My opinion on this is that they're already getting money from ads, I have no desire to wilfully turn myself into an ad for 99.9% of YouTube channels. I felt the need to clarify because, truth be told, I along with many others are already walking advertisements sometimes.
I wear band shirts, and I love advertising the shit out of them. But it feels different to advertise bands and musicians on clothing than it does most YouTube channels. The impact is something I think about: maybe I don't feel as strongly about them because they have not been impactful in the same ways, in the sense that I still listen to music from when I was a kid occasionally (and I can't imagine saying this about YouTubers in general).
I'd probably rock classic British comedy stuff too. Anything timeless I suppose.
My opinion on this is that they’re already getting money from ads
Are they? With so many people, especially here on Lemmy, willing to go hard to adblock plus a steadfast refusal to pay for YT Premium I'd guess that most smaller YT Content Creators are getting very little ad revenue. Without Merch sales and Patreon how are they supposed to get any money to support themselves?
I understand your point about being a walking billboard and I feel the same way but these days it just feels like no one wants to contribute in any way to help support small time creators.
Milo isn't exactly a "small" channel. Hell he averages almost a million views within 24 hours of dropping a new video these days, but Miniminuteman has some really good merch. I want his latest knee jerk Pangea hoodie, and I got myself a Sahara swimmers cave ring.
the only clothing I own with print is a band shirt from I band I really like, even then I feel a bit awkward having such a large print of something on me, I would much prefer the print was on the back of the shirt instead of the front