crew— a collection of drunks, druggies, homos, trannies, and other autistic weirdos.
The group was actually pretty funny, although it was never clear how many of the posters were shitposting, and how many were actually fucked up lunatics. A lot of late 00’s /b/tard vibe going on (before /b/ just became the worlds leading transexual porn forum), and Nick’s input as the resident deranged lawyer fit in perfectly.
After Maddox filed the famous lolsuit, Nick started his YouTube channel to walk through it and amuse his Internet comrades. However, his parents were aware of it almost immediately, so our foul-mouthed hero entered his no swear words mode to avoid their disapproval. The show took off, and the façade of the chad trad dad streamer went from there, which is the only Nick most of the audience knew.
Sure, there were lewd jokes and Drex streams, but most of the audience thought he was, like us, laughing at the fucked-up shit being discussed. Instead, it turned out he really longed to participate in this very same shit. The Nick from those early Facebook groups was there all along— a degenerate Dick Masterson wannabe, just biding his time until he had enough money to break free, wrap his testicles in a silicon torture device, and come out of the closet. Many of us who should have known better were just in denial, apparently.